How to say that you are sick in Italian

In this video you will learn how to say in Italian that you are not feeling well or that some part of your body hurts. If you need to review the vocabulary on body parts please also check out this video:

Learn Italian - Vocabulary on Body Parts (with a free download)

Let’s start with the most common sickness or symptoms of illness that you could probably have or feel: a basic cold.

To say that you have a cold you will say

Ho il raffreddore (I have a cold)

The typical symptoms of a cold are

• A sore throat and to say this you will say:
  • Ho il mal di gola / Mi fa male la gola

MALE - means that something hurts and GOLA mean throat

• You might have a headache… in this case you will say
  • Ho il mal di testa / Mi fa male la testa

once again… MALE - means that something hurts and TESTA means head

One of the first symptoms that I usually have when I have a cold is a runny nose.

In Italian the nose doesn’t run but it “drips”

• So you can say: Mi cola il naso / Ho il naso che cola
  • Cola is from the verb colare… to drip… and NASO means nose.

On the other hand your nose might be completely closed… in the case you will say

• Ho il naso chiuso!

You might sneeze a lot if you have a cold… and how do you say that in Italian…

• to sneeze is “starnutire” (to sneeze)

So if you want to say that you are sneezing a lot… you can say “starnutisco tanto!”…

You could also have a temperature… in Italian you will say:

• Ho la febbre (I have a fever)

You could have a cough…. in this case you can say:

• Ho la tosse (I have a cough)
• Oggi tossisco veramente tanto (Today I cough a lot)

In general when you have a cold your body hurt all over the place. In this case you can say:

• “Ho un malessere generale” 

Other important sentences that you might need to know in terms of sickness or health problems could be if you break a bone!

In this case you could use the verb to break which is the verb rompere and then use the body part.

For example

• Ho rotto la gamba
• Ho rotto il braccio
• Ho rotto un dito
• Ho rotto la spalla
• Ho rotto una costola

Or if it’s not so serious and you didn’t break something but you sprained it you can use the verb “slogare” which mean to sprain

For example:

• mi sono slogata la caviglia
• mi sono slogata il polso
• mi sono slogata la spalla

Going on a softer note talking about more common little issues that you could have you might need to say that you cut yourself or you bruised yourself.

If you cut your finger you can say - "Mi sono tagliata un dito con la carta"

(be careful to correctly match gender … I said tagliata because I’m a girl… but if you are a boy you will say “mi sono tagliato un dito”).

To cut is translated with the verb tagliarsi it’s a reflexive verb… so it implies that you did something on yourself… in this case you cut yourself with paper.

• Ho un taglio sulla gamba
• Ho un taglio sul braccio
• Ho un taglio sul piede

If it’s a small cut you can say ho un taglietto

If you are clumsy like I am you might end up with small bruise. In this case you can say that you have bruise by saying

• ho una botta sulla gamba…
  • BOTTA means bruise and then you have to add the body part to say where you have it.

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