Episode 1 – Palermo for an Englishman

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In this episode I talk to my good friend Daniel Gandolfi about what he thinks of Palermo. He has visited me a few times here, so I thought I would ask him what he thinks about the city. In this episode you will hear the following words in their correct context:

  1. Crammed

  2. Pale

  3. Hippyish

  4. Gloomy

  5. Ankles



RnR Grammar Point

In the episode you will notice that Dan describes Palermo as “hippyish”.

We add the suffix “ish” to the end of words to say “more or less”. For example, if I say that I will meet you at “8ish”, that means I will meet you at more or less 8 o’clock (maybe a few minutes before, maybe a few minutes after).

Here are some other examples:

  1. “When I went on holiday, it wasn’t hot, but it was hottish – about 20 degrees”.

  2. “The tickets for the match weren’t really cheap, but they were cheapish, €20 each”.


    IMPORTANT – this is not a formal way write and is generally only expressed in spoken language.

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