In this video, I am in Mexico City explaining a little confusing but interesting nuance of the Italian language between these three words: banca, banco, and bancarella.
These 3 words share a root but have different meanings and usages.
Bancarella in Italian
In the video, I am walking through an outdoor market full of vendors selling their wares on small stalls. And in Italy, many cities, such as Rome, Florence, and Palermo, will have vendors using similar stalls.
An outdoor stall in Italian is known as a bancarella.
These are commonly used at street markets, flea markets, holiday markets, and the ancient Arab markets of Palermo, among others.
To pluralize the word, you would change the ending a to an e.
Thus, it will become bancarelle.
What does banco mean in Italian?
Banco is an Italian word meaning a bench or a counter. Historically, business was conducted on wooden benches or counters. Here, they traded gold, silver, food, and conducted monetary transactions.
It can also mean a desk or a bar counter in some contexts.
How to say Bank in Italian?
The Italian word for a financial institution, meaning a bank, is banca.
For example: Devo andare in banca. I have to go to the bank.
You will see this often in names such as:
- Banca d’Italia
- UniCredit
- Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS)
However, you can often see the word banco used to name a financial institution in Italian, but it refers to the ancient bench and is meant to conjure historical significance for their brand.
An example is Banco BPM.
In Italian, this (banca) is a feminine noun. Interestingly enough, in Spanish, the word for bank is banco.
How to say bankrupt in Italian
This word is a combination of two words in Italian:
banca: bank
rotta: which means broken
Bancarotta – bankrupt
You can see the similarity with the word we use in English for ‘bankrupt’.
To summarize this Italian lesson.
Bancarella – outside stalls (singular)
Banca – financial institution (singular)
Banche – financial institution (plural)
Banco – bench, bar counter, desk (singular)
Banchi – bench, bar, counter, desk (plural)
As you can see in the video above, Mexico City has many street stalls. It can give you a visual of what does bancarella mean in Italian.
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