Le stagioni nel giardino della famiglia Rossi

How do you say “in summer” and “in winter” in Italian?

To say “in summer” or “in winter,” Italian doesn’t reach for a big preposition — it uses di + the season: d’estate (“in summer”), d’inverno (“in winter”). Because estate and inverno begin with vowels, the di elides to d'. The pattern means “during / characteristic of” that season: c’è più erba d’estate che d’inverno, “there’s more grass in summer than in winter.” A tiny apostrophe carries a whole time-of-year.

The two vowel-starting seasons take the elided d' (d’estate, d’inverno); the consonant-starting ones keep di or, more commonly, use in: in primavera (“in spring”), in autunno (“in autumn”). You’ll also see the article version — l’estate, in estate. This di-of-time logic echoes di mattina (“in the morning”) and di notte (“at night”), so learning it once unlocks a whole set of natural Italian time phrases.