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Learning Italian with music Topic is solved

Chrisinom
Germany

Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

Learning a foreign language listening to and singing along with music is fun, effective and educative: You can learn a lot about Italian history, culture, and everyday life from the songs of the great Italian cantautori (singer/songwriters) whose songs are part of the Italian cultural DNA. The greatest of them like Fabrizio De André are represented in the Treccani encyclopedia of science, literature and art. A good artist to start with is Angelo Branduardi, whose lyrics are rather simple with catchy tunes and a clear pronunciation.

  1. Si puó fare (A1).
    [list=][/list]A song to start with. It consists mainly of infinitives. You can learn the conjugation patterns inductively and find out that a lot of Italian words are related to other languages (French, Spanish, Latin but also English, German, etc. )
  2. I Santi (A2).
    Another song with a fairly easy vocabulary. If you don't get the structure stare+gerund into your ear after listening to the song a couple of times, you shouldn't try to learn Italian.
  3. Alla fiera dell'est (C1):
    With its repetitive structure (type The old lady who swallowed a fly), this nursery rhyme is a good introduction to the passato remoto. After some listenings you will know it by heart, you just have to remember the "eating order". Since the vocabulary is (again) not too difficult you can get acquainted with the first forms of the passato remoto (3rd person) on a B level if you are an experienced learner of foreign languages.
    All the lyrics and tunes of the songs are easily available on the web.
Last edited by Chrisinom on Fri Aug 05, 2022 3:42 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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gscottoliver
United States of America

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by gscottoliver »

Funny, when I saw the topic, I thought you were referring to musical directions, which are for the most part Italian words: del capo, del segno, al fine, andante, allegro, lente, presto, pianissimo, fortissimo, and so on. But sure, using nursery songs is a great way to learn a language. I’m sure that’s why they’re composed! :D

ScottO
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Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

gscottoliver wrote: Mon Jul 18, 2022 2:28 pm

Funny, when I saw the topic, I thought you were referring to musical directions, which are for the most part Italian words: del capo, del segno, al fine, andante, allegro, lente, presto, pianissimo, fortissimo, and so on. But sure, using nursery songs is a great way to learn a language. I’m sure that’s why they’re composed! :D

Well, the cantautori usually aren't people who write nursery songs. We are talking about artists you can compare to the likes of Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen. But you're right, nursery rhymes and technical terms from music also help.

Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

Next, three of my favorite songs by three of the greatest among the cantautori. From a language point of view they are much more complex than Branduardi's songs and suitable for advanced learners (C2). I have added assignments to maybe add more fun and a challenge to listening.

  1. Fabrizio de André: Il pescatore
    An exercise to practice reading comprehension: Here's the text of the song, but I've changed the order of the stanzas. Try to find out the right order and then listen to the song to find out if you've got it right.
    a) E fu il calore di un momento
    Poi via di nuovo verso il vento
    Davanti agli occhi ancora il sole
    Dietro all spalle un pescatore
    b) Venne alla spiaggia un assassino
    Due occhi grandi da bambino
    Due occhi enormi di paura
    Eran gli specchi di un'avventura
    c) Gli occhi dischiuse il vecchio al giorno
    Non si guardò neppure intorno
    Ma versò il vino e spezzò il pane
    Per chi diceva ho sete e ho fame
    d) Ma all'ombra dell'ultimo sole
    S'era assopito il pescatore
    E aveva un solco lungo il viso
    Come una specie di sorriso
    è) Dietro alle spalle un pescatore
    E la memoria è già dolore
    È già il rimpianto d'un aprile
    Giocato all'ombra di un cortile
    f) È chiese al vecchio dammi il pane
    Ho poco tempo e troppa fame
    E chiese al vecchio dammi il vino
    Ho sete e sono un assassino
    g) Vennero in sella due gendarmi
    Vennero in sella con le armi
    Chiesero al vecchio se lì vicino
    Fosse passato un assassino
    h) All'ombra dell'ultimo sole
    S'era assopito un pescatore
    E aveva un solco lungo il viso
    Come una specie di sorriso
  2. Francesco Guccini: Il vecchio e il bambino
    A song from 1972, but it might be from this hot and arid European summer. Here's the text with the infinitives of the verbs. The task is to insert the verbs in their correct tenses (mostly but not only forms of the past).
    Un vecchio e un bambino (prendersi) per mano
    E (andare) insieme incontro alla sera
    La polvere rossa (alzarsi) lontano
    E il sole (brillare) di luce non vera.
    L' immensa pianura (sembrare) arrivare
    Fin dove l'occhio di un uomo (potere) guardare
    E tutto d' intorno non (esserci) nessuno:
    Solo il tetro contorno di torri di fumo
    I due (camminare) , il giorno (cadere),
    Il vecchio (parlare) e piano (piangere):
    Con l' anima assente, con gli occhi bagnati,
    (Seguire) il ricordo di miti passati
    I vecchi (subire) le ingiurie degli anni,
    Non (sapere) distinguere il vero dai sogni,
    I vecchi non (sapere) , nel loro pensiero,
    Distinguer nei sogni il falso dal vero
    E il vecchio (dire), guardando lontano:
    "(Immaginare) questo coperto di grano,
    (Immaginare) i frutti e (imaginare) i fiori
    E (pensaré) alle voci e (pensare) ai colori
    E in questa pianura, fin dove (perdersi),
    (Crescere) gli alberi e tutto (essere) verde,
    (Cadere) la pioggia, (segnare) i soli
    Il ritmo dell' uomo e delle stagioni"
    Il bimbo (ristare), lo sguardo (essere) triste,
    E gli occhi (guardare) cose mai viste
    E poi (dire) al vecchio con voce sognante:
    "Mi (piacere) le fiabe, (raccontarne) altre!"
  3. Francesco de Gregori: Titanic
    The sinking of the Titanic has been seen as a metaphor for politics, religion, catastrophe, hubris and any other folly known to mankind. De Gregori's approach is different. As a listening comprehension exercise, listen to the song twice and find out how often and in what context the words "Titanic" and "ghiaccio" occur.
    All the texts and the songs can be found easily on the internet.
Last edited by Chrisinom on Wed Aug 03, 2022 5:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

Next, four songs to sing along with. Two of them are known worldwide, the other two are little known outside Italy.

  1. Domenico Modugno: Nel blu dipinto di blu (Volare)
    When Modugno sang this song at San Remo in 1958 and won the contest, a new genre of song was born: La canzone d'autore that did away with trite lyrics and rhymes like cuore - amore, new melodies initially following the French Chansons, a new way of body language presenting the songs. The text is quite surprising, almost psychodelic: The lyrical I paints himself blu and dreams of flying, carried away by the wind.
  2. Paolo Conte/Adriano Celentano: Azzurro
    As a young artist, Conte became a member of Celentano 's team and wrote the tune for this song that Celentano made famous. The l,yrics describe a typical Italian situation: The singer is alone somewhere in a town or city, "she" has gone to the sea in "villeggiatura", it is hot and the singer thinks of joining her. But the train of his thoughts and desires takes him back to his youth and childhood. It is worth while listening to Conte's interpretation of the song in one of his live albums (è. g. his Tournée album from 1993) that does not cover the lyrics like in Celentano's version.
  3. Fiorella Mannoia: Il cielo d'Irlanda.
    Whoever loves the emerald island where God plays the accordion will love this song by the former stuntwoman and actress.
  4. Roberto Vecchioni: Samarcanda
    The Latin teacher's greatest success is another one of those songs where the catchy music makes you forget the lyrics. The story told here is based on traditional Asian motives: The soldier has survived the war, but he can't run away from the Lady in Black, la nera signora who is waiting for him in Samarcanda. The violin in the Studio version is played by Angelo Branduardi.
Last edited by Chrisinom on Wed Aug 03, 2022 5:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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gmads
Mexico

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by gmads »

A few easy to follow songs.








:hash:  ㆍitaliano ㆍgenerale ㆍmusica

Last edited by gmads on Mon May 08, 2023 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

For quite a few learners of Italian, the clitics "ci" and "ne" present a problem. There are a couple of songs that repeat the basic structure of "c'è" and "ci sono" again and again.

  1. Jovanotti: "Soleluna"
    This seemingly simple song is a milestone in the transformation of Lorenzo Cherubini (aka Jovanotti) from rapper to cantautore. It contains a philosophy of life that he developed from Asian concepts of dialectics and metamorphosis as principles of life.
  2. Edoardo Bennato: L'isola che non c'è
    The most popular song from Bennato's album about Peter Pan and the island of Nevermore. The cantautore from Naples mixes folk and rock music to appeal to our innocence, our dreams, our imagination to overcome our problems.
  3. Laura Pausini: Non c'è
    The singer from Faenza, who is also very popular in Spain, co-presented the 2022 European Song Contest. The title of the Spanish version of this song is "Se fue".
  4. Sergio Endrigo: Ci vuole un fiore
    The text of this "filastrocca" (nursery rhyme) was written by Gianni Rodari, a writer who wrote a lot of stories (favole) for children. Those stories are a good choice for a first reading of Italian literature.
Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

One of the main topics that the cantautori sing about is Italy, its regions and cities. The first two songs are about "campanilismo", the typically Italian parochialism. At Florence people say it is better to have a corpse in your house than someone from Pisa at your doorstep. This concerns not only cities but also regions and, finally, the contrast between the North and the South in this country of two nations united by the same TV.

  1. Luca Carboni: Inno nazionale
    Written in the nineties, this song criticizes the lack of national unity that culminated in the foundation of Umberto Bossi's Lega Nord whose main objective was to separate the wealthy industrial north from the rest of the country. The song also helps to learn the names of some of the Italian cities and regions and the corresponding adjectives.
  2. Renzo Arbore: A nuje ce piace magna' (A noi ci piange mangiare)
    The refrain of the song is in neapolitan dialect, but the song itself is just a list of typical Italian dishes and not in dialect. Here the local and regional diversity is an asset, the unity of the country is based on its local, regional and seasonal cuisine. Enjoy!
  3. Francesco de Gregorio: Viaggi e miraggi
    This is a song about traveling through Italy and some of its famous cities with their typical features. The cities mentioned (some of them more than once) are Bologna, Firenze, Genova, Milano, Modena, Napoli, Roma, Venezia. They are characterized by different attributes. Can you pair these attributes with the cities:
    che sembra una cagna in mezzo ai maiali, che sogna e si bagna sui suoi canali, coi suoi martiri professional, coi suoi motori fenomenali, coi suoi orchestrali, coi suoi sarti e giornali, coi suoi spiriti musical, coi suoi svincoli micidiali, coi suoi svincoli musicali, coi suoi terroni settentrionali, coi suoi turisti Internazionali
Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

Another round of clitics. After careful studying you may understand how they work. But you will know the situation: You want to use them in conversation, but before you can figure out the sentence the situation has passed. But there is help: the so-called chunks, groups of words that hang together, lexical phrases, set phrases, fixed phrases. Combined with music, they can be remembered easily and without translating. Here are some examples:

  1. Nek: Laura non c'è
    Nik seems to be a fan of useful chunks, with and without clitics: Mi manca da spezzare il fiato, sto da schifo, voglio stare acceso, andiamocene di là, ho fuso, non ci ho pensato mai, non ce la faccio, non so che cosa fare, per quanto io provi a..., mi dispiace ma non posso, etc.
  2. Nek: Se una regola c'è
    More of that: Che cosa c'è che non va, lo so già, rimango qua finché vuoi, capisco bene come stai, (se) fossi in te, che consiglio vuoi da me, fai quel che vuoi te, non ce la fai più, c'è chi dice no, ti do una mano, ci vuole solo un po' di senso pratico etc.
  3. Lucio Dalla: Piazza grande
    One of the best known songs of the great performer from Bologna about the life of a "senza tetto" (homeless person): Santi che pagano il mio pranzo non ce n'è. Non ce n'è: A structure that helped me a lot in a placement test for a language course. It was there without thinking.
    Three songs for the object pronouns:
  4. Edoardo Bennato: Sei come un jukebox
    "Muoviti Muoviti.... Non ti fermare, non farti pegaré, non puoi tirarti indietro, facci ballare. Object pronouns with imperatives and indicative.
  5. Sergio Caputo: Relax
    Object pronouns with indicatives
  6. Tricarico: Mamma no
    A typical structure of spoken Italian: Tu li vuoi duemila euro etc. What the child doesn't want and what it really wants.
Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

There are quite a few songs that use the imperfetto frequently. Here are some examples:

  1. Angelo Branduardi: Il bambino dei topi
  2. Rino Gaetano: E cantava le canzoni

    The Calabrian singer-songwriter is famous for his whimsical and sarcastic songs. He died in 1981 in a car crash at Rome and has become a sort of cult singer in the last years.
  3. Rino Gaetano: Berta filava

    An excellent example of Gaetano's songwriting. The seemingly simple song is based on the polysemy of the verb filare, which is in English (among others) to spin (wool), to flirt; go out with; the phrase "quando Berta filava" is "in the good old days". So the song may be read as an ironic criticism of the "good old days" when saints were burned and single mothers were branded. But, as recent research has shown, there's more to it: Gaetano alludes to the Lockheed bribery scandals of 1976. Berta was the nickname of the Lockheed president Robert Gross, Mario (Tanassi) and Luigi/Gino (Gui) were ministers of the Andreotti government who were dismissed because of the scandal. (Berta's baby's father wasn't Mario o Gino, so guess who?) By the way, lana in colloquial Italian is also money.
  4. Daniele Silvestri: L'uomo col megafono

    Silvestri wrote this song for the Sanremo contest in 1995 and arrived last in the category of young autors. Yet, he was awarded the Volare prize for the best lyrics, which started his career as one of the best known younger singer-songwriters.
Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

After the imperfetto the present perfect. It's much rarer as the dominant tense in songs but frequently can be found together with other tenses. The following four songs are about a Calabrese boy from Crotone named Andrea, a vagabond, a carefree summer vacation and the paradise of the lost socks.

  1. Lucio Dalla: Comunista

    Dalla's song contains quite a few past participles as adjectives, part of the present perfect and the passive voice. Dalla advocates for the underprivileged, referring to communism and catholicism as partners in the fight against social injustice (the so-called cattocomunismo).
  2. Modena Cita Ramblers: Il vagabondo stanco

    Irish folk with Italian lyrics - This can only be the Modena City Ramblers. They also have a fine version of "Bella Ciao".
  3. Max Gazzé / Nicolo Fabi: Vento d'estate

    A summer hit with a difference by two younger cantautori. The song came first in the song contest "Un disco per l'estate".
  4. Vinicio Capossela: Il paradiso dei calzini

    Capossela, born at Hannover, Germany, is one of the finest Italian singer-songwriters. He's a winner of the "Targa Tenco", a prize for the best album of the year. His book "Il paese dei Coppoloni" was in the longlist for the Premio Strega, the Italian Booker Prize.
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Meli578588
Italy

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Meli578588 »

These are fabulous [mention]Chrisinom[/mention] ,

The first one was my favorite And then I heard number 4. Loved number 2, as well.

What a great variety of music. !

I am big listener to songs like the fist one ..
My Pop played this kind of music on his guitar when we were little.
He plays a lot of rock n roll , too. 🙂

Played the first one , twice. So-so good !

P.S Big fan of Irish music , too.
Per Italian , I grew up with Pavarotti with Nonna.

🍁🌰🎸🎼

Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

The future tense is used quite frequently in the songs of Italian songwriters, so there is only "l'imbarazzo della scelta" (being spoilt for choice). This makes it possible to choose some songs of the greatest songwriters who express their deep fears and high hopes in their songs. Though some of them are pretty old, they, unfortunately, have turned out to be highly topical today.

  1. Francesco Guccini: Noi non ci saremo

    In this song from his first album "Folk Rock" (1967), Guccini portrays a world after an atomic Armageddon. It's a world without human beings: Noi non ci saremo.
  2. Fabrizio de André: Girotondo

    Same topic, one year later. De André chooses the form of the girotondo (dance in a ring). The only remaining living human beings are the children who keep asking: If the war comes, who will save us? ("Se verrà la guerra chi ci salverà?"). Watch that in Italian the future tense can also be used in the conditional clause.
  3. Lucio Dalla: L'anno che verrà

    Ten years later: The fears of an atomic war have been suppressed, replaced by the optimism of the early seventies in the wake of the 1968 students' movement. But at the end of the seventies, Italy is in a deep crisis after the "leaden years" (anni di piombo), culminating in the assassination of Aldo Moro in 1978. At the beginning of one of his most popular songs, Dalla portrays the situation: People don't go out in the evening, they don't talk to each other anymore, some of them have put sandbags in front of their windows. But the television says that things will change completely. There will be Christmas three times a year, even the dumb will be talking and priests will be allowed to get married. To put it in in a nutshell, the land of milk and honey. Many commentators in Italy have pointed out that this might be a song from the early 2020s.
  4. Ivano Fossati: La volpe

    Fossati is one of the lesser known cantautori but his songs were interpreted by singers like Mia Martini and Fiorella Mannoia and he has worked together with de André. His song "La canzone popolare" was chosen as an electoral hymn by the middle-left coalition L'ulivo in 1998. "La volpe" is a song that refers to a universal situation: the arrival of someone or something unknown that arouses deep fears in us: What will that shadow at the end of the driveway to my house be? Here the future is used to express suppositions.
  5. Zucchero: Diamante

    For me, that's the most beautiful of Zucchero's songs. The text, which was written by Francesco de Gregori, portrays the situation at the end of World War 2 as a physical, material and spiritual rebirth. At the end of the song, Zucchero's mother Diamante Alduini Fornaciara calls little Delmo (Zucchero's real name is Adelmo Fornaciari) to come back home: "Delmo, Delmo, Vin a'ca'."
Last edited by Chrisinom on Sun Oct 16, 2022 6:21 am, edited 2 times in total.
SufficientGrace
United States of America

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by SufficientGrace »

Thank you for posting all of these songs and explaining how they can be helpful. I will check them out. Songs are definitely a great way to remember!

Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

Conditional sentences are a problem in quite a few languages. Yet they are used frequently in songs, especially in socially engaged songs and, of course, in love songs. Here are two examples of both categories. But first of all, a word about the Italian subjunctive (conjuntivo).

  1. Lorenzo Baglioni: Il congiuntivo

    As you can see from the song, the subjunctive is a problem for many Italians, too. Especially in spoken Italian, it's often replaced by the infinitive. The same thing happens to the conditional in the main clause of conditional sentences, so many people don't say "Se lo avessi saputo non sarei venuto" but "Se lo sapevo non venivo."
  2. Sergio Endrigo: Girotondo intorno al mondo

    A quite naive proposal for a better world from 1966.
  3. Eros Ramazzotti: Se bastasse una canzone

    This song is a milestone in Ramazzotti's passage from young cantautore (a metà, he always wrote only parts of his songs) to International pop star. The song is dedicated to people on the margins of society.
  4. Max Pezzali/883: Una canzone d'amore

    The song is as sophisticated as its title is. The best thing about it is that it is catchy and contains a lot of conditional sentences.
  5. Ivano Fossati: Carte da decifrare

    In contrast, Fossati is one of the most refined writers of love songs. His songs are complex and never banal. Love is a contradictionary, indecipherable feeling. Quite certainly a song for C2 level!
Last edited by Chrisinom on Tue Oct 25, 2022 8:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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gmads
Mexico

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by gmads »

Chrisinom wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 5:22 pm

But first of all, a word about the Italian subjunctive (conjuntivo).

Il congiuntivo... non lo sbaglio più!

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Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

[mention]gmads[/mention] Se solo non avessi iniziato a studiare lo spagnolo ...

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gmads
Mexico

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by gmads »

Chrisinom wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 8:32 am

@gmads Se solo non avessi iniziato a studiare lo spagnolo ...

Vero? Ma tu parli italiano! Hai già un grosso vantaggio, passi da una lingua più difficile a una più facile :) Qualche volta ho pensato lo stesso dell'italiano, soprattutto quando ero con i clitici e i verbi pronominali, uffa! :D

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Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

It was just a joke. But you're right about the clitics and the double pronouns. There is only one thing you can do: Learn the most important ones as chunks. Chi se ne frega, dammelo, dímmelo, fammelo vedere, me ne vado, non ce la faccio più, voglio dirglielo, non ce n'è, non ce ne sono, etc. These and others are expressions you hear very often in Italy, and after some time you get accustomed to using them without thinking.

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gmads
Mexico

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by gmads »

Chrisinom wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 5:44 pm

It was just a joke. But you're right about the clitics and the double pronouns. There is only one thing you can do: Learn the most important ones as chunks. Chi se ne frega, dammelo, dímmelo, fammelo vedere, me ne vado, non ce la faccio più, voglio dirglielo, non ce n'è, non ce ne sono, etc. These and others are expressions you hear very often in Italy, and after some time you get accustomed to using them without thinking.

Ahh! :lol:

Double pronouns (e.g. dammelo) were a bit of a challenge, but they were not particularly problematic, as Spanish inherited the same concept (e.g. dámelo).

However, I did suffer with the clitic lesson trying to understand the "ce" in to understand the "ce" in the "ce l'ho" answer: it seemed so unnecessary! But that became nothing in comparison when I started with all the clitic pronouns with their multiple meanings and uses, especially { si, ne, ci } :cry: which of course were the prelude, first to the pronominal verbs in "si" (e.g. lavarsi, pentirsi) 😭 and then to the procomplementary verbs, which at the moment, and after all that I had already gone through, were very straight-forward, actually.

Thanks, yes. That's the way to go: to start with the most common ones and their most common uses.

Without any doubt, these topics have definitely been what have taken me the most studying effort.

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Antinomy - Imagination

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Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

Prepositions are certainly one of the most difficult chapters in learning a language. Here are five songs, the last one being the most difficult.

  1. Ivano Fossati: Questi posti davanti al mare

    This song is about the yearly encounter of young girls from the big cities and the Riviera summer resorts,with the young locals suffering from a minority complex. One interesting thing about the song is that two of the greatest cantautori join Fossati, Fabrizio de André and Francesco de Gregori.
  2. Niccoló Fabi: Una buona idea

    The main preposition here is "de", with and without article. The song from 2012 is about an Italy that has lost its connections to the past, with the present generation being orphans, lost without points of reference.
  3. Loredana Berté: Dedicato

    Ivano Fossati wrote this song for Loredana Berté, the sister of Mia Martini and ex-wife of Bjorn Borg, the great Swedish tennis player of the 1980s. The main preposition here is "a". The melancholic and a bit ironic song is dedicated to the losers of society. It is interesting to also listen to Fossati's own version.
  4. Renzo Arbore: A nuje ce piace 'a magna'
    I already presented this song in one of the first postings. It's useful for the use of the preposition "a" in the name of Italian meals.
  5. Francesco de Gregori: Adelante adelante

    The main prepositions here are "con", "senza" and "da... a". The song from 1992 mirrors another deep crisis of the "belpaese" after the Milano bribery scandal in the late 1980s ("Tangentopoli") and the Mafia killings of Falcone and Borsellino. The whole country, "da Torino a Palermo, dal cielo all'inferno, dall'Olimpico al Quirinale, dal futuro al moderno, dalle fabbriche, alle lampare", suffers from a lack ("senza") of binding values, confounds "la notte e il giorno e la partenza con il ritorno e la ricchezza con il rumore, ed il diritto con il favore e l'innocente col criminale ed il diritto col Carnevale." The capital C here is an illusion to Corrado Carnevale, chief judge of the Italian Supreme Court of Appeal, known as" ammazzasentenze", killer of verdicts of Mafiosi.
Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

:| 9Italy is a country that is extraordinarily rich in languages and dialects. Not only other romantic languages are spoken in the "belpaese" (French, Catalán, Ladin, Provencal), but also German, Greek, Albanian, Slovene and Serbo-Croatian. Some versions of Italian are considered languages in their own right (Friulan, Sicilian). The reasons for the great variety are two: Italy has been a "transit country" throughout its history, occupied by other European powers for centuries (Germanic tribes and the medieval "Reich", Austria France, Spain, all of which have left behind linguistic traces). Moreover, Italian is a very young language that developed out of the Latin language in the Middle Ages. For more information, see https://www.europassitalian.com/blog/it ... -dialects/ (attention, the translation of the venetian dialect in English is what Italians would call (inglese maccheronico, don't take it seriously).
Some of the cantautori use dialect in their songs. It was Fabrizio de André who triggered that trend with his albun "Crêuza de mä" in 1984.

  1. Fabrizio de André: Crêuza de mä

    De André's album is sung in Ligurian dialect. For de André and others, dialects have the advantage that they contain much more words with the accent on the last syllable, which allows more musical variety.
  2. Li Troubaires de Coumboscuro: A toun soléi

    Coumboscuro is the heart of the Provenza d'Italia. All of the languages and dialects of the Northwest have sounds that resemble French ones.
  3. Pintura Freska: Pin Floi

    I Pin Floi are the Pink Floyd. Their concert on St. Mark's square led to the resignation of the whole Venice council. A general difference between northern and southern Italian dialects is in the double consonants: They are reduced to one consonant in the North, whereas in the South they become very long. Bello is pronounced as belo in the North and as bbbelllllo at Naples. The venetian dialect is even more radical, with bello becoming beo.
  4. Lorenzo Baglioni : Una Coca-Cola con la cannuccia corta corta

    The Tuscan dialect has become the standard language of Italy, following the model set by the three great Italian poets Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio. But there are still some linguistic peculiarities, especially with regard to pronunciation. The most obvious one is the pronunciation of the c (k), which is aspirated. Thus cane (dog) sounds almost like hane. The title of the song is the test phrase for your qualification as a genuine Tuscan.
Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

Now to the southern Italian dialects. Dialect is used much more frequently in everyday language in the South, whereas Northern dialects (except Venetian) are in danger of getting extinct. In the last years, dialects in the south have also been used to reaffirm the cultures and the identity of Southern regions. Generally, southern dialects have a lot of common features not only in pronunciation and vocabulary, but also in grammar. The most evident one is the use of the passato remoto for past events, whereas people in the North always use the passato prossimo in everyday spoken language. But let's first go over to Sardinia.

  1. Tazenda: Pitzinnos in sa gherra

    If this song sounds Spanish to you, you're right: the Sardinian language uses the plural in -s like all the Western Romance languages. The song by the Sardinian trio is about child soldiers, pitzinnos (piccini = bambini) en sa (nella) gherra (guerra).
  2. Fabrizio de André: Don Raffaé

    "Ah che bell' 'o caffè - the Napoletans' favorite drink is 'o caffè in dialect, the definite articles are 'o and 'a. The coffee in this song is served to Don Raffaele, a mafia boss in the famous Napoletan jail of Poggioreale, by his guard who treats him like a gentleman. This is an example of what is called in Italian "carcere d'oro", golden jail, where the bosses of the Italian malavita live a life of luxury. Apart from his native Liguria, de André has sung songs in Sardinian and in Napolitano, too.
  3. Sud Sound System: Le radici ca tieni

    We are in Salento, the southern tip of Apulia. Like in the other southern dialects, the u sound is predominant. Also, the use of tenere instead of avere (and likewise stare instead of essere) is typical, a result of the long Spanish predominance in the South. The song is a good example of the reasons for the use of dialect by young groups: "Dai chiù valore a la cultura ca tieni", dai più valore alla cultura che hai" The music style doesn't follow the tradition of the canzone: "Uniti intra stu stile... cu li giammaicani." (Unisciti nello stile con i giamaicani). That's Raggamuffin, Reggae, and it works well with the dialect.
  4. Franco Battiato: Stranizza d'amuri

    The setting of the scene described in the song is the Samacca Valley at the feet of the Etna during the Allies' bombings in World War 2. Not a very romantic setting for a love song: Where "carritteri ogni tantu lassanu i loru bisogni / e i muscuni ci abbulaunu supra / jeumu a caccia di lucettuli”), bluebottles sit down where the waggoners empty their bowels. It's there where the young villagers try to catch some lizards that this strange love (stranizza d'amuri) grows. The song evokes this love in strong images as a sort of fever: "Man manu ca passunu i jonna / ’sta frevi mi trasi ’nda ’ll’ossa / ccu tuttu ca fora c’è ’a guerra / mi sentu stranizza d’amuri, l’amuri” (“Man mano che passano i giorni questa febbre mi entra nelle ossa, nonostante fuori ci sia la guerra mi sento una stranezza d’amore, l’amore”). (https://www.siciliafan.it/stranizza-damuri-significato/)
Chrisinom
Germany

Re: Learning Italian with music

Post by Chrisinom »

Christmas is coming soon and war is over - magari (as if, that would be fine). There hasn't been a single day since the end of World War 2 without a war somewhere on earth. There are many antiwar songs by the Italian singer- songwriters - here are some of the most popular ones.

  1. Francesco Guccini: Auschwitz

    The song explains itself. It may be considered the folk song version of Paul Celan's masterpiece "Death Fugue".
  2. Gianni Morandi: C'era un ragazzo che come me amava i beatles e i rolling stones.
    https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... C4yWMFrX3o
    After the Holocaust, the Vietnam War (no parallel intended). The eternal "bravo ragazzo" is one of Italy's most popular singers, though little known elsewhere.
  3. Francesco de Gregori: Generale

    The Italian Bob Dylan, as some people say, shows the atrocities of war from the point of view of a young soldier far away from his dear ones. The song is based on de Gregori's own experiences as a young conscript in German speaking South Tyrol. "La notte crucca e assassina" alludes to the background of this song. "Crucco" is an epiteth for the Germans, the assassins refers to the terrorist South Tyrol separatist movement of the 1950s and 60s.
  4. Fabrizio de André: La guerra di Piero

    One of the best and best known songs of the great songwriter from Genova. Again the point of view is that of a simple soldier, shot by an antagonist who is just like him but has a different uniform: lo "stesso identico umore ma la divisa di un altro colore".
  5. Davide Silvestri: Il mio nemico

    Silvestri quotes de André: "Sparagli Pierro, sparagli ahora", but the song shows that things have changed. The enemy doesn't have a uniform, he can't even be identified precisely as a clearly defined authority, be it military, polítical or economic. The enemy is authority itself, supranational and not ideological, by a society whose political value of representation has been eroded by now. Silvestri's song was triggered by the events in the context of the notorious G7 summit of Genova in 2001.
  6. Liga Jova Pelu: Il mio nome è mai più

    The two rockers Ligabue and Piero Pelu and Rapper Jovanotti wrote and sang this song during the Kosovo War at the end of the 20th century.
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