#langblr italian

[gulabilli]

i'm going to italy in less than a month!!! so naturally now i have to speedrun duolingo italian!!!

[lucacangettathisass]

Does anyone have any favourite resources for someone wanting to learn Italian outside of Duolingo? My uni doesn't offer it as a course anymore rip

[useless-catalanfacts]

Comparison of a few words in four Romance languages: Italian, Spanish, Sardinian, and Catalan.

Video by paoloymar.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

A List of "Beautiful" Italian Words

for your next poem/story

Anima - soul

Canticchiare - to sing quietly to oneself; to hum

Dolci - dessert

Fantasticheria - fantasy, daydream, reverie

Farfalla - butterfly

Fiabesco - fairytale-like

Incantevole - enchanting

Innamorarsi - to fall in love

Intramontabile - timeless, classic, eternal, enduring

Lacrima - teardrop

Luccicare - to sparkle, to twinkle, to glitter

Mozzafiato - breathtaking

Onirico - dreamlike, surreal

Perenne - everlasting

Portafortuna - good luck charm, talisman

Rugiada - dew

Stellato - starry, star-studded; star-shaped

Tesoro - treasure

Ultraterreno - otherworldly, divine, ethereal

Vino della casa - house wine

If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, please tag me, or send me a link. I would love to read them!

Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ More: Word Lists

[sometimesreading]

Mentally I am in the shade under a tree reading for fun. Physically, I am cramming as much Italian into my head as possible in the next 2 weeks while ignoring the anatomy I should be studying ���

[thelingodingo]

I loveeeeee the way languages that tend to not like ending words on a consonant sound.

Probably the most common example would be the Japanese language and how people with that accent tend to pronounce English words "cutely" due to the lack of final consonants such as "kito-kato" instead of Kit Kat.

But it's actually seen in so many other languages such as Korean and how a lot of Koreans tend to pronounce English words that end with an S sound with a "-seu" at the end such as "ju-seu" for juice or "bus-seu" for bus.

I've also heard vowels be added onto the end of English words in languages like Italian and Brazilian Portuguese when said in their respective accent and I think it's so interesting how some languages have their own "rules" of what kind syllables are allowed to be created with vowels and consonants in certain positions.

I love accents!

(In the case of Japanese and Korean it also leads to a weird amount of fetishization while unknowingly mocking speakers of the language but that's a discussion for another time...)

[langvillage]

hello language learners! new this month in the language village, a chill way to practice a little bit every day: the one sentence club! as the title suggests, the idea is to write one sentence in your target language(s) every day. for an extra challenge, especially if your target language uses a different script, try handwriting the sentence too!

join the language village discord server to receive daily reminder pings, get inspiration from a daily question prompt, and participate alongside other one sentence club members!

feel free to tag #langvillage if you post your sentences on tumblr ✨

[h0neytalk]

Italian Audio/Books/Videos Masterlist

Now that I’m at the upper A2/lower B1 level for Italian, I figured I’d compile a quick list of where I’ve found the best stuff to read and listen to.

E-Books and Audiobooks

Kobo Rakuten Italia — where I buy my ebooks. You can read them online, in the app, or download them and [redacted] to export them elsewhere. Has a monthly unlimited subscription that functions like a combo Kindle/Audible subscription.

Storytel — monthly subscription for unlimited access to audiobooks.

YouTube

Learn Italian With Lucrezia — truly the savior of anyone learning Italian. My favorite videos are her Q&As, vlogs, and “n basic phrases you need to know.” I don’t get much out of her grammar explainer videos but that’s because of who I am as a person.

NovaLectio — commentary style mini documentaries. I export them to LingQ to read before watching and it helps me parse what’s going on. Also, they upload some videos dubbed in English so you can watch both.

Vogue Italia — celebrity interviews and fashion content. About 50/50 Italian and English but obviously high production value.

ArtandtheCities — criminally underrated channel imo. 10-15 minute art history/industry videos by an art historian. Super interesting, she’s easy to understand, and has captions.

Chef Max Mariola — utter chaos but fun. A Roman chef cooking various dishes, sometimes with a guest. Gives very “your uncle is hosting Thanksgiving and forgot until yesterday” vibes but in the best way.

TV/Movies/Documentaries

RaiPlay (free!) — Italian version of PBS. Lots of documentaries and some kind of goofy soap operas/narrative shows. You can also watch live TV.

Podcasts and Radio

RaiPlay Sound — basically NPR. Also free! You can find podcasts, live radio stations, audiobooks, and even audio descriptions of movies and TV shows.

Articles

Formula 1 Italia — Formula 1 news. I’m a big Ferrari fan but they cover a lot of news/current events (as long as they can connect it to a driver). The writing is short and to the point so it’s easy to parse for beginners. And honestly the drama is better than a lot of TV shows.

Stile Arte — long, more complex articles about art and archaeology. Cannot recommend it enough if you have an interest in any of those things. There are some straightforward history articles at the B1/B2 level, and also some more creative essays that push C1.

Corriere della Sera — daily news site. I started reading the news only in Italian to keep me from doom scrolling because America is terrifying. This is just the site I have ended up using a lot. Mostly because it’s easy to navigate and they have a ton of content.

[aziz-speaks]

Guess who worked out a routine/ACTUAL study plan

As much as I love just listening to Disney songs in my target language, it wasn't doing much for actually learning.

I've also added two new target languages??? I know, I can't believe it either! Anyway, here's my current plan that's been working fairly well.

I aim to hit 7 areas in each language every day: Consume media, listen to speech, Read while listening, Speak, write, study and review.

The idea is to touch each item every day, not spend forever on it. Build consistency first and then spend more time on it if you want to.

An Example from my journal today:

(Italian)

Consume: Listened to Disney songs on the way to work (Resource: Spotify)

Listen: Italian pod 101 unit 1 listening videos (about 7 minutes total) (Resource: Youtube)

Read: Lingo Mastery Read along video, Elena and Catalina (Resource: Youtube)

Speak: Busuu Community challenges - counting lemons and talking about family (Resource: Busuu)

Write: One sentence in my planner. Buongiorno. Io sono cosi-cosi. (Resource: pen and paper)

Study: Chapter 4/A1 on Busuu: Pronouns, the verb "to be", talking about people. (Resource: Busuu)

Review: Busuu flashcards: formal and informal greetings (Resource: Busuu, Anki Droid flashcard system)

I also just installed Language Reactor! I can't believe I ignored it for so long. I like that it searches for shows in your target language for you, especially on Netflix who seem to randomly take Russian dubs down. I also like the customizeable color coding for words you know, words you want to know, and words that you probably don't need to learn right now based on your current skill level and how relevant the word tends to be in real life. It even has an auto-pause feature that will wait after each line so you can replay it or assign categories to words if you want.

[bimdraws]

Free Palestine

Palestina Libre

Palestina Livre

Palestina Libera

Wolna Palestyna

Freiheit für Palästina

Befria Palestina

Palestina Aurrera

[una-ragazza-con-un-flauto]

Via sonomiguelangelo su Tiktok

Italia 🇮🇹 España 🇪🇸 Suomi 🇫🇮

[gemsofgreece]

Grecanico

I wasn't very familiar with the dialects of the Griko community, the Greek minority of Italy, residing mostly in Calabria and Apulia. Once in a travel show I had seen a grandpa speaking in one of them but it was so fast and idiomatic that I could only catch one word or two and I consequently thought the Griko dialects had grown really distant from Greece's or Eastern Greek dialects.

Recently I watched this Griko song performance in Italy and it moved me deeply. First of all, it impressed me how it could seamlessly pass as a Modern Greek music style. Of course, Italy and Greece do share a lot of similar sounds, so it perhaps was to be expected. Even the la-la-le-o-la-la pattern, I have heard it in many familiar Greek urban songs (as in, not folk).

I just read that there are in fact two Italiot Greek dialects, Griko (spoken by ~ 45,000 people) and the smaller one, Grecanico (severely endangered and spoken only by ~ 2,000 people). The latter is believed to have incorporated more Italian influences. According to Wikipedia, there are many similarities with Standard Modern Greek, although linguists assert they evolved independently from either Ancient or Koine Greek. If you ask me, judging from the song, there is no way they evolved independently from Ancient Greek. Not only that but if the linguists did not only examine the Ancient and Koine theories, I would have thought they evolved independently from early Modern or super late Koine at most. This could be explained by an influx of Greeks to Italy as a consequence of the Crusader conquests or the Fall of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire to the Ottoman Turks because - fun fact - the type of Greek spoken during both those periods was Modern Greek. Very early Modern Greek at the times of the Fourth Crusade (1202 - 1204), yet modern nonetheless. So the Greeks that might have fled the Latin and the Ottoman blows to the East Roman Empire may have perhaps influenced the language of the ancient and medieval Greek communities of Italy. Then, this late koine - early modern Greek dialect also got influenced by Latin / Italian, especially in the pronunciation and some of the vocabulary. That’s my theory that’s just on me. Perhaps they indeed developed independently from Koine Greek because the Greek language is pretty conservative after all. But Ancient, as in prior to 200 BC, no fricking the frick way.

The song is in Grecanico of Apulia. The video of this performance had the lyrics in Grecanico (they use the Latin alphabet) and a translation in Standard Modern Greek. I was shocked by how much more I could understand in the slower way they were singing compared to the mumbling grandpa. It was deeply touching so I decided to share the video and I even decided to offer the Standard Modern Greek equivalent version in a Latin transliteration, in case any of you is interested in the study of the evolution between Standard Modern Demotic Greek and the Grecanico of Italy.

Lyrics in Grecanico and Standard Modern Greek (with Latin characters) below the cut:

G: KALINITTA SMG: KALINICHTA

G: Ti en glicea tusi nifta, ti en ória SMG: Ti glikiá in' túti i níchta, ti oréa íne

G: cíevó plonno penséonta 'ss' esena SMG: ki eghó xaplóno skeftómenos eséna

G: C'ettú mpἰ's ti ffenéstra ssu agápi mu SMG: Ke káto ap'to paráthiro su agápi mu

G: tis kardia mmu su nifto ti ppena SMG: tis karðiás mu su ðíchno ton póno

G: Evó pánta ss' esena penseo SMG: Eghó pánta eséna skéftome

G: jati 'sena, fsichi mmu 'gapó SMG: jatí eséna psichí mu agapó

G: ce pu pao, pu sirno, pu steo SMG: ke ópu páo, ópu sérno, ópu stéko

G: sti kkardía panta sena vastó. SMG: stin karðiá pánta eséna vastó.

G: T' asteracia pu panu me vlepune SMG: T' asterákia pu páno me vlépune

G: ca mo féngo friffizun nomena SMG: ke me to fengári psithirízun omú (?)

G: ce jelú ce mu leone ¨ston anemo SMG: ke jelún ke mu léne ¨ston ánemo

G: ta traudia pelis, i chamena" SMG: ta traghúðia petás, íne chaména¨

G: Kalí nifta! Se finno ce féo SMG: Kalí níchta! Se afíno ke févgho

G: Plaja 'su ti 'vó pirta prikó SMG: Plájase jatí eghó févgho (?) pikrá

G: ce pu pao, pu sirno, pu steo SMG: ke ópu páo, ópu sérno, ópu stéko

G: sti kkardía panta sena vastó. SMG: stin karðiá pánta eséna vastó.

Hopefully, the Greeks of Italy and the Greek state will aid in rescuing Grecanico from fading forever. 🙏

Oh and here’s an English translation of the song to not leave it entirely obscure:

What a sweet night it is, how beautiful

and I lay down thinking of you

and under your window, my love

I show you the pain of my heart.

I always think about you

because it’s you, my soul, that I love

and wherever I go, I set to, I stand

I always keep you in my heart.

The little stars look at me from above

and they chat together with the moon

and they laugh and tell me “In the wind

you throw your songs, they go wasted”.

Good night! I am leaving you and I am going away.

Go to bed for I am leaving in bitterness

and wherever I go, I set to, I stand

I always keep you in my heart.

[useless-catalanfacts]

Comparison of a few verbs in three Romance languages: Italian, Catalan, and Spanish.

Video by paoloymar.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Another List of "Beautiful" Italian Words & Phrases

for your next poem/story

Abbiocco - food coma; the drowsiness that follows eating a full Italian meal

Allegria - cheerfulness

Ammazzacaffè - coffee killer; a small glass of liqueur usually consumed after coffee

Apericena - pre-dinner drinks accompanied by food

Arrampicarsi sugli specchi - to climb on mirrors; to try to prove that black is white

Azzurra - light blue

Calzare a pennello - to put on at the paintbrush; to fit perfectly

Cascarci come una pera cotta - to fall like a cooked pear; to be easily fooled

Chi troppo vuole nulla stringe - grasp all, lose all

Chi trova un amico, trova un tesoro - if you find a friend, you’ve found a treasure

Essere al settimo cielo - to be in seventh heaven; to be extremely happy, joyful and elated

Far venire il latte alle ginocchia - to make milk come to the knees; to be extremely boring

In bocca al lupo - in the mouth of the wolf; good luck

Ineffabile - ineffable, impossible to describe

Mangiare la foglia - to eat the leaf; to understand that something strange is going on

Mellifluo - honeyed, sweet, pleasant

Menefreghista - someone who is indifferent, apathetic, and just doesn’t care

Non stare più nella pelle - to not stay in the skin any more; to look forward to something

Nuvola - cloud

Visibilio - rapture

If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, please tag me, or send me a link. I would love to read them!

Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ More: Word Lists

[sayayeyo]

the worst part about studying languages is trying to read something cute & fun & being forced to reckon with the fact that you have the reading comprehension of a small child

[sayitaliano]

Italian idiomatic expressions

Just heard this from the news (sport) Loved the use of similar words in this sentence so I thought about making a short post about it

"Vedremo se il nostro velocista di punta riuscirà a spuntarla"

-> di punta = top, best, primary (out of a team)

-> riuscire a spuntarla = "being able to make it/to succeed *despite/against difficulties or against odds*" idiomatic expression (spuntare = lit. to check, to trim) Similar to "riuscire a farcela" (more literal translation of "being able to make it"). "Spuntarla" suggests more of a tight battle against others as in a sport competition (implied info since the video was about this sprinter going to compete against others). Maybe "end up being successful" could be a more literal translation?

Translation: "We'll see if our best sprinter will be able to make it"