Last Updated on September 10, 2017 by Laura Teso
Why should you learn Italian? First, not to brag but Italian is a wonderful and melodious language. So you may want to learn it just because you like the sound of it.
Another reason to learn Italian could be to understand our songs or opera arias.
Or you could learn it to enrich your cultural background and be able to read Dante’s Divine Comedy, which, as a matter of fact, is very hard even for Italians, because the language has changed a lot since 1300.
But I think it can be especially useful for those who want to travel in Italy.
When I go abroad I always try to learn something about the local language, even only to say thank you, you’re welcome and good morning. I can say that it has always been really appreciated. Except perhaps in Prague, where I kept telling everyone what I thought it meant “thank you” (I don’t remember any more what the word was) but nobody answered me, nobody smiled, they didn’t even look at me. Probably I didn’t pronounced the word correctly or maybe the word wasn’t right at all (at the time there was no Google Translate). I still wonder what I ever told!
In Italy there are still many people who do not speak English. So I think we learn a few words of Italian to get by on your own could be extremely useful.
In each post I will write Italian sentences in italics. Then the pronunciation in square brackets [the accent goes on the syllable with CApital LETters]. Finally the English translations. For example: Benvenuti! [behn-veh-NOO-tee], Welcome!
Whenever possible I will shoot a video or record an audio file. Therefore you can hear directly from my voice (but I warn you, I have chronic sinusitis) the correct Italian pronunciation… actually Venetian rather than Italian!
Let’s do a test: Turn on the speakers and listen to my voice!
If you have questions or you want to learn more about some particular topic, feel free to contact me! I will try to answer and maybe prepare a specific post.
You can go to the first lesson: my post about Italian greetings.
Iniziamo! [ee-nee-TSYAH-moh] Let’s get started!
