Becoming Italian Word by Word

Who knows what in the Italian language?

sapere  / conoscere

to know

    English speakers “know” everything—how to drive a car, long division, the folks who live next door, a great hiking trail. I “know” the Italian language, but I still have trouble saying how I know it. In Italian I would use the verb sapere to say that I know how to conjugate verbs or the year of Michelangelo’s birth.    But if I want to say that I know Sorrento, Renaissance art, or the local butcher, I need an entirely different verb: conoscere.  All too often I find myself scratching my head and asking the utterly Italian question: Chissà?  (Who knows?)

   Sapere comes from sapia, Latin for taste, the root of sapienza, Italian for wisdom. Several of my wisest Italian friends graduated from La Sapienza, Rome’s great university, pictured above.  They sanno (third person plural for know) all sorts of things, from how to play the piano to entire cantos from Dante’s Divine Comedy.   One of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous life mantras was saper vedere, to know how to see.

    It’s not just  our species of Homo sapiens (wise man) that is capable of sapere.  When I tucked fresh lavender under the pillows in the guest bedroom, an Italian visitor happily reported that her bed “knew” (smelled of) the flowery scent.  If you add fresh rosemary, a sauce will “know” (taste of) this flavor. And if something is not to the liking of you and a friend, you can say that it “non sa nè di me nè di te.” (It doesn’t know, or taste of, me or of you.)  

   Conoscere, which shares the same root as the English words cognition and recognize,  implies something deeper: getting to know a person,  being familiar with a city or country, becoming knowledgeable about a subject like music or architecture. “Piacere di conoscerLa,” (“Pleased to know you,”) you say when introduced to a stranger in Italy.  "Conosco i miei polli," (I know my chickens) an Italian will say to indicate that he knows the people he is dealing with very well.  Scholars strive for  conoscenza, which means knowledge or acquaintance in all senses.

    So  in Italian you would sapere the facts but conoscere the truth, sapere Mario’s address but conoscere his family, sapere  that Fellini directed La Dolce Vita but conoscere his films.   Yet you still have to be careful of what you think you know.

    “Sai la canzone ‘O sole mio’?”  a roving accordion player who had wandered into the restaurant where we were having dinner once asked. Thinking he was asking if I had heard of the famous song, I replied, “Si!”  Next thing I knew he had whirled me to his side and stuck a microphone in front of my face. It turned out that while I knew of the song, what he was really asking was if I knew how to sing it.

Sayings and Expressions

mi faccia sapere--let me know (formal)
fammi sapere –let me know (informal)
saperla lunga—to know a thing or two
sapere di vino—smell or taste of wine
non si sa mai—you never know
conoscere a fondo –to be thoroughly acquainted with
conoscere di nome – to know by name

"Making It" in the Italian Language

fare
to make or do 

    English speakers are always “getting.” We get up, get going, get angry, get tired, get fat, get hired, get fired, get groceries, get dinner, get dumped, get lost, and get over it.  Italians are always "making" (the verb fare, pronounced fah-reh).  They make questions (fare domande), make a job (fare un lavoro), make a shower (fare la doccia), make a party (fare una festa), or make a walk (fare una passeggiata). Because Italians strive always to fare bella figura (make the best possible impression), they like to farsi bello (make themselves look good or spruce up). Women “make their hair” (farsi i capelli)  while men “make their beards” (farsi la barba) or shave.

    “Chi fa da se fa per tre,”  a busy woman once told me. This phrase--literally “who does for himself does for three”--translates figuratively as “If you want something done, do it yourself.” And so in Italy I like to spend an entire day “making.”

    Faccio (first person singular of fare) colazione (I eat breakfast), faccio un salto (make a quick jump) to the mercato (market), faccio la coda (wait in line), faccio footing (go for a jog), mi faccio un panino (eat a sandwich), faccio il bagno (swim), faccio attenzione (pay attention) to the time, faccio presto (hurry up), pay a visit (faccio una visita) to some friends, and dance with my husband (faccio quattro salti—literally to make four jumps) under the summer stars.    

    Italians also “make” their careers.  A physician fa il medico (works as a doctor); a lawyer fa l’avvocato; a teacher fa l’insegnante; an actor fa l’attore.  But anyone can farla da gran signore (act like a nobleman), fare l’eroe  (be the hero), darsi da fare in cucina (make a meal), or fare finta (make false or pretend). 

    After World War II many Italians, smitten by American pop culture and fashion, wanted nothing more than “fare l’americano"  (dance to rock and roll, play baseball, drink whiskey and soda)--the subject of a famous Neapolitan song  “Tu vuo’ fa’ Americano” from the 1950s.  This scene from It Happened in Naples offers the extra treat of la splendida Sophia Loren dancing and singing (in English) while Clark Gable speaks fluent Italian. No wonder the movie became all the rage (far furore). 

Words and Expressions:

falla finita! -- cut it out!
farsi animo, farsi coraggio --(make spirit or courage) be strong,  stay strong
Non fa nulla! -- Never mind!
Tra il dire e il fare c’è di mezzo il mare -- (Between saying and doing there is the middle of the sea) "Easier said than done."
Chi la fa, l’aspetti -- (He who makes it, or wrongs someone, has to expect the same in return.)  "What goes around, comes around."

 

On an Italian Big Foot

piede

foot

When I saw Constantine's colossal foot  on display at Rome’s Capitoline Museum, I thought of a saying I’d once read: “vivere su un gran piede” (to live on a large foot), that is, luxuriously or in style. Whether or not that’s always been true, Italian feet have been leaving big linguistic footprints for centuries.

Think of what you can do with Italian feet: You may go somewhere a piedi (on foot) or a piedi nudi (barefoot), camminare in punta di piedi (walk on the point of the feet, or on tiptoe), battere i piedi (stamp your feet), or compete in a corsa a piedi (footrace). On a boat you may avere il piede marino (get your sea legs). On land you might even pose for a ritratto in piedi (full-length portrait). In crowded theaters with only posti in piedi (standing-room), you may have to stare in piedi (stay on foot, or stand) for an entire performance.  

In English, shameless flatterers are bootlickers; in Italian, they’re leccapiedi (footlickers). Just like English-speakers, Italians may look at someone from head to toe (guardare qualcuno da capo a piedi) or be so swift that they seem to have wings on their feet (aver le ali ai piedi). Those with a foot in two camps tengono il piede in due staffe (literally put their feet in stirrups) or hedge their bets. Gli anziani (the very old) may have one foot in the grave (un piede nella fossa).

You better get moving if you hear an Italian cry out,“Fuori dai piedi!” (literally, outside one’s feet, or “Clear out!”). Pay attention if advised to “andare coi piedi di piombo!” (“Go with feet of lead") or watch your step and proceed with extreme caution. Never let someone farsi mettere i piedi sul collo (put his feet on your neck or walk all over you), nor should you mettere qualcuno sotto i piedi (put someone under your feet, or treat them badly). And be careful not to darsi la zappa sul piedi (give the hoe to one’s foot, or defeat your own purpose).

You never know when something may put you su due piedi (on two feet, or on the spot). But if you can prendere piede (take foot, or gain a foothold) and puntar i piedi (brace your feet, or hold one’s ground), you should be able to cadere in piedi (fall or land on your feet). Just be wary of ragionare coi piedi (thinking with one’s feet, or in an illogical way). You may end up with una cosa fatta coi piedi (something made with the feet, or a sloppy piece of work).

There’s one question for which I have yet to find an answer: What happens when an Italian puts his foot in his mouth? Does he mettersi il piede in bocca?

Words and Expressions

a pie’ sospinto -- very often, at every foot put forward

a piede libero -- on free foot, free

il collo del piede -- the neck of the foot, instep

togliti dai piedi -- get lost

How It Goes in the Italian Language

Va bene.
Okay. All right. It’s going well.

    “Va bene” are two words you hear every day in Italy. Va translates as  “goes,” the third-person singular form of andare (to go); bene means well. Anyone you encounter—waiter, sales clerk, concierge, driver, guide—may ask, “Come va?”  (How’s it going?)  If everything’s going well, you respond, “Va bene!”  If things are not just good but great, you can say, “Va benissimo!”

    Things can go a lot of ways in Italy: contro (against), avanti (ahead), indietro (backwards), a rotoli (downhill or to the dogs), or a male (rotten, as in food that spoils).  If something appeals to them, Italians say that it va a genio or a fagiolo (goes to their genius or to their bean).  If they’re absolutely crazy about it, they vanno pazzi (go crazy).  Something that becomes very popular or fashionable va molto (goes a lot).  A friend asking  “ti va…” wants to know if you fancy or feel like doing something. 

    Italians vanno a piedi (go by foot) or vanno in bicicletta (bicycle) in daily life.  Other destinations are figurative. When Italians die, they “vanno ai cipressi” (go to the cypresses or tall trees, which often grow near cemeteries).  Another destination that angry Italians still send their enemies to is “l’inferno” (hell).  Less vulgar alternatives are  “vai al diavolo!” (go to the devil) or “vai a quel paese” (go to that country).  Or you could vai a zonzo (go nowhere).

    To this day, the phrase andare a Canossa (“to go to Canossa”) means to humble one’s self in a dispute. It dates back almost a millennium to the year 1077. At the time a remarkable woman, the armor-wearing, horse-riding Matilda, gran contessa of Tuscany, ruled over a vast state in central Italy from her castle at Canossa. After years of conflict with Pope Gregory VII, the German king Henry IV crossed the Alps in winter to appear outside its gates as a barefoot penitent seeking absolution from Matilda’s papal guest.  Gregory kept the emperor waiting three days below the snow-swept castle before agreeing to see him.

    The lesson the once-arrogant ruler learned is captured by an Italian proverb: La superbia andò a cavallo e tornò a piedi. Pride went out on horseback and came back on foot.

Sayings and Expressions

andiamo! -- let's go

a lungo andare -- in the long run

andare a ruba -- to go at a steal or sell like hotcakes

andare da se -- to go without saying

Vado e torno -- I’ll be right back

Chi va piano va sano e va lontano -- Who goes slowly goes safely and goes far.

Italian film / cinema italiano

Italian film

cinema italiano

“I Mille Occhi” (the thousand eyes), Italy’s eighth annual international festival of cinema, begins this weekend. It’s a good time to recall that Italian film-makers, although long eclipsed by Hollywood directors, pioneered the new art form of movie-making a century ago.

The golden age of Italian cinema came early: 1909 to 1916, a period when Italian movies, mainly produced in Turin and Rome, captured and dominated the world market. Audiences flocked to see sprawling spectacles, colossal battle scenes, and astonishing special effects.

Early Italian movies both preceded and inspired Hollywood extravaganzas. Cabiria, a “sword and sandal” epic released in 1914 that greatly influenced American movie pioneer D.W. Griffith, created the model for spectacular scenes and larger-than-life movie heroes. Shot on location in the Alps, Sicily, and Tunisia, the multi-million-lira film amazed audiences with hand-tinted footage of Mount Etna erupting, the burning of the Roman fleet, and the march of Hannibal and his elephants.

In the labyrinthine plot pirates kidnap Cabiria, a beautiful Roman maiden, and sell her as a slave to Carthage. Just as the pagan high priest is about to burn her alive in an evil sacrifice, a Roman nobleman and his muscular slave Maciste, played by Bartolomeo Pagano (above), a stevedore who became a major star, arrive to save the beauty and the day.

With the birth of the talkie -- cinema sonoro -- in 1930 diction schools, originally set up to train radio announcers, began training professional doppiatori (dubbers) in perfectly enunciated italiano standard for both foreign and homegrown films, a practice that continued through most of the twentieth century.

In Italian theatres international film stars like Greta Garbo, Laurel and Hardy, Gary Cooper, and Mickey Mouse talked with “a Tuscan tongue in a Roman mouth”—classic Florentine pronounced with Rome’s more melodious accent. Even Pellerossa (American Indians—literally red skins) spoke refined Italian in deep, low voices.

Italian cinema reached its artistic zenith with the stark black-and-white “neorealistic” films produced between 1945 and 1952. With no money to hire professional actors, directors plucked men, women, and children from the thousands of destitute refugees camped in makeshift shacks after the war.

Revolutionary movies such as Roma, città aperta and Ladri di biciclette had no heroes, no happy endings, no Hollywood stardust, and often no professional actors. With unflinching, often-excruciating honesty, they recounted the stories Italians were telling each other about their bitter struggles for survival through dictatorship, occupation, war, and devastation.

“If you have any doubt about the power of movies to interact with life and restore the soul, study neorealistic films,” director Martin Scorsese says in his cinematic tribute to Italian cinema, My Trip to Italy. “They forced the rest of the world to look at Italians and see their humanity. To me, this was the most precious moment in movie history."

To see the wordless but powerful trailer for Ladri di biciclette. click below:

Words and Expressions (from American movies)

Mezzogiorno di fuoco (Midday of fire) -- High Noon

Via col vento -- Gone with the Wind

“Domani è un altro giorno” -- Rosella’s (Scarlett’s) famous line, “Tomorrow is another day.”

“Francamente me ne infischio” -- Rhett’s response. “Frankly, I could care less” (Censors wouldn’t allow the phrase “I don’t give a damn.”)

Viale del Tramonto -- Sunset Boulevard

Suonala ancora, Sam -- “Play it again, Sam,” from Casablanca

“Ma, dici a me?” -- “Are you talking to me?” from Taxi Driver

Puccini

            

Giacomo Puccini 

1858 - 1924

            The first Italian composer to sweep me off  my feet  was the last of Italy’s operatic princes, Giacomo Puccini. This  irrascible bon vivant was, as one biographer commented, perfectly equipped, mentally, emotionally, and musically to make his spiritual home “in that place where erotic passion, sensuality, tenderness, pathos, and despair meet and fuse.”

Describing himself as an  instinctive composer with “more heart than mind,” Puccini  wanted to express grandi dolori in piccole anime” (great sorrows in little souls), as he put it.  He was forever searching for a libretto “that will move the world”—all the while pursuing  lovely ladies, fast cars, and the wild geese he hunted at his beloved Torre del Lago near the Tuscan coast.

After a scandalous affair, he ran off with the pregnant Elvira Gemignani, his piano student, the wife of a friend, and the mother of two young children.  Yet Puccini’s eye never stopped roving. On a visit to America, he wrote his sister that New York women “could make the Tower of Pisa stand erect.”

In La Boheme, written in a lively idiom that sounds  colloquial compared to conventional librettos, Puccini created poetry of ordinary things. A worn overcoat becomes a treasure; a dropped key, a ruse for romance; a simple seamstress and starving writer, the  spinners of soulful dreams.

Puccini wanted his audience to experience his music as if they were living it, not watching it on stage.   He achieved this sublime feat  in part because of his meticulous attention to detail. For the prelude to the third act of Tosca, set on the ramparts of Rome’s Castel Sant’Angelo at dawn, Puccini went to the historic fortress on the Tiber in the early hours of the morning  so he could replicate  the multitude of matin bells ringing over the hushed city. 

Puccini’s pursuit of the ultimate libretto led him to London and a play by David Belasco, an American playwright, about a geisha of the time abandoned by a cavalier naval officer. On February 17, 1904, Madama Butterfly opened at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala . The applause for the lilting love duet at the end of act one was subdued, and the rambunctious loggioni in the cheap seats booed. At the final curtain they hissed and shouted at what critics called it “a diabetic opera.”  

Puccini, who felt that Madama Butterfly was his best work  was stunned. His publisher and producer canceled all performances, refunded a sack of money, and got to work snipping and tucking. A  more streamlined, less saccharine Butterfly re-opened in Brescia and moved on to triumph in Paris  and the world.

Puccini died of complications of throat cancer treatment before completing his last opera, Turandot, although he left dozens of pages of notes for its end.  At its premiere at La Scala on April 25, 1926, a year and five months after Puccini’s death, Toscanini put down his baton in the middle of Act III  and said to the audience,  “Here the opera ends because at this point the maestro died.”

To hear Turandot’s most famous aria, click below

 

            Words and Expressions from Puccini’s Operas

Che gelida manina! – "What a cold little hand," from La Boheme

Un bel di vedremo – "One fine day we’ll see," from Madama Butterfly

Addio fiorito asil – "Farewell, flowery haven," from Madama Butterfly

E lucevan le stelle – "And the stars were shining," from Tosca

Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore – "I have lived for art, I have lived for love," from Tosca

 

           

 

Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

(1813-1901)

Italians fondly use the nickname “Peppino” for Giuseppe Verdi, the Michelangelo of Italian opera.  In more than thirty operas, this maestro of maestri gave “Italians” a unifying language and helped meld the patchwork of independent states and occupied territories into a unified nation.

The son of a poor tavern-owner in  Emilia-Romagna, this musical prodigy  became the village organist at age 12.  As a young man, he fell in love with the daughter of his first patron, married,  had two children, and wrote two operas (one cheered and one booed at Milan's prestigious Teatro alla Scala. Then, in the span of three tragic years, Verdi’s children and cherished wife died.   He swore never to compose  again.

One night an impresario in Milan shoved a rejected libretto into Verdi’s hands. Alone in his room, he threw the manuscript onto a table. “Without my knowing why,” he later recalled,  “I found myself staring at the paper in front of me and saw these verses: “Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate.”   ‘Go, thought, on golden wings.”  He was so intrigued by the phrase from the biblical story of Egypt’s Hebrew slaves that he couldn’t sleep.

The libretto became the opera Nabucco, which premiered in 1842. Its poignant chorus, “Va, pensiero,”  the lament of the enslaved captives longing for their homeland, became an unofficial anthem for Il Risorgimento, the resurgence, a nationalistic movement that was sweeping the fragmented peninsula.

“The tune made him, then and for all time, the singer of his people’s liberty,” wrote an early biographer. The  day after Nabucco opened, people were singing the song in the streets. As nationalism grew, its advocates shouted,  “Viva V.E.R.D.I.!”—not only in homage to the composer, but as an abbreviation for “Victor Emmanuel Re D’Italia,” the Piedmont king who promised to liberate Italy from its foreign occupiers.

Attila, one of Verdi’s lesser works, included a line that stirred millions of patriotic souls: “You may have the universe, if I may have Italy.”  An Italian friend puts her own spin on this phrase: “You may have the universe, if I may have Verdi.”   I understand why.

Verdi insisted on strong situations, strong emotions, strong contrasts, and the strong language he called parole sceniche, dramatic words “that carve out a situation or a character.” What were le parole sceniche  of  his life?  Croce (torment), for sure, caused by crushing losses.  Delizia (delight) in a  half-century-long relationship with the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi that scandalized his hometown.  Vendetta? Verdi’s operas vibrate with hate-fueled vengeance, and he held fierce grudges for decades.

Verdi’s genius glowed long and bright. He composed Otello at 74 and Falstaff at 80. On January 21, 1901,  at age 88, Verdi,  whose music seemed  as vital as air to generations of Italians, died.  At the cemetery, Toscanini led a chorus of more than 900 singers in “Va, Pensiero.”   Without prompting, the entire crowd joined in the chorus  that had helped forge a nation.

To listen to this stirring tune, click below

 

Words and Expressions from Verdi operas

croce e delizia  --  cross (torment) and delight, from La Traviata

sempre libera – always free, from La Traviata

Libiamo né lieti calici  che la bellezza infiora – Let’s drink to the happy goblets which beauty  embellishes, from La Traviata

di quella pira l’orrendo fuoco – of that pyre the horrid fire, from Il Trovatore

la bella mano candida – what a beautiful white hand, from Rigoletto

Photo  by Ken Howard of Il Trovatore at the San Francisco Opera

opera lirica

opera lirica
opera

September marks the beginning of one of my favorite times of year. opera season, and I dedicate this week's blogs to my favorite opera company, the San Francisco Opera.

La lirica (from l’opera lirica, or work in lyrics)  is the most Italian of inventions, a splendid confection of music, words, drama, costumes, sets, special effects, and complete suspension of belief that could not have emerged in any other country.  Nothing looks like Italian opera. Nothing sounds like Italian opera. And no one speaks or has ever spoken the elevated idiom found in the libretto  (little book) of virtually every classic Italian opera.

As soon as she steps on stage, a donna (woman) becomes a beltà (beauty) -- no matter how plain, old, or large the singer. Rather than a chiesa (church), she goes to a tempio (temple), where sacri bronzi (sacred bronzes) ring instead of campane (bells). Stage directions for battle scenes invariably call for the firing, not of a cannone, but of a bronzo ignivomo  (fire-vomiting bronze). An impassioned suitor  entreats his beloved, “Stringimi al seno,” usually translated as, “Draw me to your bosom.” But seno, a Roman physician informs me, refers more precisely to the delicate spot between a woman’s breasts.

Absurd though it may be, opera’s stile gonfiato, or inflated style, can  enchant -- no less than the  golden wings  of  music  that carry the poetic words aloft. I fell under its spell long before I knew a single sentence in Italian. As a graduate student at Columbia, I would buy a standing-room ticket  to the Metropolitan or New York City Opera  and sidle into an empty seat, working my way ever closer to the stage.  At certain magical performances,  the  melding of words and music bypassed my ears and shot straight to my  heart.  I could actually feel it fluttering in my chest, directly beneath my seno.

When I moved to San Francisco to marry a man who had never even been to an opera, I won him over slowly.  On Saturday evenings we would anchor our little sail boat off Belvedere island, watch the stars, and listen to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on a portable radio.  Without the benefit of a libretto, we had to listen with our hearts, intuiting what the singers were saying. Within a year, Bob was hooked, and we had student tickets (he was a psychiatry resident at the time) to the Friday evening  series at the San Francisco Opera.

Back then I thought that learning Italian would help me understand opera better. Instead, the more I learned about la lirica,  the better I understood Italian -- and Italians.  Phrases from its overwrought libretti percolate through the language.

Every Alfredo sooner or later is implored, “Amami (“Love me!”), Alfredo!” from La Traviata, and every Aida becomes “celeste Aida,” another of Verdi’s heroines. Men who shake my hand on a chilly day break into, “Che gelida manina!” (“What a cold little hand!”)  from La Boheme. Thanks to la lirica, vendetta (vengeance)  is always tremenda (terrible) as in Rigoletto, while  lacrime (tears) are furtive (hidden) as in L’Elisir  d’Amore,  and spiriti (spirits) bollenti (boiling-hot), as in La Traviata.

 Click below to hear for yourself.

 

Words and Expressions (from some of my favorite arias)

"E lucevan le stelle" --  “The stars are fading,” from Puccini’s Tosca.

Un bel di vedremo -- “A beautiful day we will see,” from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly

O mio babbino caro  -- “Oh my dear daddy,” from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi

La donna è mobile --  “A woman is fickle,” from Verdi’s Rigoletto

O tu che in seno agli angeli -- “O you who in the bosom of the angels,” from Verdi’s La Forza del Destino

 

Photo above courtesty of San Francisco Opera by Ken Howard.

Italish

I am happy to present a guest blog from a British reader, Ainsley Okoro:

 

Italish

(The Invasion of Anglo-Italiano)

Brits don’t do foreign languages very well. (Perhaps that’s why we spent centuries forcing large parts of the world to speak ours.)  So as an Englishman of a certain age, the four years I spent learning Italian weren’t smooth sailing.         

The low points? How about the time I tried to ask a waitress in Forte dei Marmi, Tuscany, about leaving la mancia (the tip) on the table but instead asked her what to do about la minchia (a crude term for the  male sex organ). And don’t get me started on one of my first meetings with my future mother-in-law, when I confused ho scoperto (I discovered) with ho scopato (which can translate as “swept” or a very vulgar term for sex).

Yet sometimes I wonder why I went to the bother of learning the world’s most romantic language when half of Italy seems intent on replacing it with an ugly mishmash of Italian and English. 

For example, looking for somewhere to stay on that vacation in Tuscany? If gli hotel are fully booked, lo staff should be able to point you to a bed and breakfast. If you plan on staying for more than a week, you might consider un residence or un loft with un big open-space. Make sure you’re close to a town centre -- handy if you need to fare lo shopping at un shopping centre, sure to be full of i fashion outlet and i discount shop.

It’s just as bad in the media. There’s Il Premier Silvio Berlusconi using la sua private jet to ferry i VIP and le showgirl to i party at his villa, where he’s said to have bedded una sexy escort.

It’s not the first time he’s committed una gaffe. No wonder he appears to be wilting under lo stress and complaining about la sua privacy. Some anti-Berlusconi activists have gathered outside parliament to hurl gli slogan. But he’s more worried about the reaction from il settore dei business. That and un nuovo poll suggesting most Italians think his budget will prove un flop.

Elsewhere in le news? Un killer on the run, leaving residents of one Calabria village in lo shock. Thankfully detectives have now caught him, putting uno stop to his crimes. 

Far worse are the gossip and beauty magazines, where you learn Madonna non è più single. She’s got un nuovo boyfriend, and she and il suo partner have been seen together in un resort. A few pages on, una showgirl from un reality show is supping i cocktail in un bar. She ended up going for a spot of il clubbing before heading home with una pop star from una boyband.

Enough already. What’s so difficult about using spuntino instead of snack and  albergo instead of hotel?

No surprise that last year the prestigious Dante Alighieri Society began a campaign to preserve the purity of the Italian language. They have a tough job on their hands, though. Anglo-Italiano, it seems, is il nuovo trend.

Words  (That Only Seem to Be English)

il golf – pullover

il mister – soccer coach

lo smoking – tuxedo jacket

lo spot – commerical

la fiction – film for TV

Ainsley Okoro works for the property in Italy website Homes and Villas Abroad.com and specializes in Calabria property and Tuscany property

bandiera

bandiera

flag

           The colors of the  flag of Italy (bandiera d'Italia) date back to an Italian everyone assumes was French: Napoleon Bonaparte, born of Italian parents on the island of Corsica the year after France annexed it.  “The colors to adopt are the green (il verde), the white (il bianco) and the red (il rosso),"  he declared, although the flag of the nation he had conquered was meant only as a military standard.

            It wasn’t until 1946, when Italy became a republic,  that il tricolore, as the Italians call it, became the national flag.  In 2006 the government established  the official colors as verde erba (fern green), bianco latte (milk white)  and rosso pomodoro (tomato red).

            Why red, white and green?  Historians have traced these choices to the uniforms of various regiments, but Italian school children learn a different answer in a poem many friends can still recite by heart:

     “Con il rosso dei tramonti siciliani , 

    con il  bianco delle nevi delle Alpi 

    e con il verde delle valli di  Toscana, 

    noi faremo la bandiera Italiana.” 

    “With the red of the Sicilian sunsets 

    with the white of the snow in the Alps 

    and with the green of the Tuscan valleys 

    we will make the Italian flag.” 

            On national holidays and at great celebrations, such as a World Cup victory, Italy is a sea of red, white and green.  But these three colors also turn up in other places, literally and figuratively.  Rosso, for instance, is the color of il mar rosso (the Red Sea), rosso d’uovo (egg yolk, rosy in Italian farm eggs) carne rossa (red meat), and sugo rosso (tomato sauce).  A tourist might diventare rosso or arrossire (turn red or blush) when walking through a quartiere a luci rosse (red-light district).

             As if by magia bianca (white magic,  performed with the intent of doing good), bianco turns up  everywhere from a settimana bianca (white week or ski holiday) to a notte in bianco (sleepless night) to a matrimonio bianco (unconsummated marriage). If you misunderstand completely, you prendere bianco per nero (take white for black).  If you deceive people, you far vedere bianco per nero (make them see white for black). If you’re not feeling well, you should mangiare in bianco  (eat only "white" food products such as bread, pasta, chicken and rice).

Unlike Americans who overspend and end up in the red, Italians go to the green (al verde), an expression that dates back to the time when the base of a candle was painted green.  When the flame burned all the way down, people, presumably out of money to buy candles, ran out of light as well.  Al verde also may refer to the hapless state of a gambler who has lost everything and sees only the bare playing table, usually green, in front of him.

As you contemplate the colors of the Italian flag, you can listen to its anthem, Il Canto degli Italiani  (The Song of the Italians), better known as  Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) or Inno di Mamelli, anthem of Manelli, the young student and patriot who composed it in 1847:  

 

Words and Expressions

portare alta la bandiera – carry high or do honor to the flag, fly the flag of

voltare bandiera  --change flags, or opinions

issare la bandiera – hoist the flag

a bandiera spiegata – with flying colors

banderaio, bandieraio (dialect terms) – flagmaker 

banderola, banderuola (dialect terms)– streamer, pennant

bandierina -- small flag used in sport