Becoming Italian Word by Word

The Italian You Won't Learn in Class: Happy Birthday!

Buon Compleanno!

Happy Birthday!

A guest post by Valeria Biancalani

Birthdays are an ideal moment to express our love to relatives (parenti) and friends (amici), but when we are about to write a greeting card (un biglietto d’auguri) or send a text to give our best wishes to someone, it can sometimes be difficult to find the right phrase (la frase giusta) that distinguishes our message from others.

In Italian there are many different ways to wish somebody happy birthday. The most common is Buon compleanno, but we also have other more general expressions, such as Auguri, Auguroni or Augurissimi. These expressions aren’t related exclusively to birthdays and can also be used to give our best wishes for other special occasions (altre occasioni speciali), such as Christmas, a wedding or the birth of a baby.

Apart from these common ways to wish your nearest and dearest a happy birthday, there are many other phrases you could use as well. Some are very formal, others more romantic and quite a few are humorous and sarcastic (my favorite!). So the key is to choose the most suitable one, depending on the kind of relationship you have with il festeggiato (the person celebrating the birthday):

    *Cento di questi giorni -- literally, a hundred of these days; many happy returns

    *Spero che tutti i tuoi desideri si avverino -- may all your wishes come true

    *Questo è un giorno da ricordare perché è nata una persona davvero speciale -- today is a day to remember because a very special person was born

    *Non importa quanti anni hai ma quanti te ne senti –- it’s not how old you are, but how old you feel

    *Sei come il buon vino: più invecchi, più migliori –- You are like a good wine: you get better with age

    *Su con la vita! Non sei vecchio…diciamo che sei vintage –- Cheer up! You’re not old … let’s just say you’re vintage

Here are some other useful words and expressions related to birthdays:

Festa di compleanno -- birthday party

Festa a sorpresa -- surprise party

Festeggiare -- to celebrate

Regalo -- present

Incartare un regalo -- to wrap a present

Scartare un regalo -- to unwrap a present

Torta –- cake

Candele/candeline -- candles

Spegnere le candele -- to blow out the candles

Esprimere un desiderio -- to make a wish

Click here to watch a video and discover how to pronounce these Italian words and expressions related to birthdays.

Valeria Biancalani is an Italian teacher and the founder of Parlando Italiano, an Italian language school that offers Italian lessons online with native and qualified tutors. For more about Valeria, check out her Youtube channel and Facebook page.

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language, now available as an audiobook, and MONA LISA: A Life Discovered.

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Imparare l'italiano

Learning Italian

In honor of the annual "Settimana della Lingua Italiana nel Mondo" (Week of the Italian Language in the World), I am re-posting my favorite ways of studying l’italiano.

1. Fill your ears. Modern Italian sprang from the volgare, the rough-and-ready street Latin of ancient Rome. Spoken for centuries before the vernacular was captured on paper, Italian remains a language for the ear.   Listening primes the brain for understanding. Downloading podcasts and listen on planes, trains, buses and places in between.

2. See it, say it, stick it.  Train yourself to say the Italian word (if only to yourself) for things you look at every day: il cielo for the sky, la sedia for  the chair; il pane for the bread. Put a post-it note with the Italian name on objects, such as la porta (the door) or lo specchio (the mirror), around the house. Don’t remove one until you’ve memorized the term.

3. Read. Go to onlinenewspapers.com for a sampling of Italian language papers. Just scanning the headlines will give you a sense of common words and names in the news. Try to get your hands on Italian comics (seriously). They provide a fun way to improve your vocabulary and reading skills.

4. Watch. You can find news, documentaries and popular shows on RAI's website. Various sites and networks, including Netflix, offer Italian language movies. If they have subtitles, by all means read them,  but leave the sound on so you can absorb the rhythm of the language.

5. Sing. Even if you can’t carry a tune, singing along with popular Italian songs can introduce you to everyday vocabulary and improve your pronunciation. At www.youtube.com you’ll find everything from charming ninnenanne (lullabies) to pop tunes like Volare and famous operatic arias.

6. Play. Word games in any language strengthen the brain and boost memory. In Italian giochi di parole, such as cruciverba (crosswords), enigmi (puzzles) and anagrammi (anagrams) add the extra bonus of building your vocabulary.  Or you can ask an Italian to teach you card games such as Scopa and Briscola. (Just don’t bet any money on them.)

7. Mingle.  Watch a soccer match in an Italian bar or restaurant. Take cooking classes taught by Italians. Go to Italian street festivals. Enroll in a class at schools, community centers, Italian cultural organizations -- or, best of all, in Italy.

8. Don’t be afraid of tripping over your tongue. “Sbagliando si impara,” Italians say. “You learn by making mistakes.” Focus on communicating, not speaking in diagram-able sentences. And by all means, use your hands. That’s molto italiano.

9. Spend time in Italy every day. If you don't have time or money for a trip abroad, bring a little Italy into your life. Drink an espresso. Enjoy some gelato. Wear something Italian (shoes are a great choice). Visit the websites of ex-pats, happy wanderers and travel bloggers.

10. Be swept away. I fell so madly, gladly, giddily in love with Italian that I spent years researching and writing a biography of the language.  The more you know about how Italian became Italian, civilized the Western world and enriched every aspect of our culture and life, the more Italian you’ll want to know.

Dianne Hales is the author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and the New York Times best-selling LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language, now available as an audiobook.

For something entirely different, sit in on an Italian class with Monty Python:

The Week of the Italian Language in the World

 

Italian Language Week

The third week of October marks the sixteenth Settimana della Lingua Italiana nel Mondo (week of the Italian language in the world). The annual evento culturale internazionale (international cultural event) promotes Italian as una grande lingua di cultura classica e contemporanea (a great language of classic and contemporary culture).

Each year's commemoration has un tema che serve da filo rosso per conferenze, mostre e spettacoli, incontri con scrittori e personalità (a theme that serves as a "red" or leading thread for conferences, exhibits and performances, meetings with writers and personalities). This year's theme is "L'italiano e la creatività: marchi e costumi, moda e design" (Italians and creativity:  brands and traditions, fashion and design). Check with your local Italian Cultural Institute and Italian schools or university departments for special concerts and lectures. 

L'Accademia della Crusca, the bastion of the Italian language, has published an e-book on this year's theme. From October 17 to 23, you can download it for free on various international platforms, including  Apple iBookstore, Amazon Kindle Store and Google Play Books. Click this link for the e-book.

Italian itself dates back to a time before time. Nearly three millennia ago a band of itinerant shepherds and farmers, possibly led by the legendary Romulus, settled on the hills above the Tiber. Their utterances evolved into the volgare (from the Latin sermo vulgaris, for  the people's common speech), the rough-and-ready spoken vernacular.

Scrappy street Latin, not the classical, cadenced rhetoric of Caesar and Cicero, gave rise to all the Romance languages, including Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian.  The Italian peninsula, brutally divided, invaded and conquered, remained a patchwork of dialects, often as different from each other as French from Spanish or English from Italian, for centuries. 

Italian as we know it was created, not born. With the same thunderbolt genius that would transform art in the Renaissance, writers of fourteenth-century Florence—Dante first and foremost—crafted the effervescent Tuscan vernacular into a language rich and powerful enough to sweep down from heaven and up from hell.  This priceless living legacy, no less than Petrarch’s poetry, Michelangelo’s sculptures, Verdi’s operas, Fellini’s movies or Valentino’s dresses, is an artistic masterwork.

Rallying for one nation united by one language, Italians won their country’s independence in 1861. At the time four in five of its citizens were illiterate. Fewer than 10 percent spoke Italian exclusively or with greater ease than a local dialect. Word by word, generation by generation, village by village, the people of the new nation of Italy became Italian speakers.

Ever-growing numbers of people around the world are trying to do the same. With only an estimated 60 to 63 million native speakers, Italian ranks 19th among the world’s most spoken tongues. Nonetheless it has become the fourth most-studied language (after English, Spanish and French).

Why do so many people want to study Italian? For its beauty, its musicality, its history, its role in the global marketplace, its link to family roots. So students say, but I suspect that many, if not most, pursue Italian for the simplest of motivations: love of la bella lingua. 

Words and Expressions

 Italianista -- Italian scholar, someone versed in Italian scholarship

 Italianamente -- in the Italian way, like an Italian

Italianizzare -- to Italianize

Linguaggio -- language, speech, idiom

Dianne Hales is the author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered, and the New York Times best-selling LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

Want to unleash your passion? Study Italian!

Give It Up for the Italian Language!

Dare (dah-ray)

To give

“Dai!” (pronounced “die”), a young woman gasps when she hears a racy bit of gossip. “Dai!” an exasperated mother snaps at her rambunctious toddler. “Dai!” yells a fan watching a soccer match. “Ma dai!” protests a shopper when someone tries to cut in line.

”Dai” literally means "give"  (second person singular) but, depending on inflection, tone and volume, this small syllable can express irritation, incredulity, encouragement, impatience, tension, surprise or suspicion that someone is pulling your leg. In various contexts dai may translate into English as “Come on,” “Cut it out,” “No way!” or a sarcastic “As if!” “Ma dai!” is even stronger and more emphatic.

Italian has many other ways of giving. You might start the day by dare il buon giorno (saying good morning). If you’re a student, you might dare un esame (take a test). If you have a lot to do, you would darsi da fare (get busy). If visitors arrive, you would dare il benvenuto (give a welcome). Then you can dare ascolto (give a listen) to what they have to say. If you decide to dare una festa (throw a party), you’re likely to darsi alla pazza gioia (have a blast).

“Dare” gives life (dare vita) to a wide range of actions. You might dare un sospiro di sollievo (give a sigh of relief), dare assicurazione (give assurance or reassure), dare la colpa (give the fault or blame) or dare fuoco (set on fire). Some things may dare fastidio (annoy or bother) or make you dare in escandescenze (burst out in rage). Just don’t give up (darsi per vinto), take to drink (darsi al bere) or shoot yourselfin the foot (darsi la zappa ai piedi).

You can dare una risposta (give an answer), dare un calcio (give a kick), dare i saluti (give regards) or dare un passagio (give a lift). If a person catches your eye, he or she would dare nell’occhio (literally, give in the eye). Annoying people can be said to dare sui nervi (give on the nerves). In this case you might dare dello stupido (call them stupid) or feel an urge to darle (beat them). “Darle di santa ragione” (give of holy reason) means to thrash the living daylights out of someone.

If you want to ask someone how old they think you are, you might say, “Quanti anni mi dai?” (How many years do you give me?) If a forty-year-old woman could pass for thirty, you might say that “le danno trent’anni” (they give her thirty years).

Is it better to give than receive (meglio dare che ricevere) in Italian?  The answer one friend gave was "può darsi” (literally, it could give itself). In other words, perhaps. But don't worry if you haven't been giving in the past.  Chi ha dato ha dato, chi ha avuto ha avuto. (Who gave gave, who had had).  In other words, what’s done is done.

Words and Expressions:

Darla a bere –- to put one over 

Dare a credere –- to make believe

Darsela a gambe / darsela a gambe levate –- to cut and run, to go running off

Darsi delle arie –- to put on airs

Dare del tu -– to use the informal version of speech

Darsi allo sport/studio/alla pittura -– to devote oneself to sport/studying/painting

Dianne Hales is the author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World' Most Enchanting Language. 

Sky High in the Italian Language

Il cielo

The sky

Over the centuries artists such as Leonardo and Titian have tried to capture the radiant Italian sky on canvas. Its colors range from lightish blue (azzurrognolo, azzurrino, celestino) to clear blue (azzurro) to bright blue (blu) to a truly heavenly blue (celeste) to dark, deep blue (turchino). 

At sunset (tramonto) the sky may erupt in a dazzling Technicolor display of gold (oro), pink (rosa), scarlet (rosso scarlatto), orange (arancione), flame red (rosso fuoco) and bronze (bronzo).  At night you can lie a cielo aperto  (under the open sky) and marvel at the cielo stellato (star-studded sky).  

In Italy the summer sun often blazes from a cielo senza nuvole (cloudless sky). Some days bring no more than a nuvola passeggera (passing cloud); others, a banco di nuvole (mass of clouds).  Over the inland mountains in the afternoon the sky may darken to grigio (gray) under a nuvolone carico di pioggia (black storm cloud).   As if someone shouted  “Apriti cielo!” (literally, Open the heavens, although it translates as Good heavens!), all hell breaks loose, with a sudden acquazzone (cloudburst) and fulmini (lightning) crackling across il cielo.

If you're lost in thought, you may have your testa fra le nuvole (head in the clouds).  Something may be ne’ in cielo ne’ in terra  (neither in heaven or earth, or utter nonsense), but it can be tempting to attaccarsi alle funi in cielo (cling to the ropes in the sky, or go to any length to prove a point).

If il ciel me ne guardi (heaven forbid), something bad happens, the unexpected news could make you cadere dalle nuvole (fall from the clouds). You might try to muovere cielo e terra (move heaven and earth) to cope. Volesse il cielo (if the heavens wish) and things go well, you may be so thrilled that you feel that you could camminare sulle nuvole (walk on little clouds -- or air) or even toccare il cielo con un dito (touch heaven with a finger).

An Italian song perfectly captures the sensation of soaring into the sky: the infectiously hummable “Volare”  (“To Fly”). The English lyrics are different than the original Italian ones, which describe a dreamer with hands and face painted blue swept away by the wind to fly “nel ciel infinito” (in the infinite sky).

Here is a translation of the chorus:

Volare, oh oh

Cantare, oh oh oh oh

Nel blu dipinto di blu

Felice di stare lassu'.

Flying, oh oh

Singing, oh oh oh oh

In the blue. painted blue

Happy to stay up there.

Words and Expressions

Cielo a peccorele, acqua a catinelle  -- fleecy clouds one day, buckets of rain the next

Portare al settimo cielo -- carry to the seventh heaven or praise to the skies

Essere nelle nuvole -- to be in the clouds, daydream

Per amor del cielo -- for love of heaven

Dianne Hales is the author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and the New York Times best-selling La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

Click below to listen to the Italian version: