Why I fell in love with Italia #1: LA LINGUA
Filipe B., 07.07.16
It’s the FinalCountdown serving as a volunteer for Europe. It’s my last month in questomaledetto paese that made me fall in love since the very beginning. So I’ll startnew posts trying to explain why I have this grande amore for Italia. Starting with… Lalingua! [ Italian and english sound so great mixed ]
First letme say this. As a portuguese I always thought that learning and understandingitaliano would be much easier. And... it was not so difficult (let's saycomparing to someone who comes from Russia for example). In the end italianoit's so similar to portuguese in terms of writing but at the same timesooooooo different in the way it sounds.
Italiano isin fact one of the most beautiful languages in the world… if not the mostbeautiful of all! I realized that during my life here.
When Italianstalk, they don’t speak, they sing. For real! We portuguese speak with closedsounds, but they really use all of the mouth… really open! Like… amazing! Atthe beginning it’s strange for you, but then you start to see how theyarticulate every sound, doing some pauses in the same word just to highlight aletter. For example when they say “Morena” (with only one N) they say it quick,but when they say “Ravenna” (with two N) they say it slower… almost with amusical pace. I think they don’t even think about these things. But imagine mediscovering a new language and paying attention to every little detail.
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| Mariano Di Vaio... because... he speaks italiano. :P |
Anotherthing. Everyone knows that the ragazzi italiani have a great fame abroad. But letme say this. Obviously they don’t look all like Mariano Di Vaio, so how do theymanage to have this notorious fame? It’s in the way they speak, for sure. Howcan you end a relationship with a ragazzo that calls you amore mio with allthat swing? How can you not fall in love when a ragazzo comes and calls youbella (or bello!) with such passionate sounds involving such simple words?
I’m notjoking. One day, after a first kind of a date, a ragazzo said this to me “Sei moltocarino!” (like: You are really cute) and he’s voice was so powerful and musical that I thoughthe wanted to marry me. I got so scared that we never talked again. Oh yeah… soit’s possible to resist it. I’m the proof. I'm always the proof when things go the wrong way.
Anyway… I’mtalking about the “general” italiano, because they have so many variations, somany dialects, that it would be impossible to cover all of them (Thank you Dante!!). Believe me.They have a dialect for every region, every city, every neighborhood. I’mpretty sure that only in my street there are 2 or 3 different versions of italiano. Starting with my Italiano - the Portuguese remix feat.
To endthis.
Italians soundlovely even when they are angry.
When they're sad they sound even more touching.
They soundlovely in every sound. That’s it. E basta!