Better Reading Italian. A Reader and Guide to Improving Your Understanding of Written Italian
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Preface
Better Reading Italian is intended for native English speakers who wish
to improve their skill in reading Italian. Although we live in a world
where English is becoming the lingua franca, foreign languages are
now more accessible than ever, thanks to the Internet and furiously
multiplying web sites. Learners not interested in classical literature
may find it useful, or even necessary, to be able to navigate a site in a
foreign language.
The first step to better reading is to read more. To encourage be-
ginning readers to pick up this book, it has been organized into sec-
tions according to eight areas of interest—travel within Italy, cuisine,
fashion, customs and society, education, the family, feminism, and
Italian attitudes toward America—with the idea that at least one of
these areas might interest them already, and that after exploring that
area, interest in another will follow naturally. It is also true that read-
ing better encourages us to read more.
All of the reading selections in this book are original. Students of
Italian may find easier, carefully prepared pieces in their grammar
books, where every sentence is calibrated to the student’s level of
proficiency. But learning to read a foreign language means learning
how to understand texts that are aimed at native speakers and there-
fore take for granted references, context, and levels of understanding
that are mysterious to foreigners. Sooner or later, readers must con-
front this problem if they want to understand texts that express the
culture of a foreign country. The first selection is a children’s poem
that is grammatically very simple, as simple as the vocabulary used.
But its references—to a city and its landmarks and to a children’s
book, Cuore—may create difficulties for a foreign learner, no matter
how proficient his or her knowledge of the “language” may be.
Readers should be patient with themselves. A first reading may
yield only partial understanding, so it is crucial to read a selection
several times, at different times. A reference to “gli azzurri” in a news-
paper headline may make sense only after visiting a web site on Ital-
ian soccer. (“Azzurri” is the nickname for the national soccer team.) A
reference to “D.O.C. wine” may mean nothing to you until you see it
spelled out on a bottle of fine Italian wine: Denominazione di Origine
Controllata.
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While this book cannot thoroughly cover all things Italian, it does
attempt to give a sense of the complexity and range of Italian linguis-
tic production and cultural attitudes. The chapter on fashion and
design includes an excerpt from one of Gadda’s novels that is difficult
even for native readers! It is included here to show how far the lan-
guage can be pushed by a good and complex writer. The chapter on
the family offers a portrait of family relations that are not exclusively
focused on the stereotypical figure of an overprotective mamma.
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Preface
How to use this book
One of the joys of reading is that you can read what you want, when
you want, however you want.
The format of Better Reading Italian enables you to use, and benefit
from, the book in different ways. One approach is to read the easiest
selections in each section, writing the exercises after each one, then
progress to more difficult selections. The level of difficulty of each
piece is indicated. Level 1 selections are for learners who, while hav-
ing a command of Italian grammar, have yet to acquire a large vocab-
ulary and are not accustomed to long and complicated syntax. Level
2 selections present some lexical and syntactic difficulties that can
be solved by a dictionary and a grammar book. Level 3 selections are
for the student who wishes to extend an already proficient reading
knowledge of Italian. There are two pieces “beyond level 3”: an ex-
cerpt from a novel by Carlo Emilio Gadda and a poem by Giovanni
Pascoli. These provide a sense of how the limits of the language can
be pushed so that even native readers have to mobilize all their re-
sources to understand what the writer wishes to convey.
Another approach is to select a topic that interests you, read each
of the selections in order, writing the exercises after each one. If you
are really interested in this topic, you will probably be able to read
the most difficult selections—because you want to and because you
have been developing important reading skills that make the material
easier to read. Then you may choose another topic that interests you.
English words and phrases are now common in Italian. Some are
indispensable, although in many cases there is no need to use English
words except to flaunt one’s (often superficial) knowledge of English;
why should you say “the new economy” instead of “la nuova econo-
mia”? Nevertheless, because this is the linguistic trend in Italy, Better
Reading Italian provides readers with examples of the living language,
not just with examples of good Italian.
Users of this book are invited to use props: dictionaries, grammar
books, product labels, maps, and—above all—the Internet. Several
Italian web sites have English versions, and several offer English
translations of the original site.
The exercises that follow the reading selections are designed to
develop reading skills.
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• Making sense of the selection. Extensive comprehension questions
follow each reading selection. Some of these questions can be an-
swered after a quick reading to determine general purpose and
content; others may require you to scan the selection for detailed
information. In many cases, you can make educated guesses
about the meaning of words by their use in the context of the sen-
tence, the paragraph, or the entire reading. By the time you are
able to answer all the questions yourself (there are no answers at
the back of the book!), you will have acquired a full comprehen-
sion of the reading.
• Vocabulary. Nouns relevant to a particular topic are listed with the
appropriate article, since it is the article, not the ending of the
noun, that tells you its gender. Adjectives are listed in their basic
form, which is usually masculine singular. You should attempt to
learn nouns with their articles and verbs with the preposition(s)
most commonly used to link them to their objects.
Many Italian words have cognates in English—words that are
similar in form and meaning. We instinctively translate these Ital-
ian words because they look like English words: fondazione imme-
diately conjures up “foundation.” But some of these words will
fool you; they look like English words but have very different
meanings. These words are called falsi amici, “false friends.” For
example, attuale means “contemporary” or “up-to-date” in Italian,
not “actual” or “real.” Italian words that are similar in both form
and meaning to English words are called “true cognates” in this
book and are set in bold type in vocabulary lists.
• Grammar points. Clear, concise grammar explanations are provided
to help make sense of a specific selection. Related exercises rein-
force your grasp of these grammar points and will inevitably be of
use in further reading.
• Fill in the blanks. These exercises ask you to complete a sentence,
often with a word or expression that can be found in the selection
or a vocabulary list. This encourages you to use a word in more
than one context, thereby learning the semantic field that it cov-
ers. Unless otherwise noted, write-on lines for answers indicate
that the answers can be found in the Answer key at the end of the
book.
• Idiomatic expressions and proverbs. These lists help you to recognize
and learn the meaning of forms that are lost in translation.
Buona lettura!
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How to use this book
Il bel paese
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It seems appropriate to begin a book on how to read Italian with
a quotation from Dante. The phrase il bel paese comes from Canto
XXXIII of Dante’s Inferno: Il bel paese là dove ‘l sì sona, “the beautiful
country where the sì sounds” (as opposed to other ways of saying
“yes,” such as the northern French oui and the southern French oc).
This set phrase has been so successful that in 1906 a manufacturer
of dairy products, Galbani, introduced a cheese with that very name.
In recent decades the description of Italy as il bel paese has been
popularized by Panorama, a magazine that for many years offered
a weekly political cartoon by Carlo Tullio Altan called Il bel paese.
The tone was unmistakably ironic, as if to say, “Beautiful country all
right, but not to be completely trusted and not to be taken entirely
seriously.”
The label stuck. And that is how il bel paese is used here: affec-
tionately and ironically, as the title of a group of reading selections
devoted to Italy as a land of tourism. (As many people visit Italy each
year as live there: about 60 million!)
Tourism is inseparable from tourist guidebooks, which aim to give
visitors all the right reasons for going somewhere. The skies are always
blue, the sun is always shining, the monuments are always imposing,
and the food is always fine, if not downright extraordinary. These
guides, however, may not convey a complete, or even truthful, picture
of the country. This section juxtaposes five reading selections about
four Italian places: a children’s poem about Turin, a web site adver-
tisement for a package tour of Sicily, a poem about Trieste, an excerpt
from a recent best-seller about Trieste, and an advertisement for a
country inn in Tuscany.
A children’s poem stands at the beginning because learning a
foreign language requires, in part, regressing to the early years of life.
As language-learning adults, we need to accept the idea that our
minds “shrink” to the vocabulary, syntactic structure, and context
of children. This, of course, is not to take anything away from
the intensity and preciseness of feelings, images, and ideas that
children and good children’s writers can attain.
LEVEL 1
Torino
Gianni Rodari (1920–1980) worked all his life on pedagogical and educational issues. He
wrote several books of poetry and prose for children, which have been translated into
several languages, including English, Russian, and Japanese. Rodari compared his work
to that of a toy maker, for he believed that children learn best when they are at play.
In 1970 he won the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award for children’s literature.
The poem that follows is part of a collection of prose and poetry entitled Filastrocche
per tutto l’anno. It is devoted to Turin, the capital of Piedmont, which is the region where
Rodari came from, even though he spent much of his life in Milan. In the poem Rodari
refers to characters from a well-known children’s book, Cuore, which remains important
even though it was published over a hundred years ago.
Torino
Sotto i portici di Torino
ho incontrato uno scolaretto.
Garrone? Nobis? Il muratorino
che della lepre, rifà il musetto?
Come le pagine vecchie e care
del vecchio Cuore, sempre belle,
le vecchie strade diritte e chiare
si somigliano come sorelle.
Torino, Torino
il Po e il Valentino
le colline incantate
per farci le passeggiate
di fine settimana,
e la Mole Antonelliana
in mezzo alle cartoline
illustrate.
Gianni Rodari, “Torino,” Filastrocche per tutto l’anno, Editori Riuniti, 1986.
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ESERCIZI
BACKGROUND NOTES
This poem, though simple, contains references to places and things that
children must be acquainted with if they are to understand it. The children’s
book Cuore was written by Edmondo De Amicis and published in 1886. It has
a role in Italian literature and imagination not unlike that of Huckleberry Finn
in the United States. An excerpt from Cuore (page 137) may help you understand
the characters Rodari mentions. Po is the Po River, which originates in the
mountains west of Turin and empties into the Adriatic Sea. Valentino is Turin’s
equivalent of Hyde Park, a royal park given to London’s residents in the seven-
teenth century. La Mole Antonelliana is Turin’s most recognizable building,
like the Tour Eiffel in Paris.
MAKING SENSE OF THE POEM
A Answer the following questions. You can mark your progress
in understanding the poem by using the check boxes provided.
1 䡺 What do the first stanzas of the poem focus on—people or places?
2 䡺 What does the word Cuore refer to—the organ of the body or something
else?
3 䡺 What links the characters mentioned in the first stanza to the book Cuore?
4 䡺 How do pages and streets resemble one another—in a physical way or
in the impression they make on the reader?
5 䡺 What are the streets of Turin like? What kind of city do you visualize?
One that has narrow streets and is snail shaped, like a medieval town?
Or a more modern city?
6 䡺 What do the last two stanzas focus on?
7 䡺 Is Turin close to the sea? To the mountains? To the hills?
8 䡺 What does la Mole Antonelliana evoke? Strolls? Postcards? Paintings?
9 䡺 What is your general impression of the city? If you know anything else
about Turin, does what you know agree or contrast with Rodari’s
depiction?
BUILDING VOCABULARY WITH SUFFIXES
Italian is rich in diminutives, augmentatives, and pejoratives. These
are words formed by adding suffixes to nouns and adjectives to express
nuances, often of size or of an affectionate or disparaging nature.
The most common diminutive suffixes in Italian, -ino/-ina and -etto/-etta,
indicate smallness.
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Il bel paese
mia sorella my sister la mia sorellina my little sister
un libro a book un libretto a small book, booklet;
an opera libretto
The most common augmentative suffix in Italian, -one, indicates largeness,
sometimes with a negative connotation. When -one is added to a feminine
noun, the resulting noun is masculine.
la porta door il portone front door
una donna a woman un donnone a huge woman
Some Italian words can take both -one and -ona suffixes (for example,
la villa, il villone, la villona).
The most common pejorative suffixes in Italian, -astro/-astra and -accio/
-accia, convey a negative meaning.
il poeta the poet il poetastro the terrible poet
una parola a word una parolaccia a swearword
Care should be taken when creating words with suffixes. Since you might
be creating “words” that would not be used by a native speaker, it would
be wise to use only formations that you have heard or seen in print.
B Classify the following words as diminutive, augmentative, or pejorative,
then write the noun from which each is derived.
TYPE OF SUFFIX ROOT NOUN
1 la scuoletta
2 il muratorino
3 lo stradone
4 il musetto
5 la sorellastra
Now form diminutives by adding the appropriate suffixes to the following
words. Some words can be modified in more than one way, for instance,
by adding either -ino/-ina or -etto/-etta to form the diminutive.
6 lo scolaro
7 la barca
8 la bimba
OR
9 il bimbo
OR
10 la gatta
11 il gatto
12 il gioco
OR
13 il micio
OR
Torino
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5
14 la palla
15 la pancia
OR
16 il pane
17 la scarpa
OR
18 la tazza
19 l(o)’uccello
OR
IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS
From the Italian word muso (“nose, face”) comes the expression fare il
muso (mettere su il muso), which means “to pout.”
Tutte le volte che papà parla di Every time Dad mentions going on
fare una gita in montagna, mia an excursion in the mountains,
sorella si mette a fare il muso. my sister starts pouting.
The phrase rifà il musetto appears in line 4 of the poem. Rifare il muso is
used here to mean “to imitate the hare’s face,” as a pun on the expression
fare il verso a qualcuno (“to imitate someone’s voice/to mock someone’s
manner of speaking”).
Mia cugina Giulia non apre bocca My cousin Giulia can’t open her
senza piagnucolare e lamentarsi mouth without moaning and
e i suoi fratelli, che sono crying; her naughty brothers
dispettosi, non perdono mai don’t miss a chance to mock her.
un’occasione per farle il verso.
¨
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Il bel paese