How I discovered then translated Fabrizio De Andrè

by Dennis Criteser on January 9, 2015

Ready for a confession from a music lover and an Italian? I know very little about Fabrizio De Andrè, one of the most legendary Italian singer/songwriters ! However, if you’re not Italian, you’re excused, and luckily today’s guest post will help fill in that gap. I’m a firm believer that music and languages go hand in hand, “vanno a braccetto”! Buona lettura, Mirella

 

 

deandre_fabrizioWhen my family decided to go to Italy in 2008, my daughter was several years into a deep enthrallment with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and especially with the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli film version. Indeed, our trip to Italy was a pellegrinaggio – a pilgrimage. We arrived in Venice and headed for a weeklong stay in Verona. For many travelers to Italy, La Casa Giulietta and La Tomba di Giulietta may be somewhat cheesy tourist destinations, but for my daughter they were churches, power spots suffused with magic and deserving of multiple extended visits so she could be surrounded and entranced by the charge from that story of so long ago.

 

In preparation for our voyage, my daughter and I spent six months building basic Italian skills with Rosetta Stone. We were able to say simple things, and could sometimes even understand the replies! Following our glorious trip (which also included visits to Mantua, whereto Romeo had been banishéd, and to Toscania where Zeffirelli had filmed the wedding and death scenes), it was time for my daughter to choose a language for study in school. It could be nothing other than Italian. But her school didn’t offer Italian, so we arranged for independent study, and I tagged along for the ride.

 

Enter Mirella Colalillo. We found Mirella online, then teaching out of Toronto, and proceeded with weekly Skype lessons for two years.

 

I spent many of my younger years in serious pursuit of music and ended up as program director for a music school in San Francisco. With fatherhood, though, most of my music playing had been set aside. Given my background, Mirella of course sent me some links of Italian musicians to check out. I clicked on the first link and was taken to a song called “L’unica cosa” by Marta sui Tubi. On first listen I thought it was not quite to my tastes, though it had a fun sense of humor. I was going to return to her email and click on the next link when something drew me back for a second listen. Like a revelation, that two minutes and thirty seconds made me feel excited about music in a way I hadn’t felt for decades. I immediately began exploring their other music on YouTube and became, without a doubt, their biggest fan outside of Italy, and for all I know their biggest fan in the world! 

 

Marta sui Tubi single-handedly rekindled my engagement with music. As I continued to study Italian alongside my daughter, I began to explore the world of Italian cantautori. One of the artists I listened to was Fabrizio De Andrè, who is sometimes called the Bob Dylan of Italy. He didn’t immediately grab me as did other great songwriters like Lucio Dalla and Giorgio Gaber, but as I listened more, and in particular as I paid attention to his lyrics, I became ever more impressed with the body of work he created over almost forty years of writing.

 

With my reawakening to music, I picked up my guitar again, inspired to learn some of the new songs I was listening to, just as I’d done in my younger years. My skills as a singer and guitarist lined up best with the songs of De Andrè, so I was drawn deeper into his musical world. And because Fabrizio De Andrè wrote not only about love but also about politics, social affairs, history and literature, I also learned about many aspects of Italian culture.

 

I now have a trio that occasionally performs De Andrè songs at the Museo Italo-Americano in San Francisco. And I was inspired to translate all of De Andrè’s songs into English in a way that would do them justice. I’ve just published these translations online – along with background information on each song and album – at deandretranslated.blogspot.com. It’s my hope that the site will be a resource for one of the world’s great singer/songwriters to become appreciated more fully outside of Italy.

 

Grazie mille, Mirella – my musical rinascimento began with you!

 

 

dennis Dennis Criteser is Program Director of Blue Bear School of Music in San Francisco and has been studying Italian  since 2008. An erstwhile singer/songwriter with eight albums to his credit, he is now happily exploring Italian pop music and has just completed translating the songs of Fabrizio De Andrè.

 

 

Do you have any favourite De Andrè songs? If you do, don’t forget to share them in the comments below! And if you don’t check out Dennis’s blog!


Pronunciation Tip #1: “Practice Italian with a flawless speaker!”

by Mirella Colalillo on March 30, 2014

Italian pronunciation tips

Imagine learning lots of grammar and vocabulary only to discover that listeners find it hard to understand what you say…è terribile per la comunicazione!
Also, if you can’t pronounce a word correctly, then you may not be able to hear it when spoken by another person either… ancora più terribile per la comunicazione!

This is a very common problem so don’t fret (non ti allarmare). I put together 7 solutions to improve your pronunciation based on my experience teaching Italian and learning languages.

In this post I’ll share my 1st tip: “Practice Italian with a flawless speaker!”

“Learning proper Italian from the start saves you time and frustration later correcting what you’ve learned incorrectly.” @parlate_it (tweet-worthy!)

It can sometimes be very difficult to correct what you’ve learned incorrectly as it turned out for my friend who had a teacher in elementary school that was very passionate about English, but was hardly proficient enough to teach simple words, such as “apple”, which sounded more like “apele” (similar to the word “ape”, “scimmia” in Italian), although she knew all the grammar. Till this day, over 20 years later, my friend still struggles to pronounce “apple” properly.

His English teacher, also a relative of mine in my little town, wanted to share her passion and land a job, but teaching is a serious matter. When I started teaching English in Italy, although I had reached the advanced level C2, according to the “Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment”, I felt it would be fair to teach only levels A and B since I wasn’t speaking English on a daily basis and wouldn’t be able to teach successfully at a higher level.

Improvised language teachers are not a good deal!

So how do you know if a teacher speaks proper Italian?

Talk and listen to them a bit before jumping into it and, depending on whether the teacher is a native speaker or a non-native speaker, the pronunciation issues, if there are any, will differ.

I would ask both if they have any particular accents or regional intonation, hoping they’re aware and honest!

However, to be certain, I would go ahead and look out for more specific issues….

In the case of the native speaker pay attention to:

  • whether they shorten the infinitives stressing the last vowel, like “mangià” instead of “mangiare”, “parlà”, instead of “parlare”, and so on;

While you’re at it, you can also check some grammar, which will give you a better idea of their speaking accuracy:

  • how they say: “I hope you are well.” (correct: “spero che tu stia bene”),
  • how they say: “Can you speak Italian?” (correct: “sai parlare l’italiano?” – not ‘puoi’ parlare l’italiano?”);

In the case of the non-native speaker, issues usually concern:

  • pronouncing the vowels,
  • stressing the words correctly,
  • pronouncing the “r”, the “t”, the “sch”, double consonants,
  • pronouncing the vowels at the end of the words and pronouncing them correctly (they are not all acute, only the ones with accents on them).

A way to verify that they are flawless speakers is to find a short audio snippet and ask them to repeat it. You can find excellent and reliable audio from Italian language manuals.

“Speaking properly is a form of respect for a language.” @parlate_it (tweet-worthy!)

Let me know in the comments below what your experience has been learning Italian.

Stay tuned for my next tip about my favourite language sharpener!

If you liked this post please share & like!

Grazie,
Mirella


Learn how to stay focused and committed to improving your Italian:

New Year’s Resolution: more Italian!

Do you want to learn or improve your Italian in the New Year? Certo! That’s a bellissimo New Year’s resolution!

by Mirella Colalillo on January 7, 2014

Do you want to learn or improve your Italian in the New Year? Certo! That’s a bellissimo New Year’s resolution! (buon proposito per l’anno nuovo)Include into your life more of everything in Italian: language, cinema, music, books, and food of course! Perhaps even a trip to Italy. I don’t think it could get any better!

The easiest way for me to stick to my goals (i miei obiettivi) is to keep them simple and fun. And this way, by the end of the year I sometimes exceed my initial expectations (supero le mie aspettative iniziali).

Here are some tips (alcuni consigli) to incorporate more Italian into your year:

1) Language – Every single day do some Italian. Learning a language requires daily practice. Only 15 minutes can make a big difference. But make sure you alternate different activities that you enjoy.

2) Music – I can’t live without music. It’s usually in the background (sullo sfondo) almost all day long. I find it the best way to learn a language. Language is music! Any music will do. Pump up the volume (alza il volume) and sing along!

3) Cinema – I love old Italian movies and I watch one almost every month. Italian movies allow you to immerse yourself in the Italian culture. If you’re a beginner, subtitles are fine, if you’re not, challenge yourself! Great Italian directors of the past are Visconti, Germi, Olmi, Fellini, Pasolini, and some recent ones are Golino, Moretti, Benigni, Comencini, Tornatore.

4) BooksReading is very effective to increase your vocabulary and to practice the grammar with almost no sweat (senza sudore). If you don’t feel ready for a novel just yet, try reading a short story (un racconto) every month. The classics are usually not written in standardized modern Italian and they could be harder to understand. Some of my favourite modern authors are Elsa Morante, Italo Calvino, Alda Merini, Dacia Maraini.

5) Food Every Sunday, (or even everyday!), why not prepare an Italian recipe in Italian? Or perhaps you can go out to an Italian restaurant. Practice reading the menu in Italian and speaking to the Italian waiter. If he doesn’t speak Italian, there might be some chatty Italians nearby!

Let’s combine duty and pleasure (uniamo l’utile al dilettevole)

What are your Italian resolutions for the New Year? Let me know in the comments!

Buon Anno!

Mirella

p.s. Animals are always very wise (molto saggi) not only when it comes to languages!

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