Reflection Technology

Listening to music and learning Italian at the same time.

I’ve found Andrea Bocelli’s CDs wonderful way to learn Italian.
His pronounciation is amazingly clear (listen to the previews on Amazon), and unlike so many singers from an operatic background, you can actually hear the words, and the music has a sort of lulling effect so I sort of fade away listening to the music but part of my brain is picking the words out, and as the years go by understanding words, phrases and then complete sentences. Mind you the years of Italian class at nightschool probably help …

Even better, the CD insert has the words in both Italian and English, so when you get stuck just listening, you can look the word up.

As a hint, don’t wait too long if you can’t figure out what a word is supposed to be. I resisted for a year just trying to listen, but as it turned out, this wasn’t such a good idea. There were words that I thought were single words that turned out to be two words that sort of run together when spoken. This isn’t bad pronounciation – we all run words together – they sort of flow into each other, and learning to pick then apart is part of learning the language.

More later, it’s time for bed …

Now it’s later :-) Of the links below, the first three are my favourite CDs and the last two are DVDs. The DVDs have lots of Italian in them too but it’s more conversational and interlaced with English than the CDs. I especially like the DVD “A Night in Tuscany” which follows the transformation of a piazza from it modern day-to-day role into the setting for a fabulous open air night concert.