Music, love, food and fashion: when Italian sounds better

Despite Italian language is spoken just in Italy (and in the nearby) and it has recently acquired a lot of borrowed words, the desire that drives non-native speakers to learn the “Italiano” continues unabated.
What makes the Italian Language so irresistible?

Gourmet Holiday in ItalyPhoto Credits: Hotel Brunelleschi

It is the language of food
Spaghetti, maccheroni, lasagne, pizza, bruschetta, osso buco, espresso, tiramisù, risotto, gnocchi, mozzarella, stracciatella and pistacchio. Out of all the languages, Italian has the highest number of words for describing food which haven’t a proper translation. Furthermore, the Italian cuisine is so diversified that the recipes of one region are quite unknown to another or called in a different way. Italy has always been a synonym for good food and besides the recipes names, even the everyday language is characterized by fun food-related idioms: “Sei sempre in mezzo come il prezzemolo!”= "You are always in the way like parsley!". It deals with the common use of parsley in Italian recipes, in other words, it is an euphemism to say that you mingle in things that are not your own, you are always in the way...
 

 - If you would like discover more about the language of food, the best Italian place where to go is undoubtedly Tuscany. Tuscany is where the Italian language was born and boasts the most delicious Traditional Foods! 

Concerts and Events in Italy Photo Credits: Il Bottaccio

It is the language of music
There are two mainly reasons why Italian is widely regarded as a musical language. Even if you are not a musician, you are probably already familiar with a good range of Italian words related to music such as concerto, sonata, opera, cantata, vivace, allegro, a capella. What happened was that many of the most important composers from the Renaissance to the Baroque period were Italian and at the time,numerous musical indications were used extensively for the first time. The second reason, as asserted by the Oxford Language Dictionaries, it is probably attributable to the fact that most Italian words end in a vowel and, within the limits of a few simple rules, letters are pronounced consistently because there is a strong regular sound-to-letter correlation. This make  it a very suitable language for opera… “O sole miooooooo”.

- The Neapolitan music is one of the most famous because of its ancient history. But each Italian region has a typical music and a singer that  tell the story of his land. Take a look to our previous post “Italian Music - 8 songs to discover Italy”

It is the language of love
“Amore mio, ti amo” is one of the100 seductive ways of expressing amore in Italian. The reasons beyond the natural connection “Italy-Romanticism” are million and based on the power of Romance languages, the inspiring landscapes of la Bella Italia and the sweet verses of Italian poets. To be honest, there is also a strong Italian stereotype too that pictures Italians as incurable Casanovas and this is not totally sweet…


- If Italian is the language of love, Venice is the city of love! Here you are a good article about “Venice by the Light of the Moon”.

Italy: I love shopping!

It is synonym of quality
Armani, Valentino, Versace, Ferrari, Ducati, Pininfarina, Renzo Piano, Fellini and Bertolucci: these are not words that you will find in a dictionary, but keywords well-known all around the world.
These names are not only Italian brands, but also synonyms of the high quality of Made in Italy. Since the early 11th-16th centuries, Italy has been Europe’s main trendsetters, so it’s no surprise that, when it comes to fashion, design and style, the importance of Italian culture and language cannot be surpassed.

- About this last paragraph, I would like to suggest you a fascinating and trendy hotel in Milan: Maison Moschino, a 4-star hotel designed by the homonym fashion label.

Finally, a special mention should be dedicated to the physical gestures Italians do, many of which are a several times more expressive than anything that comes out of their mouths.
After all, learning Italian language is not exactly the same thing as learning how to speak Italian!