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Learning through French/Italian Opera | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| cityhunter Newbie Germany Joined 5217 days ago 5 posts - 6 votes | Message 1 of 11 29 July 2010 at 4:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Since I'm really into French & Italian opera I've thought of learning
these languages (amongst others) through opera itself, which primarily means reading the libretti while listening to the music (and thus improving my listening skills along the way)-- But before I start I'd like to know if it even is practical... because I don't know in what respects the Italian/French language of the 19th century might partly use obsolete/archaic grammar/vocabulary-- so can someone with Italian/French skills look at the libretti and tell me, in what respects it varies from the respective languages as used in the 21th century? Concerning Italian opera I'd like to start with Puccinis La Bohéme: http://opera.stanford.edu/Puccini/LaBoheme/atto1.html although perhaps it would be even more interesting to know if the Italian of Mozarts operas is an Italian which is similiar from that of today, since Italian only got unified during the 19th century. http://www.librettidopera.it/dongiov/dongiov.html (Mozarts Don Giovanni) (Mozarts German operas use quite modern German, some terms are partly not used anymore, but if you speak German, you'll be able to completely understand his operas-- I guess the same should apply to his Italian operas / Verdi, Bellini...) And with regard to French operas I'd like to know how far the French of Bizets Carmen is "up-to-date": http://opera.stanford.edu/Bizet/Carmen/acte1.html Of course I'm not asking anyone to read the whole operas, just taking a glimpse should be enough to be able to evaluate the vocabulary/grammar. Thank you. (by the way, I know that the way they speak in operas is rather silly and no one in real life speaks like that, I'm only concerned because of too much archaic/obsolete use of language) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5907 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 2 of 11 29 July 2010 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I don't see anything wrong with it as long as you mix it with some more contemporary
materials. "Habanera" seems, to my non-native ears, to be pretty acceptable in terms of word usage and phrasing. In any case, you could always use the librettos later when your language use is more advanced. It would be a fun experiment to learn solely through opera (I have a similar experiment with Swedish - learn only through ABBA related materials) and see what results you'll get. But I think it's better to wait for what a native speaker has to say. Anyway, good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5332 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 3 of 11 01 August 2010 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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First of all, welcome to the forum cityhunter!
As far as learning Italian through opera the only thing I would say is: proceed cautiously! When you’ve learned English it’s a pleasure to study Shakespeare, but I wouldn’t start learning English by reading Shakespeare. The same thing, more or less, applies to Italian and opera. For historical reasons Italian has always been the language of culture, whereas in everyday life people would use a dialect or a regional variety of Italian strongly influenced by a dialect. So on the one hand there were dialects (let’s call them this way for clarity’s sake) that kept evolving with the passing of the time, but being only used orally, they’ve left almost no trace apart from the numerous regional varieties of Italian still spoken today. On the other hand there was the language of culture, which was more or less the same all over Italy even when Italy wasn’t a unified country yet. This written language (which nobody really spoke) was modelled on a series of important authors going back all the way to the 13th and 14th century Tuscan greats (Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio). That’s why most literature (poetry, fiction, and also libretti) has always tended to use a rather archaic language. So modern audiences listening to 19th century opera must not only deal with a century-old language, they must deal with a century-old language that was actually already old when it was written, because it was based on even more dated models. What makes the situation even worse is the fact that the text of the libretti was considered of secondary importance to the music, so it was the words that had to be changed and modified to accommodate the music and not the other way round. Here I give you just some examples of problematic (for a learner) Italian taken from the beginning of La Boheme: 1. words that are archaic (and that an average Italian teenager wouldn’t probably know unless s/he has encountered them studying poetry at school): ammollisce, stille, bigi, diacciate, immollate, periglio, alare, inedia, lippo, fulgida, ancella, lorito, olezzo, … 2. words that deviate from their standard form for metric reasons (mainly they drop the last vowel): Faraon (Faraone), fan (fanno), sacrifichiam (sacrifichiamo), cener (cenere), secol (secolo), gran cor (grande cuore), baglior (bagliore), appariscono (appaiono), pei (per i), … 3. unusual word collocations: mi geli, l’estro rivoli, … 4. word order is determined by metric patterns, so it’s often very unusual: Puzza la tela dipinta (la tela dipinta puzza), in cener la carta si sfaldi (la carta si sfaldi in cenere), Già dell’Apocalisse appariscono i segni (Già appaiono i segni dell’Apocalisse), … I don’t want to discourage you: if you really enjoy opera, by all means, use it to improve your Italian. What is important is that you are aware of what kind of difficulties you might encounter and I hope this post has given you some examples. PS. You mentioned Mozart’s operas wondering whether they are still understandable. For the reasons mentioned at the beginning of this post, Da Ponte’s libretti pose no more difficulties than any other libretto from the 18th or 19th century, so enjoy your Don Giovanni and your Nozze di Figaro: maybe it isn’t the best way to learn Italian, but it certainly is one of the more pleasurable. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| cityhunter Newbie Germany Joined 5217 days ago 5 posts - 6 votes | Message 4 of 11 03 August 2010 at 3:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Thank you very much for your elaboration!
Though I have to say that that's basically the way I've learned Spanish. I've bought myself a bilingual copy of the poems of Federico García Lorca, and after your brain has accustomed itself to the crazy imagery of his, learning colloquial Spanish appears to be a breeze.
Your examples couldn't have been better and although you have indeed discouraged me, I'm rather thankful. I, foolishly, wanted to take the libretti of various operas as a starting point, but I guess what I should do is to build up basic skills first and then - as you & lynxrunner indicated - use libretti to improve my already available knowledge of Italian. Anyway, after your excellent dissection of the Italian language in operas, I'm all the more curious about the French language in operas. ^_^ 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| pohaku Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5636 days ago 192 posts - 367 votes Speaks: English*, Persian Studies: Arabic (classical), French, German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 5 of 11 03 August 2010 at 4:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Cityhunter: I'm an avid opera fan and, while it's not my main way to practice languages, I think it cannot hurt and might well help, especially if you work at it cleverly. I'm a little hampered because my wife wants the subtitles to be in English (a reasonable request) when I might prefer German or Italian or whatever. We just watched Krol Roger, by Szymanowski, which is sung in Polish. For some reason the DVD didn't work correctly so we could only display the Polish subtitles. I loved it, even though I don't know Polish! Can't wait to watch it again; maybe I'll pick up a few words, since I do have a printed copy of the English translation.
A tip for Italian: You might try Handel's Italian-language operas early on. He was a German using Italian libretti for a London audience. In order not to totally lose the English speakers, whose Italian wasn't so great, he tended to keep the phrases short and to repeat them many times. That gives you, the learner, a better chance to hear the language and grasp the meaning that you might get from Puccini or Verdi. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| RMM Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5212 days ago 91 posts - 215 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Swedish, Japanese | Message 6 of 11 03 August 2010 at 11:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Cityhunter, I actually used Italian opera as my initial primary means of learning Italian. After I had already gotten familiar with the language through opera (mainly Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni, Bellini, and Donizetti), I then supplemented my knowledge with some additional, more modern resources. It is by far the easiest way that I've learned the basics of any language. I would definitely recommended it. I studied German for four years in High School and College whereas I have only done a relatively small amount of actual studying of Italian, and yet I can understand Italian about 80% as well as I can German. In other words, I think that learning Italian fairly effortlessly through libretti (really I was mainly trying to learn the operas, not the language) saved me a great deal of time later on. When I had to read a book in Italian later for academic reasons, I was able to do so with very little trouble.
However, what I learned from opera was really just reading and listening skills. I'm still a rather poor speaker of Italian (although my pronunciation is very good so I'm told). I would suggest supplementing libretti with a speaking-focused program like Pimsleur's, in addition to sources that will expose you to a large amount of modern Italian vocabulary words. In addition, the points that Emme made are very important to keep in mind. You will sound bizarre, melodramatic, and old-fashioned if you actually mimic the style and some of the word choices of the language in the libretti. Remember too that the sentence structures and word order, etc. in libretti are often more akin to poetry than normal dialogue. And, of course, avoid the overly melodramatic. In other words, if you miss your significant other, don't exclaim: "Ciel! Gran Dio! Amor mio, ove sei tu? Ahime." You should be able to figure these things out all right for the most part though. Most of the words used in the libretti are still in use, so it will very much help you to built your vocabulary, plus it will help you get a natural feel for the language and a sense of the grammar without the tedious work of studying grammar. Just don't use libretti as your only source for the language. By the way, I even came across a book a while back called L'italiano con l'opera: Lingua, cultura e conversazione. It is essentially a textbook for people who want to learn Italian through opera. You may want to look into getting this to make the most of your learning experience. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| cityhunter Newbie Germany Joined 5217 days ago 5 posts - 6 votes | Message 7 of 11 04 August 2010 at 1:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Thanks for your suggestion. Although usually I'm not into Baroque (with J.S. Bach & Scarlatti being rare exceptions) I will give his operas a listen.
Finally: A success story!
The above sums pretty well up as to what I hoped to achieve through learning with the aid of libretti. I wasn't too sure if my aims were realistic, but your post has reinforced my notion that it should be feasible.
Additionally I intented to watch quote a lot of movies made by Fellini. ^_^
Sounds interesting. But it appears to be difficult to get a copy of this in Germany and if one takes into account the shipping costs, altogether it would cost around 50€. So in the end I have to do it "my way". -_- I'm not sure as to how to proceed. While reading the libretto & listening to the opera, did you at the same time look at the translation (i.e. having a bilingual edition) or did you at first only concentrate on the pronounciation without following the translation? Edited by cityhunter on 04 August 2010 at 1:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| RMM Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5212 days ago 91 posts - 215 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Swedish, Japanese | Message 8 of 11 04 August 2010 at 5:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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First, let me say that I had no consistent method. However, I'll tell you what I frequently did and what I would recommend. Typically, I would start by following along with the libretti and their translations while listening to operas that I was already familiar with. I always used libretti that included the translations. Because the words are sung and not quickly spoken, I usually had no problem reading both the original Italian and the translation before the singer moved on to the next line or two. After I followed along with a passage from the libretto and its translation like this, I would stop the music and go back and examine what I had just gone over. At this stage, I would try to match the different words with their translations and to figure out some of the simpler grammar in the passage. I would do this over again as many times as needed until I felt like I had a good grasp of the passage/aria/recitative, etc. Then I would listen to the passage again this time following along with the original Italian only. If I felt like I understood the passage without needing to look at the translation then I would move on to something new. Later on, when I listened to the recordings again without the libretti, I would try to see if I still understood most of what was being sung. If not then I could always refresh my memory by checking the libretto again.
I would suggest starting with a few popular arias that you already are familiar with. You can work out your own personal method on a couple of small passages and hopefully the music will almost work as a mnemonic device to help you remember the words. (I find I can remember a word better if I can remember the melody to which it is sung--it's just an additional way of encoding the word in your brain.) I used the libretti that came with some of my opera recordings, as well as some books that contained libretti. Unfortunately, some of the translations that came with my opera CDs were on the loose side; that is to say, sometimes it could be hard to figure out what each word meant based on the translation. The libretti that I found in book form were usually a little better in this regard. Just keep in mind that you sometimes will not be dealing with literal translations. If a word or phrase is really giving you trouble you can always look it up in an online dictionary. (Nico Castel put together a wonderful set of libretti of the entire operas of Verdi, which contained the pronunciation for each word and a word by word translation of the libretti--however, these volumes are out of print and very expensive. I was able to check these out from the library. Also, I got some libretti from Dover Paperbacks for only $3 each, and I utilized a book called Seven Verdi Librettos, translated by William Weaver, which cost $18.) I fortunately already had a decent sense of how the language was pronounced (I liked to tinker around with learning the pronunciation of various languages when I was a child). I would suggest that you do not use opera to learn first how to pronounce the language. Opera is good for illustrating the sound of different letters and words, but the stress and rhythm of the language in opera is that of the music and not of the spoken language. Because of this I would suggest using other sources to determine the rhythm and sound of the spoken language first. You can probably find enough sources for this online, and it shouldn't take too long. If after this you still feel that you are having problems with pronunciation, then perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to follow along with just the Italian in the libretti focusing only on pronunciation and not translation. I didn't do it that way, but it would probably help. You should keep in mind too that some singers' pronunciation is better than others'. Joan Sutherland, for example, did not enunciate well and Jussi Bjoerling did not get all the sounds of the language right all the time. Pavarotti, however horrid he may have been in other languages, enunciated in Italian clearly. So his recordings might be a good choice (although he would often put vowel sounds at the end of words that had no vowel sounds in the libretto--usually he was just finishing a word that had been shortened for metric purposes, e.g. man instead of mano). Native Italian singers are probably your best shot for good pronunciation, although even then you may be dealing with certain regional accents or quirks. Bergonzi, for example, tends to over aspirate his "s's," so that they sound almost like "sh" sounds, and some people have accused Corelli of almost sounding as if he has a lisp. Good luck! Edited by RMM on 04 August 2010 at 5:33am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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