A te che sei il mio grande amore, ed il mio amore grande

I'm sorry I haven't written in so long! November has been a very busy month. My italian is improving and now understand almost everything that people say but speaking is still taking alot of work. People tell me I will improve with speaking as time goes on and I hope that is true. My host family is very good. On Thanksgiving I cleaned and cooked my first Turkey (: It was very delicious. Overall November has been a very good month and it's hard to believe I'll have been here for almost 3 months soon. I've thought of some things to share with you about the italian language that I didn't know or things I would just like to share. First, in Italy, depending on where you live, you not only speak italian but also dialect. Each dialect is extremely different from eachother. So much so that people from the south would not be able to understand anything if they listened to a northern person speak dialect. I am in the region of Veneto and thus we speak a Venetian dialect. However, the venetian dialect differs from city to city within Veneto. A funny story about dialect. My math teacher is from Puglia (the heel of the boot in Italy) and the other day we had a geometry test. My classmates wrote all of the theorems in dialect on the lavagna (blackboard) and she had no clue what was written on the board. Here are some example of how venetian dialect differs from Italian. The first is english (clearly), the second italian and the third dialect.

Monday, Lunedi, Luni

Tuesday, Martedi, Marti

 Wednesday, Mercoledi, Mercore

 Thursday, Giovedi, Sobia

 Friday, Venerdi, Venere

 Saturday, Sabato, Sabo

 Sunday, Domenica, Domenega

 Shut up, Zitto, Tasi

 As you can see some words are very similar and some are very different. So as for dialect goes, I'm going to learn Italian first and then I'll work on my dialect.

            Something I don’t think you know about Italian is that is consists mostly of verbs. No joke Italian has a verb for everything. Some of the best and funniest examples include:

            Abbagliare – to dazzle

            Acciuffare – to grab by the hair

            Disinibire – to free someone from inhibitions

            Ficcare – to stick something somewhere

            Impazzare – to be wild with excitement

            Indiziare – to cast suspicion on

            Schiaffeggiare – to slap someone in the face

            Timbrare- to put a stamp on a document

            Zittire – to shut someone up

Everything has a verb. And because Italian couldn’t get any better all the verbs decided they would be irregular! YAAY! We love irregular verbs.

            Now to switch the subject I would like to share with you my new favourite song. The name of it is ‘A te’ and it is by a very famous singer Jovanotti. It is quite honestly one of the sweetest love songs I have ever heard. You can look the song up as well as the translation into English but I will share with you my favourite lines along with their English translation.

            A te che sei                                            (To you, because you are)

            Semplicemente sei                                (You simply are)

            Sostanza dei giorni miei                       (The substance of my days)

            Sostanza dei giorni miei                       (The substance of my days)

            A te che sei il mio grande amore          (To you my great love)

            Ed il mio amore grande                        (And my biggest love)

            A te che hai preso le mia vita               (To you, because you’ve taken my life)

            E ne hai fatto molto du più                   (And you’ve done a lot more with it)

            A te che hai dato senso al tempo          (To you, because you gave time some sense)

            Senza misurarlo                                    (Without measuring it)

            A te che sei il mio amore grande          (To you my great love)

            Ed il mio grande amore                        (And my biggest love)

            A te che io                                            (To you)

            Ti ho visto piangere nella mia mano   (Whom I have seen crying in my hand)

            Fragile che potevo ucciderti       (So fragile I could have killed you just by squeezing)

            Stringendoti un po’                             (You are a little stronger)

            E poi ti ho visto                                (Than I have seen you)

            Con la forza di un aeroplano            (Having the strength of an airplane)

            Prendere in mano la tua vita             (Taking life in your hands)

            E trascinarla in salvo                        (And dragging it into the safe zone)

            A te che mi hai insegnato i sogni     (To you, because you’ve taught be how to dream)

            E l’arte dell’avventura                      (And the art of the adventure)

            te che credi nel coraggio               (To you, because you believe in courage)

            E anche nella paura                           (And also in fear)

            A te che sei la miglior cosa               (To you, the best thing)

            Che mi sia successa                          (That happened to me)

            A te che cambi tutti i giorni              (To you, because you change all days)

            E resti sempre la stessa                     (And stay the same)

            A te che sei                                        (To you, because you are)

            Semplicemente sei                            (You simply are)

            Sostanza dei giorni miei….               (The substance of my days)

The whole song is wonderful (: But I would take a long time to write all of it down so that is my favourite part. Xxx

Letters!

This post is for Lisa & Dale and Grandma and Grandpa Shively (:

I got your letter's today in the mail! Thank you so much. It was really fun to open them up at lunch. I have the halloween card's hanging on my wall now and Paolo told me I should take the magazine to school tomorrow. Lisa it came out very nicely (: Thank you for giving me the chance to take the cover.
Also thank you mom and dad for all of the package's. It's really fun to get things in the mail!

Generaly thing's have been going really good. My Italian has slowly been getting better. I'm not good at all but it's getting better. School is very fun. I have a 7 1/2 in Storia d. Arte which is a good grade for an Italian student so I'm very content with it. Also my Arte teacher is very nice and today I even took part in a class discussion about which sculpture I prefered on the door's of the Battistero Romano in Firenze (: Last Saturday I went into Venice for the evening with my friends (one of which lives there and all the others nearby). While I was there I met up with a really good friend from India named Olga. She moved to France this year and was Venice on a school trip (: See we met in Piazza San Marco and hung out for a little bit. How cool is that? Anway it was a very good evening.

And now I need to get back to studying for my spanish test.