Описание: Better Reading Italian is
intended for native English speakers who wish to improve their skill
in reading Italian. Although we live in a world where English is
becoming the lingua franca, foreign languages are now more
accessible than ever, thanks to the Internet and furiously
multiplying web sites. Learners not interested in classical
literature may find it useful, or even necessary, to be able to
navigate a site in a foreign language.
The first step to better
reading is to read more. To encourage beginning readers to pick up
this book, it has been organized into sections according to eight
areas of interest—travel within Italy, cuisine, fashion, customs
and society, education, the family, feminism, and Italian attitudes
toward America—with the idea that at least one of these areas
might interest them already, and that after exploring that area,
interest in another will follow naturally. It is also true that
reading better encourages us to read more.
All of the reading
selections in this book are original. Students of Italian may find
easier, carefully prepared pieces in their grammar books, where
every sentence is calibrated to the student’s level of
proficiency. But learning to read a foreign language means learning
how to understand texts that are aimed at native speakers and
therefore take for granted references, context, and levels of
understanding that are mysterious to foreigners. Sooner or later,
readers must confront this problem if they want to understand texts
that express the culture of a foreign country. The first selection
is a children’s poem that is grammatically very simple, as simple
as the vocabulary used.
But its references—to a city and its
landmarks and to a children’s book, Cuore—may create
difficulties for a foreign learner, no matter how proficient his or
her knowledge of the "language” may be.
Readers should be
patient with themselves. A first reading may yield only partial
understanding, so it is crucial to read a selection several times,
at different times.A reference to "gli azzurri” in a newspaper
headline may make sense only after visiting a web site on Italian
soccer. ("Azzurri” is the nickname for the national soccer
team.) A reference to "D.O.C. wine” may mean nothing to you
until you see it spelled out on a bottle of fine Italian wine:
Denominazione di Origine Controllata.
While this book cannot
thoroughly cover all things Italian, it does attempt to give a sense
of the complexity and range of Italian linguistic production and
cultural attitudes. The chapter on fashion and design includes an
excerpt from one of Gadda’s novels that is difficult even for
native readers! It is included here to show how far the language can
be pushed by a good and complex writer. The chapter on the family
offers a portrait of family relations that are not exclusively
focused on the stereotypical figure of an overprotective mamma.