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etter eading ITBALIR AN Second Edition Daniela Gobetti, Ph.D. New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto Copyright © 2012 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978-0-07-177034-7 MHID: 0-07-177034-8 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: 978-0-07-177033-0, MHID: 0-07-177033-X. All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefi t of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. 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Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise. Contents Preface vii How to use this book ix Il bel paese Torino A children’s poem devoted to Turin 3 Il Touring Club Italiano Advertising a tour of Sicily 7 Trieste (I) An early-twentieth-century poem about Trieste 15 Trieste (II) An excerpt from a recent best-seller 18 L’agriturismo Vacationing at an agrotourism inn in Tuscany 24 Slow food L’Arcigola Manifesto of the Slow Food Movement 29 Il mangiarbene A culinary report on a restaurant in Piedmont 36 Il buon vino fa buon sangue Italian wine profiles 41 I vini di origine controllata D.O.C. wine nomenclature 46 La scienza in cocina e l’arte di mangiar bene Recipes from the 1891 classic by Pellegrino Artusi 50 iii iv | Contents La moda e il design Kartell Web site of a furniture manufacturer 61 Tensione e compressione The famous designer Bruno Munari 68 Io speriamo che me la cavo A Neapolitan student’s essay on home life 75 Ville, villette, villone An excerpt from a novel by Carlo Emilio Gadda 80 La moda italiana A news report on Italian fashion at the Paris shows 86 Costume e società Il male di vivere A feature article on anorexia in laRepubblica 95 La moda maschile A tongue-in-cheek article on male fashion 101 Il problema demografico Demographic trends in Italy 107 Il calcio The soccer scene in Italy 113 La beatificazione The recent canonization of a Capuchin monk 123 Contents | v La scuola Cuore The classic children’s book from 1886 133 La maturità The nationwide test for Italy’s nineteen-year-olds 139 La matematica in rima Poems to help children learn math and the seasons 144 La gatta A story written by elementary schoolchildren 153 Lessico famigliare Una città famigliare A poem treating Turin as extended family 163 Lessico famigliare Growing up in a Jewish family between the wars 168 Famiglia cristiana Personal advice from a Christian magazine 176 Va’ dove ti porta il cuore An old love affair revealed to a granddaughter 183 vi | Contents Sebben che siamo donne... La Lega A solidarity song of women workers in the Po Valley 193 Mamma A popular 1940 song on the mother-son relationship 198 Donna in guerra The feminist awakening of a young married woman 202 Le donne e la politica An article on women’s representation in Parliament 211 Il femminismo Italian feminist declarations from the 1970s 219 La comunicazione, la musica e i giovani Social media, empatia ed entropia: Prima parte Blogging on popular music 227 Social media, empatia ed entropia: Seconda parte The pros and cons of social network media 241 Ottantaedintorni A blog on Italian pop music 253 Navigating the Web in Italian 264 Instructions for downloading bonus reading material 268 Answer key 269 Preface 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 sec­ tions according to eight areas of interest—travel within Italy, cuisine, fashion, customs and society, education, the family, feminism, and social media, as well as one online (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 fol­ low 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 there­ fore take for granted references, context, and levels of understanding that are mysterious to foreigners. Sooner or later, readers must con­ front 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 news­ paper headline may make sense only after visiting a web site on Ital­ ian 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 Ori­ gine Controllata. vii viii | Preface While this book cannot thoroughly cover all things Italian, it does attempt to give a sense of the complexity and range of Italian linguis­ tic 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 lan­ guage 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 overprotectivemamma. How to use this book One of the joys of reading is that you can read what you want, when you want, however you want. The format of Better Reading Italian enables you to use, and benefit from, the book in different ways. One approach is to read the easiest selections in each section, writing the exercises after each one, then progress to more difficult selections. The level of difficulty of each piece is indicated.

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