Gobetti D. - Better reading Italian: A reader and guide / Лучшее чтение Итальянского: Преподаватель и путеводитель [2003, PDF, ENG]

Better reading Italian: A reader and guide to improving your understanding of written Italian / Лучшее чтение Итальянского: Преподаватель и путеводитель по улучшению вашего понимания письменного Итальянского

Год выпуска: 2003
Автор: Daniela Gobetti / Даниэла Гобэтти
Категория: учебник
Издатель: McGraw-Hill
Язык курса: Английский/Итальянский
Формат: PDF
Качество: Изначально компьютерное (eBook)
Кол-во страниц: 289
ISBN: 0-07-142535-7

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.