Guess the Italian word! | What is Italian like? with Jackson Crawford

Dr. ‪@JacksonCrawford‬ asks me to describe what Italian is like, and how it can be learned. What's difficult about learning Italian? What is easy? Is it easier than learning Latin? Can a speaker of Spanish, French, Romanian, or Portuguese read Dante and understand it? If you have questions not covered in our discussion, please ask them in the coments.
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Intro and outro music: Overture of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) by Mozart
#JacksonCrawford #OldNorse #Latin
00:00 Intro
4:42 Deciphering Italian
08:14 Tuscan language in Roman mouth
14:57 Jackson figures out Italian
17:17 Outtakes

[@SuperTommox]

Napoletano still uses "tenere" instead of "avere". I wonder if the Spanish control of South Italy had something to do with it.

[@yrooxrksvi7142]

It did, many other Italian dialects use "tenere" as well.

[@guillermorivas7819]

Spanish contributed a considerable amount of words to Italian.

[@diegone080]

Pure in sardegna c'erano gli spagnoli ma tenere non si usa

[@yrooxrksvi7142]

@@diegone080 Tranne ad Alghero, dove parlano una forma arcaica di Catalano

[@diegone080]

@@yrooxrksvi7142 vero

[@manuelapollo7988]

The first official codifier of the italian language was a Renaissance cardinal and literary theorist called Pietro Bembo. He was a crucial figure in the codification of the italian language, yet even in Italy he is not widely known by the general public.

[@micheleguglielmana2568]

è vero, si parla molto più di Dante, Boccaccio e Ariosto, povero il nostro Bembo.

[@TheMightySpurdo]

Si studia Bembo in letteratura italiana, ma è un personaggio che non viene approfondito molto

[@leonardocellamare8985]

Esatto, non si dice nulla riguardo il suo background. Era addirittura un cardinale.

[@traurigesland4622]

beh noi al liceo lo abbiamo fatto Bembo

[@marieparker3822]

He has a typeface named after him.

[@jdnw85]

I am from México, once I went to Rome for vacation. I couldnt understand people in the street easily but once in a bar, after some drinks I had a wonderful conversation with some people even if they spoke in Italian. It takes some time to understand each other, but if both persons are patient, we can have simple conversations.

[@gregcoogan8270]

You could understand them better in the bar probably because you were taking your time talking in a more controlled setting than random, quick phrases that you'll hear on the street. I went to Italy after studying Spanish for many years as well as Latin. I could very easily figure out most of written Italian, but it was harder to understand random stuff on the street. After a couple of days I just Italianized my Spanish and that seemed to work most of the time.

[@antoniousai1989]

I dated for months a south American girl and we did not speak any language in common. ROFL

[@jeremias-serus]

​@@gregcoogan8270 one word: alcohol

[@lislearnitalianwithsongs]

I can identify! And the most important thing is “after a few drinks”! Ciao!

[@adlet5416]

@@gregcoogan8270 mh maybe those people on the street spoke roman dialect and not "Italian", roman dialect is a bit easier than the others but isn't the same of italian, not even an Italian can understand a Sardinian or a Sicilian speaking 100% dialect

[@PodcastItaliano]

Great video! Jackson should totally learn Italian! Two (pedantic) corrections: 1) The Etruscan substrate theory has mostly been refuted by linguists. The Tuscan Gorgia is believed to have originated in the 16th Century. 2) the first /k/ in Coca Cola would actually be pronounced [k], since it's at the beginning of a sentence. /k/ is only realized as [h/x] after a vowel. So if you said "la Coca Cola" then yeah, it would work 😁

[@arthurmoran4951]

Both could be good guest

[@mrelephant2283]

that kind of vaguely reminds me of initial consonant mutation from Irish Cat - Cat /kˠatˠ/ An chait - The cat's /əɴˠ xatʲ/ Na gCat - The cats /nˠə gˠatˠ/

[@yeah5874]

La hoha hola hon la hannuccia horta horta

[@MikiM89]

sei sicuro? io ho sempre sentito "hannuccia", "hosa vole?" quindi la [h/x] anche all'inizio della parola [penso intendessi parola, non frase] (non sono toscano, ma ho diversi amici toscani (cit.))

[@Wretchrot]

@@MikiM89 confermo che spesso viene pronunciata [h/x] anche a inizio parola, malgrado in modo meno accentuato, specie se la parola è breve e se non ha altre "c" all'interno. Quindi per esempio, in "cosa" si tende ad aspirare ma non troppo, invece in "cucina" il suono resta /k/ all'inizio mentre la seconda è /ʃ/

[@antoniousai1989]

Some Italians say "Quanti anni tieni" because their local dialects or languages do compose the question using the verb "tenere".

[@mariocioffi188]

In Campania they use "tenere" instead of "avere" when it's not auxiliary: Quanti anni tieni? Tengo fame Tengo la macchina

[@youtubeyoutube936]

We use “ghet”

[@IslanderArena]

Congratulations for the channel. As a native Italian speaker I have to say that it is very surprising to understand how much “theorised” my language can be, how many rules and history are involved, as I know it “intuitively”. It must take a lot of effort to learn it from another language which is not Latin based. Keep up the good work!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks for the comment!

[@BrettonFerguson]

It would take more effort for English to learn than for French or Spanish, but it would not be as difficult for an English speaker compared to a non European language speaker such as a Korean. English use the same alphabet, have the same sounds, and similar grammar. Non European speakers have to learn everything from scratch.

[@IslanderArena]

@@BrettonFerguson this is probably very true. I can only imagine how hard it’d be if also having to learn another alphabet!

[@BrettonFerguson]

@@IslanderArena Yes. Alphabet, Chinese has 20,000 letters in their alphabet. Each represents a syllable. Plus the sounds are different. There are sounds in some languages we don't have in Europe and vice versa. It takes training to even notice the sounds. Plus the grammar is completely different. The tone you say the sound matters also. For example Mandarin Chinese has 4 tones for the Ä (Ah) sound. All change the meaning of the word.

[@BrettonFerguson]

@@IslanderArena kzbin.info/www/bejne/iaKsZHV5gq6bgMU

[@gammamaster1894]

I’m really loving these collaborations, on both channels

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Glad to hear it

[@sofiapiazzalopez2718]

As a native Italian and Spanish speaker, it'so interesting to hear foreigners analyzing Italian linguistics, it makes me realize things that I had never even thought of before! Great content😊

[@fallowfieldoutwest]

I love this exchange: Luke got drip from Jackson, Jackson got Luke's pedagogical techniques

[@ClaudioGrecoPhD]

We do tend to use "tenere" like in Spanish in Naples (and elsewhere in the south I believe). Also "stare" in place of "essere".

[@widmawod]

Yes but definitely not in Sicily

[@diegone080]

Not in sardinia

[@antoniousai1989]

In Sardinian too, but I'm not sure if it is because of the Spanish influence or because our language is very close to Latin. I gotta check if in the center of the island they use TENERE to say to have, in the Logudorese Sardinian. If they don't, it's taken from Spanish most likely.

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

@@diegone080 Sardinia is mostly its own thing, it's only "southern" in a socioeconomic sense

[@diegone080]

@@bacicinvatteneaca i agree

[@johncrwarner]

My first spoken language was French and I also took Latin. When I encountered Italian as an adult living and working in northern Italy they were incredibly useful in understanding Italian.

[@tbirdparis]

As someone who grew up with Italian as my first language (along with exposure to two different Italian regional languages), this method of back-construction is exactly how I was able to become fluent in French very quickly when I learned it much later in life. I found that once I had crossed a certain minimum threshold of knowing enough French, it became easy and intuitive to guess many French verbs and nouns, just by taking the Italian word and somehow "frenchifying" it. Of course it doesn't always work... One notable example was one time when skiing in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, I tried to guess what the French verb for "to ski" would be. Unfortunately, guessing "chier" from the Italian verb "sciare" was very much not the correct answer... :)

[@stevelknievel4183]

Have you ever come across NativLang's video on why French doesn't sound like other Romance languages? kzbin.info/www/bejne/l2O3iHV4rdybmLc

[@spooderman9122]

@@stevelknievel4183 That video is absolutely magnicent everyone interested in languages should see it

[@nicolasbruno829]

LOL XD

[@adinetwork4928]

Che spettacolo, è un piacere sentirvi ragionare sul etimologia e la dialettica italiana.. In Italia molte persone nemmeno comprendono lo spessore e il fascino della lingua..

[@BernaskaneyTheLangobard]

La cosa più interessante è che, conoscendo decentemente il Norreno, posso dire che le differenze tra italiano e latino sono più o meno le stesse che ci sono tra italiano e Norreno. Tante parole e tanti verbi italiani, ma anche diversi nomi di persona, vengono dal Norreno, e vi sono similitudini perfino nella coniugazione. Un esempio carino può essere "Þú mik varðar í garðinum", traducibile come "Tu mi guardi in giardino", sebbene "garð" abbia significati più ampi e "varða", che si trova anche nei dialetti dell'Italia del nord si sviluppi anche in "guardia". Un altro esempio carino è "Köttr er á hólli", "un gatto è su un colle", e qui è anche interessante notare quella somiglianza tra "hóll" e "colle" che lascia intendere come possano cambiare col tempo le parole; lo vediamo anche in "galoppo", da "hleypa", dove "g" nasce tra "h" ed "l", o in "Deus", che si dice si sviluppi dalla radice "Diw", "luce", ma penso invero che sia uno sviluppo del Norreno ljós", "luce", dove il suono "d" nasce tra "l" e "j". Tra l'altro il latino "Ego" somiglia al Norreno "Ek", come all'Islandese "ég", "io". Si può anche notare la somiglianza tra i vari casi Norreni con l'italiano: Ek, io, mik, mi, mín (declinato), mio, mér, a me, o Þú, tu, þik, ti, þín (declinato), tuo, þér, a te; Perfino nel condizionale notiamo alcune somiglianze: Ek sjá/sé, io sia, e via dicendo.

[@giuliopatrizio5737]

@@BernaskaneyTheLangobard ma assolutamente no

[@valeriocucchi3123]

@@BernaskaneyTheLangobard l’italiano è la lingua più somigliante al latino. Difatti, un italiano riesce a comprendere tranquillamente quantomeno il concetto della maggior parte delle frasi latine, ma di un periodo norreno o una semplicissima sequenza di parole nessuno sarebbe capace di capire una mazza. Conserviamo i tempi verbali, le coniugazioni, la grammatica (seppur semplificata), un numero enorme di vocaboli (circa l’80%) e tantissime altre caratteristiche del latino. Il norreno puoi tenertelo.

[@BernaskaneyTheLangobard]

@@giuliopatrizio5737 "No" cosa? Ho fatto degli esempi linguistici.

[@BernaskaneyTheLangobard]

@@valeriocucchi3123 È vero che sarebbe comunque difficile capire, come del resto è negli scritti a nome di Cicerone che si legge della sua incapacità di capire il Latino più antico. È naturale che vi siano differenze, ma il Norreno rimane strutturato, in generale, come il Latino, con casi e declinazioni. I tempi verbali sono bene o male gli stessi, ma la coniugazione Norrena si basa sulla modifica della desinenza e sul concetto di vocali anteriori e posteriori, da cui nasce, tra l'altro, l'ordine vocale che conosciamo: a, e, i, o, u. Vi sono invece somiglianze con participio presente e passato, che hanno finali quali "varð-andi" e "varð-at, ovvero "guardando" e "guardato", o "haf-andi" e "haf-t", con pronuncia "havandi" e "havt", cioè "avendo" e "avuto": "Hafið haft kött?", "avete avuto un gatto?"; "hafandi varðat hóllin í nóttu", "avendo guardato la collina di notte." In Verità, di vocaboli della lingua italiana originatisi nelle lingue alto Germaniche non ve ne sono pochi. Detro ciò, non intendevo aprire polemiche per fare competizioni linguistiche, era solo una curiosità.

[@skillfuldeep4552]

Your vids have inspired me to start learning learning latin, Just got my copy of Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata.

[@twopoles11]

Bona fortuna ad te!

[@spellandshield]

Eines Tages müssen Sie uns mehr von Ihrer Erfahrung mit der deutschen Sprache erzählen!

[@spooderman9122]

Auf jeden Fall!

[@micayahritchie7158]

Hey I can read this. Elementary German didn't fail me lol

[@yeah5874]

As a native speaker I will say that all this approaching learning Italian with a Latin point of view is very very interesting And in regard to the age question, "tieni" is used in the south, "quanto tieni" is a common way to ask the question in the south

[@italuswikiano1191]

I find Shakespeare more remote to my English than Dante is to my Italian. This is probably because Shakespeare's English borrows more from more languages than does Dante's Italian, which is heavily and primarily influenced by Latin, with only some smatterings of Lombard/German here and there.

[@BernaskaneyTheLangobard]

The actual italian is heavilly influenced by Norse languages: "Þú mik varðar í garðinum", "tu mi guardi in giardino, "Köttr er á hóll", un gatto è sul colle", are just a few examples of how related these languages are.

[@micayahritchie7158]

You should timestamp

[@micayahritchie7158]

9:32 btw

[@annafdd]

Weird, I find Shakespeare easier to understand knowing English than Dante, and I am a native Italian speaker. I would say that the equivalent drift is from Chaucer.

Loving these Brokeback Mountain episodes!

[@marcokite]

Luke is hotter than those 2 in 'Brokeback' !!

[@wolfe6220]

​@@marcokite👍😆

[@OmegaTaishu]

Loved the collab between you guys!

[@tmann986]

So cool to see both of you!

[@bendthebow]

My Roman friend thought my Tuscan friend had a beautiful accent. My Tuscan friend agreed

[@markmuller7962]

It was a treat to listen to you guys exchanging knowledge! I hope more of this is coming :D

[@andeve3]

This is fantastic.

[@itellyouforfree7238]

this is so nice to watch! :)

[@baerlauchstal]

I didn't know the vowel-breaking/single consonant rule; that's really helpful. Like Jackson, I know some conversational Spanish and did Latin at school, and I can fairly often get the gist of written Italian as a result; but rules like that are really useful in that process, and also help when trying to form sentences oneself.

[@iberius9937]

Your videos with Jackson Crawford and vice versa are good examples of language exchange at its finest.

[@Joy-lg1kg]

Many words used by Dante are false friends! They are still used in modern Italian, but with a different meaning. So people can understand the general meaning, but if they want to examine the text thoroughly," that's another story" . 😄 Something simple :gentile means nobile, nothing to do with kindness.

[@XanAxDdu]

that is because gentile was a latin surname so it remind a noble family, nobile that is opposite to popular, common for people

[@timberwoof]

Wow! I'm so happy to see two of my favorite KZbin linguists together like this!

[@Judesmood118]

More of these!!!!! Love comparisons!

[@gi1937]

Thank you for giving importance to the regional languages of Italy too!

[@politicallyscorrectshow2681]

I am italian and I can say your conversation was amazing to listen to. Congrats and thanks for liking our language

[@frankpfau9054]

so fun to watch! grazie a voi due!

[@viictor1309]

This is some good knowledge to be shared, I teach this little trick to my students and have been using it for years, bravissimo Luke and Jackson

[@carlossolorzano1028]

Excellent lesson of a practical application of Comparative and Historical grammar in learning other languages. Tremendo!!!

[@mfaizsyahmi]

For a podcast-quality production this has by far the nicest recording set.

[@qazwerty123451]

Listening to Luke talk is making me realize more and more that we've had extremely similar language journeys. German was also my first foreign language (maybe that's just because we're both from Pennsylvania). The major divergence I think is that I started with Italian after German, but Luke seems to have started with Latin. I will say though, I was also extremely disappointed in the absence of the preposition + article combinations in Spanish. It just makes everything so easy in Italian!!! I still find myself accidentally writing an extra l between a and la in Spanish because of the years of doing it in Italian.

[@spooderman9122]

Any video with you two is an intant watch. One time i even managed to get it when had no views

[@mjungwir]

As a French and Spanish speaker, it was so fun to apply these same rules to Italian. It is such a blessing to see such minds interacting in real life. So many amazing videos in such a magical period. May there be many more collab videos!

[@feelthenihilism]

As an italian learning Old Norse from Dr Jackson Crawford, I really love this crossover

[@MichaelPhillipsatGreyOwlStudio]

I'm really enjoying these collaborative videos with Dr. Crawford. I'm also learning Italian.

[@mariocioffi188]

Bravo! 👍

Awesome video Luke! Loved it. Fantastic background too! 🇮🇹

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Grazie, Tom!

[@hika_ariel]

This is extremely interesting, please do more!!

[@zxcvzxcvzxvzcvzxcv]

awesome, enjoyed this discussion

[@Kaiyanwang82]

This is a great video to link to those curious and want a "primer". Needlessly to say, excellent pronunciation. Ottimo lavoro come sempre, Lucius Grammaticus.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Grazie mille

[@ItalianByLatin]

Thank you for this great video🙂 In Germany, 560,000 students learn Latin in schools. But we have fewer than 50,000 students in schools learning Italian. I find it very sad! My idea is that my Latin students in Germany use Latin to learn Italian at the same time and later. My Latin students are really amazed at how quickly they can learn Italian.

[@jacobparry177]

You guys need to do some kind of skit where you're a legionnary and Jackson's a 1stC Germanic tribesman or something, akin to the time traveling linguist vids👀

[@tomasozanardi2041]

Really impressed by the intuitive way of picking correct Italian words from Spanish and Latin. I was also about to point out how southern Italian dialects, when translated to proper Italian maintain "tenere" invece di "avere". Therefore, "quanti anni tieni?" May not be the most correct way to ask someone's age in Italian, but it is the way they ask about how old one is southern than Rome. Kudos

[@kovaxim]

This conversation is something I wish I could have. I sort of see Luke as me, someone who likes languages and likes to talk about them in weird details, but I don't have someone like Jackson, someone who knows my world and engages in a conversation with me. I am sort of getting something similar, my friend who is learning Korean, so sometimes we can talk about cultural or linguistical differences between Korean and Japanese, but our conversations never go longer than let's say 5 minutes. Probably because we like different things in languages. IDK, will try to find out.

[@edmondpiffard2771]

I love you two. Most interesting peeps on KZbin

[@kimfleury]

Well that was fun.

[@sigilmedia]

It's very true that if you know Spanish and Latin, Italian is quite easy to pick up - I learned to understand it at least just from watching videos and almost no studying except occasionally looking up a verb chart or the definition for an unknown word. Never tried to speak it though, I feel like I almost could but it would sound pretty weird to a native.

[@vittoriodelfato2260]

Great video, really interesting. Thanks.

[@Claxen11]

As an Italian speaker this is hilarious in a good sense to actually have an English speaker that not only has an Italian background but also some dialect: Hoha Hola con la Hanuccia Horta. XD There's also a mountain Bresciano H that's quite unsual.

[@nathcascen473]

i genuinely lov luke video!

[@inventgineer]

I've been trying to begin to teach myself Italian (gotta show respect for my Italian ancestors, y'know?), and I'm around....oooh, beginner, perhaps beginner-intermediate level at the moment?.....and I found this video to be just a real hoot. Very fun, very informative, you both seem like well-natured intelligent fellows (and, as a completely straight man, Dr. Crawford is a stupidly handsome SOB, lmao), and the conversation was a joy to follow.

[@DuxLindy]

came across this because of Jackson, but man Luke seems to be a natural teacher in how he gives his explanations.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That’s a very generous compliment.

[@DuxLindy]

@@polyMATHY_Luke you're welcome!

[@edraith]

Love you guys

[@annafdd]

It’s not particularly difficult to study grammar in your native language (it’s what’s done in Italian schools) but it is very difficult if your first language is *English*, whose grammar remains a mystery to me to this day, despite years of study and perfect fluency.

[@gergelybakos2159]

Great! Grande!

[@gergelybakos2159]

Well, Dear Polimathy alias Luke, my second phrase languagewise was kind of instinctual. I know what the Italian adjective means, bout could you elaborate on its use as an exclamation of approval? I really liked the exchange.

[@flaviospadavecchia5126]

Hi Jackson, there is absolutely a difference in Icelandic geminate consonants, mostly reflected and understood by speakers as the lengthening or shortening of the previous vowel.

[@KertPerteson]

Bravo

[@lzfngr260]

I can watch them talk about whatever and never get bored

[@thebestofthebestmedia7545]

Me too

[@martino7263]

Loved the video.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks!

[@martino7263]

@@polyMATHY_Luke i am Italian and I know Latin, even tho not to the degree to be able to speak it. It was awesome to hear you and Jackson Crawford explain what Italian is like. We study Italian grammar very thoroughly in all the first 8 years of school, a thing that is not done in the US with English.

[@proximacentauri9635]

Sei bravissimo e parli italiano benissimo. 👏🏻

[@RandomNonsense1985]

I remember doing some basic sentence parsing in 7th grade English class (in Upstate NY in the late 90s).

[@channalbert]

That trick to predict the vowel split or not at the end blew my mind!! I am thinking of the point you made with the words "forte" and "fuerte"; and "forti" and "fuertes" respectively, for both genders. However, in Catalan it's "fort" (/ˈfɔɾt/) for male and "forta" for female, and "forts" and "fortes". If I'm not mistaken, French also has this feature (and allow me to assume it is the same for Occitan). It is interesting to see how such a trait that wasn't in Latin originally somehow appeared in the Gallo-Romance languages.

[@martinomasolo8833]

Nice vid! I read the etruscan theory for the Tuscan velar fricative has been put aside, it being an innovation from the 16th/17th century

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

That makes more sense

[@Iledomair]

Please learn Italian Dr Jackson it would be so cool

[@aeneasfuchskuntz7031]

Molto interessante!

[@TheZaratustra1989]

Awesome video! I wanted just to say that the verb "tenere" is used widely in the South of Italy, instead of the verb "avere" due (in my opinion) to the Spaniard influence of the south, cause it was under Spain rule for centuries

[@DirtyBob2001]

I'm about a year into dabbling with Italian, I started speaking weekly with an Italian instructor and I find when I'm tired my brain transports back decades ago to my two years of high school Spanish and unwittingly throw Spanish in with my Italian. so much so the my instructor who also speaks Spanish just expects it at some point in the lesson.

[@TheManifoldCuriosity]

I met a Florentine the other night and I was really surprised when she said the dialect there isn’t so close to standard Italian, it’s interesting to hear you touch on that here. I have also heard from Spaniards that the Madrid dialect is diverging from standard Castilian, even though it’s in the very heart of Castile! Love these collaboration videos.

[@empyrionin]

Quite the same everywhere. Same with Romanian and the Bucharester speech.

[@MBP1918]

Interesting

[@lollerfist6099]

Grandissimi :)

[@zackleonard8559]

That cuervo/corvo comment from Jackson's May 11 video finally makes sense... lol

[@MarkRosa]

7:25 I am so happy to finally hear the explanation of the Florentine dialect pronunciation of "Coca-Cola" -- in Larissa Bonfante's book on Etruscan, she mentions this word but transcribes it as [hola hola] and I had been totally flummoxed about that [l] in the middle there. Always wondered if it was just a typo, and it looks like that's what it is!

[@LordLux]

Here in italy we have a toungetwister made only for have a laugh on tuscan peaople, it's like "give me a coca cola with a very short straw" (Dammi una coca cola con una cannuccia corta corta). You can imagine how funny sounds in florentine.

[@TheStickCollector]

Good

[@zachariaszut]

Per Colorato, grazie mille.

[@mjackstewart]

When I was in Music School, I spoke Spanish to my Brazilian Portuguese-speaking friend, and he spoke Brazilian Portuguese to me. We had no trouble understanding one another.

[@edonisimasa]

Grande

[@ozbunt]

Quanti anni "tieni" with the verb tenere instead of avere is used in the south of Italy. In the North only the verb avere is used

[@SmashingCapital]

6:11 its not just the florentine dialect, its the florentine dialect that was of the nobility, which was different from the one spoken everyday by florentine people

[@nicolasbruno829]

Tante grazie per questo video! È molto interessante vedere queste tendenze nella lingua. Forse nel futuro farai un video sulla lingua napoletana o siciliana? Anche, dov'è questo bel posto in Colorado? Sono da Boulder, e mi appare molto vicino!

[@hope7237]

Italians can understand the Inferno/Hell and Purgatorio/Purgatory section of the Divina Commedia . Paradiso/Paradise section it's really hard to read for an Italian . Divinia Commedia is known to change its register between vulgar florentin leanguage ( Inferno) and an high register florentin(Paradiso)

[@MikiM89]

Speaking of dialects and accents, I was born in Trieste, but I've studied in Parma (for 5 years), with many friends from all around Italy. To my surprise, I realized that Italians do not immediately understand where I'm from, because, apparently, I lack any accent (I guess a bastard accent sounds like a pure accent?). I've also heard some people telling me I don't have a strong Italian accent when speaking in English. That is absolutely not true, but I imagine this has to do with the fact that it varies a lot based on the region of origin. I've soon learned to tell where an italian is from, based on the way they speak English, and that's amazing!

[@wolfe6220]

Luke!!! Woo hoo!!!

[@cormoranoimperatore8413]

It’s fun for a reason I don’t really get and interesting to listen to foreigners speak and talk about your language while analyzing it. Also lol when you talked about Tuscan dialect you reminded me of a recurring Italian meme and reference from the tv series “Boris” (which you can find on Italian Netflix) where in one scene a character gets interviewed and says something along the lines of “The true ruin of Italy are the Tuscans! With their inspired c and their cheap sense of humor they ruined this country!” It’s a pretty popular comedy show that talks about a group of people recording a fiction series (on the lines of a tier B soap opera) and the sad surreality of the reality of the Italian job industry and how it influences a cinematic set, and about Italians (with some degree of stereotype and not necessarily all characters being such of course, however I don’t think any Italian would ever say it’s a wrong representation)

[@gianlucabelgrado3624]

Wow questo video è stato molto utile, adesso so parlare in italiano

[@Leptospirosi]

9:50 I'd say Dante is close to Chaucher when it comes to modern English. Superficially you can get the meaning of most worlds but, quite often, you are really not getting the meaning of the period, because of the grammar construction. Understanding Dante without a proper commentary is very hard even for a fluent Italian speaker

And we had to read it in Literary class without being Italian speakers or even having any Italian language classes or context. Imagine the pain!

[@jeupater1429]

Lo stesso vale per Shakespeare in realtà, tanti madrelingua anglofoni capiscono un po ma non il senso vero dell'epoca. Chaucer è ancora peggio. Beowulf è incomprensibile

[@emilian7256]

Assolutamente no. Anche Umberto Eco ha detto che Dante è più comprensibile ad un italiano di oggi di quanto lo siano i Canterbury tales ad un inglese oggi

[@emilian7256]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/maKrmJiHq6-XjtU Da 00:50

[@Leptospirosi]

@mm43501 avendo studiato Dante per anni, capisco di capirne molto meno di quanto vorrei, e mi accorgo che la prima impressione di solito e sbagliata; Evidentemente tu devi essere "molto più avanti" per coglierlo al volo.

[@BenjaminBlodgettDev]

There is immense gigachad energy in these collabs

[@BigBex]

In the italian education system grammar has a very important place, expecially in middle school

[@awbonfanti]

ahahahha and with so much effort that italians never do a grammar error. come on mate, i'm 36 and the italian school is a fuckin joke, just a big mess full of lacks. and i'm from the north, imagine in the south... (moreover, i 'm noticing that even the "h" of verb "avere" is in decline in the new generetions. i'm speechless and hopeless.)

[@BigBex]

@@awbonfanti... I never said that man, i just said that, unlike as in the USA, the two gentlemen in the video said, in italy we actually study grammar quite in depth. Now, i'm only 22 yet i agree with you, the younger generation's lever of competency in the use of our language is lower than it should be, sometimes worryingly so but generalizing is not right, there are quality schools both in the south and the north. They are not common tho and the school system is surely due a reform.

[@JamesJones-zt2yx]

Spanish does often diphthongize stressed vowels (but note Spanish flor vs. Italian fiore). Another useful pattern is how leading "f" can turn into leading "h" in Spanish. At a Mexican restaurant, I was asked if I wanted "hongo" in my quesadilla. I thought fratically for a second... f to h, u to o, so "hongo" maps back to... fungus! Why yes, I do want mushrooms on my quesadilla. Another example is ferrum to hierro.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Indeed. Fiore though is not a diphthongization of o (which in any case is a long ō in Latin, and thus would not undergo diphthongization in any Western Romance language), but the palatalization of L in post-initial position. And yes, in Old Spanish the transformation was quite apparent, hence both older Fernandez and newer Hernandez exist side by side.

[@costillero2189]

In some dialects, you can still find today some words retaining that f in spanish. Fierro comes to mind.

[@sergiogaggioni2429]

Great video, when it comes to "tenere" versus "avere" the Napolitan dialect and some other closer southern dialects or languages still use "tenere" meaning to have and not to hold like the spanish meaning. I'm guessing this could be due to he Aragonian ruling the south of Italy in the 16th century.

[@anthonyjackes2753]

Dear Lucca. I'm from Brazil and also ítalo-brasileiro as part of my family came from Italy. I have a bis-nono nato a Roma. I think that people like us interested in Latino are reencarnation from that Empire, i feel something very special in your videos. In fact, if we look with a certain attention, as I'm looking now to your very elegant kid leather jacket, we can see that all the America is not another thing that the a new conquist of the romans, but beyond the time instead of the space. And of couse should mention a link with The Magic Flute of Mozart, one of the most beautiful operas of all the times and also I would like to know of you have something to do with the Royal Family of Monaco.

[@Epsilonsama]

I'm learning French and many times I done this same thing with being able to get what one of the voice recording where saying using my Spanish and English knowledge although French is a much different beast than Italian which is more similar to Spanish.

[@jacopohan6731]

I first learnt Spanish as my major at university but somehow I decided to come to Italy for further education, so I was attending an Italian language course and learnt the language as beginner😂(yes I never actually learnt Italian before that) and I really enjoyed those 10 months of learning. One can literally realise how similar these two languages are, though sometimes you can encounter some pairs of "fake friends", like salir and salire, basically sharing the "same" stem and respectively the same set of verb ending, yet with totally different meanings. Quite interesting though. And about the coca cola part...I don't know, I mean I've been living in Florence for 2 years and never heard local people pronounce the word in that way. It happened only once when I went to a housing agency run by a father and son, and they pronounced c like g in Spanish word fuego, thought they might be from south Italy.

[@Dekidekibg]

Do you remember the movie "A fish Called Wanda" where Jamie Lee Curtis gets turned on by smart talking, preferably in a foreign language. Well, looking at these two smart and good looking guys....

[@lislearnitalianwithsongs]

Grazie for the super interesting video! Those Tuscanians have a sort of advantage over people speaking dialects from other parts of Italy. My friends from Tuscany sometimes bring up words that sound “made up on the spot”. Then you look them up in the dictionary and, lo and behold, they DO exist! If I look up words from my dialect (a variant of the Venetian dialect) 90% of the times they don’t! And my dialect almost have no geminate consonants… Bel video, grazie!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Infatti, è un po’ etruscocentrico

[@lislearnitalianwithsongs]

@@polyMATHY_Luke 😜👍

[@ak5659]

If one is focused on everyday communication, you can take any word from Spanish,Multiple dialects of Italian,& Portuguese and use it another and pretty much everyone will understand you...

[@Catonius]

You guys really made hay while the Sun (half) shone.