Inspired by mamascarlatti's post in Verdi DVDs thread:
Mine would be:
Italian:
1) "pensieri (thoughts)" - it felt into my ears while I was listening to Recondita Armonia over and over again and then I recognized it in aria from Norma, it wasn't hard to work out what it means
2) "donna (woman)" - it would be hard not to learn this word. I never listened to Rigoletto but there are plenty of donnas in Puccini (dialogue between Rudolfo and Marcello in Boheme comes to mind, and the act I of Manon Lescaut with Donna Non Vidi Mai)
3) Mille (milion), serpi (serpents), divorami (devour), il, petto (chest) - these words make one sentence in Traviata and Domingo was so kewl with them in Zefirelli's movie that I had to write down the whole sentence and learn it. Now I use it daily. Someone tells me bad news and I shout MILLE SERPI... DIVORANMI IL PETTO!, grab my frock coat and leave to duel with barone.
German:
1) "Wehe! (Woe!)" - probably Wagner's all-time favourite word.
2) "Schmerz (grief, ache)" - another Wagner's favourite, or is it just that 99% of characters in his operas suffer from große schmerzen im herzen?
I suppose I would learn diffrent, more obvious words but I already knew basics of German.
I don't think I learned any French word from opera and I'm a bit into French actually. Perhaps it's because I don't listen to much of French operas.
Btw, try to learn ANY word in Hungarian by ear after one listening to Bluebeard's Castle.
Is it that bad? Let's all go back in memory to times when we still were getting used to languages we don't speak too well but which we know from operas.
Mine would be:
Italian:
1) "pensieri (thoughts)" - it felt into my ears while I was listening to Recondita Armonia over and over again and then I recognized it in aria from Norma, it wasn't hard to work out what it means
2) "donna (woman)" - it would be hard not to learn this word. I never listened to Rigoletto but there are plenty of donnas in Puccini (dialogue between Rudolfo and Marcello in Boheme comes to mind, and the act I of Manon Lescaut with Donna Non Vidi Mai)
3) Mille (milion), serpi (serpents), divorami (devour), il, petto (chest) - these words make one sentence in Traviata and Domingo was so kewl with them in Zefirelli's movie that I had to write down the whole sentence and learn it. Now I use it daily. Someone tells me bad news and I shout MILLE SERPI... DIVORANMI IL PETTO!, grab my frock coat and leave to duel with barone.
German:
1) "Wehe! (Woe!)" - probably Wagner's all-time favourite word.
2) "Schmerz (grief, ache)" - another Wagner's favourite, or is it just that 99% of characters in his operas suffer from große schmerzen im herzen?
I suppose I would learn diffrent, more obvious words but I already knew basics of German.
I don't think I learned any French word from opera and I'm a bit into French actually. Perhaps it's because I don't listen to much of French operas.
Btw, try to learn ANY word in Hungarian by ear after one listening to Bluebeard's Castle.