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Italian, and opera question

2553 Views 10 Replies 7 Participants Last post by  graziesignore, 
M
I'm learning Italian for an upcoming trip to Italy, and after about a month, I realized I might start to be able to listening to opera, if I learned the proper words. Now I'm not to that point, I just realized hey there will be a point that I don't need subtitles anymore. My question is, how do I go about finding the words I need to be able to understand it properly? Just listen for them, or is there a common opera phrase book lying around someplace I could pick up? I have noticed that singing is a good deal harder to hear than just spoken, in any language, are there any tips for listening?
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Manok said:
I'm learning Italian for an upcoming trip to Italy, and after about a month, I realized I might start to be able to listening to opera, if I learned the proper words. Now I'm not to that point, I just realized hey there will be a point that I don't need subtitles anymore. My question is, how do I go about finding the words I need to be able to understand it properly? Just listen for them, or is there a common opera phrase book lying around someplace I could pick up? I have noticed that singing is a good deal harder to hear than just spoken, in any language, are there any tips for listening?
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Italian is a beautiful language and well done for wanting to learn some before you go. However operatic language is different from ordinary spoken language and the words don't sound the same. I have difficulty understanding the words in an English opera.

You could buy a good used 'box set' version of a popular opera and get one with the libretto included. This will give you the words and a translation. A DVD will also give you subtitles in the original language.

This has double sub-titles.

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