Italian Review with Mina

Let’s practice subjunctive and conditional tenses with this amazing song by the famous Italian singer Mina.Try to fill the blanks on your own and then check if you were right by watching and enjoying the video!

SE TELEFONANDO

Lo stupore della notte

spalancata sul mar

ci sorprese che eravamo

sconosciuti io e te.

Poi nel buio le tue mani

d'improvviso sulle mie,
è cresciuto troppo in fretta

questo nostro amor.

Se telefonando

io (potere)_____________ dirti addio

ti (chiamare)_____________ .

Se io rivedendoti (essere)_____________ certa

che non soffri ti (rivedere) _____________

Se guardandoti negli occhi (sapere)_____________

dirti basta ti (guardare) _____________ .

Ma non so spiegarti che

il nostro amore appena nato

è già finito.

Se telefonando io(potere)_____________

dirti addioti (chiamare)_____________ .

Se io rivedendoti(essere)_____________ certa

che non soffri ti (rivedere) _____________

Se guardandoti negli occhi(sapere)_____________

dirti basta ti (guardare) _____________ .

Ma non so spiegarti che

il nostro amore appena nato

è già finito.

Music is one of the pleasures of life

Science has discovered that music produces dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter of the sense of pleasure in those neural areas where pleasure sensations are elaborated. Obviously, only our favorite music can produce this kind of effect.
The discovery has been made by the Valorie Salimpoor team from the McGill University of Montreal and has been published in "Nature Neuroscience". The experts have proved that, while we listen to our favorite music, our heartbeats get modified, so as the breathing frequency and the body temperature. It has also been demonstrated that we just need to know that we are going to listen to our favorite song, to unleash all the pleasure reactions inside our brain.

So, set your favorite CD, play your favorite song, enjoy it!

Cinema: one day in your life

"Un giorno della vita", (lit. One day in your life) is Giuseppe Papasso’s first film, starring Alessandro Haber, Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Ernesto Mahieux and Pascal Zullino and released on Jan 14th.
The plot is set in the Basilicata region, in 1964.

Salvatore, 12 years old, is now in a reformatory because of his intense passion for cinema. This passion had pushed him every day to bike with his friends Alessio and Caterina to the nearest town to watch old films. In doing so, he had to face daily his father’s hostility. His father is a communist countryman who sees his son’s hobby as “smoke in the eyes”. One day, Salvatore reads of an old 16mm projector for sale and he has the idea of building up a small movie theater in his village. There is just a problem: he has no money. Salvatore buys the projector stealing the money the local Communist Party Section had collected to send a delegation to Togliatti’s funeral. The children’s joy for success lasts only briefly: the adults’ own issues and the State political problems eventually clash with their naïve dream, and Salvatore’s theft is eventually discovered.
The film is a fairytale about the fascinating world of cinema seen through a young boy’s point of view: it heals the soul and the world altogether.

La Treccani Sottolio = Treccani In Oil

The Treccani Sottolio is the latest installation by Benedetto Marcucci. It can be currently seen at the Roman MACRO (Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome) and from June, at the Italian Institute of Culture in New York.
54 volumes of the most famous Italian Encyclopedia have been put in oil in cans, sealed with wax and exposed to the public to underline the critical phase of encyclopedic knowledge and, at the same time, to express the need of preserving it. Encyclopedias are a sort of relic in the Wikipedia era, but, as a matter of fact, they should not be forgotten on a library shelf…

Diabolik: the king of terror

One of the easiest and most entertaining ways to learn a foreign language is surely by reading comics. Today we want to suggest our foreign students learning Italian to read Diabolik.

The title character, i.e. Diabolik, has been created by Angela and Luciana Giussani in 1962. Diabolik is a professional thief, who steals money and jewelry, often from wealthy criminals, with the help of his beautiful fiancée Eva Kant.
They need to steal to sustain their luxurious life and to pay for the state-of-the-art technologies they employ in their robberies.
Particularly exceptional are the masks they use to deceive their identity: they are made of a modifiable resin that looks like real human skin once dried. In this way Diabolik and Eva can perfectly reproduce human facial features. In some comic strips we can see how, thanks to these masks, they can deceive even their own relatives.
Their longtime enemy is Inspector Ginko, chief of the Clerville Police Department in the capital city of the fictitious Clerville State.
The Diabolik adventures are still published monthly, after 50 years from their first edition, with many recurrent reprints. The first issues are particularly precious among comics’ collectors. The comics still fascinate modern readers for their classic plotlines, where good and evil are always at war.

It’s Jovanotti’s “ORA”

Jovanotti is back, with his brand new album: Ora.
The album has been previously anticipated by the hit single "Tutto l'amore che ho" (All the love I have).

In Ora the 15 tracks are mostly dance, a return to the origins of Jovanotti’s career. Lorenzo Cherubini, a. k. a. Jovanotti, lost his mother about 2 months ago, and for him the album helped him cope with the event: “This album in some way compensated the sadness of the experience. I was going back and forth between the hospital and the recording studio. While in the hospital I would ‘entertain’ the patients and so I thought: I want to create an album that makes people feel better. I dedicate it to my mom. She was proud of me and she liked funny and joyful songs”.

Mediterranean Diet, Unesco Heritage

The Mediterranean Diet has been nominated to become cultural Unesco Heritage for Humanity , like the Venice Lagoon, the “trulli” (typical houses) of Alberobello, Machu Picchu, Notre Dame and the Statue of Liberty.

The term “Mediterranean diet” has been used first in the 50s by Ancel Keys, a famous American nutritionist and scientist. This diet is based on food high in fibers (cereals, legumes, fruits and vegetables), olive oil, fish, and it is worldwide known as the healthiest and most nutrient diet, proved to fight cells aging and cardiovascular diseases.

The proposal has been presented by the Italian Minister (Secretary) for Agricultural Politics, Paolo De Castro, and by the Spanish Minister for Agriculture, Fishing and Food, Elena Espinosa.
Italy and Spain are involved in the promotion and defense of the Mediterranean Diet on the International scene. Both countries are committed to spread the knowledge about its specific characteristics and undeniable nutritional advantages.