I also have been delighted to hear from Italian readers, who say that they are enjoying my perspective on their language and believe that my book is improving their understanding of English and English-speakers.
For me, the Italian edition of La Bella Lingua has been a revelation. Although my books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, I was never able to read any of them. With the Chinese and Japanese editions, the only words I recognized were my name.
Since so many things sound better in Italian, I wondered if this truism applied to my own writing. If you read English and Italian, you can be the judge. Consider these two sentences describing la bella lingua:
“While other tongues do little more than speak, this lyrical language thrills the ear, beguiles the mind, captivates the heart, enraptures the soul, and comes closer than any other idiom to expressing the essence of what it means to be human.”
“Le altre lingue parlano e poco più, mentre questa, cosi lirica, solletica l’orecchio, seduce la mente, cattura il cuore, rapisce l’anima e più di qualsiasi altro idioma si avvicina e esprimere l’essenza di ciò che significa essere umani.”
Personally, I vote for the Italian—with applause and gratitude to Maria Baiochhi and Anna Tagliavini, who did the translation for Treccani.
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