# Good operas for language learning?



## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

I'm wondering if there are good operas for listening practice in: French, German, and Italian.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I think The Flying Dutchman is in an easy German.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Try _Das Rheingold._ If you can say "Garstig glatter glitschiger Glimmer! Wie gleit' ich aus! Mit Händen und Füssen nicht fasse noch halt' ich das schlecke Geschlüpfer!", nothing else in German should give you much trouble.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Dialogues des Carmélites


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I think we would want operas of few words that are sung slowly. Of course then the learner may end up talking slowly and won't have much of a vocabulary.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

woodduck said:


> try _das rheingold._ if you can say "garstig glatter glitschiger glimmer! Wie gleit' ich aus! Mit händen und füssen nicht fasse noch halt' ich das schlecke geschlüpfer!", nothing else in german should give you much trouble.


rotflmao!!!!!!!!


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Well, to go by my own experiences beginning when I was a teenager back in the stone age , I discovered opera when I was about thirteen years old and began to take complete recordings of operas out from my local library , which had an excellent of classical LPs .
I became familiar with all the most famous operas by Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Puccini, Wagner, Richard Strauss and the others . The same as most complete CD recordings of operas, the LPs came with the booklet with the synopsis , the libretto in the original language plus and English translation next to it . 
I not only learned the operas, but gained a good familiarity with Italian, French, German and even Russian and Czech . This was very helpful when I studied German in school ; I was already familiar with the language and could understand it fairly well .


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Manok said:


> I'm wondering if there are good operas for listening practice in: French, German, and Italian.


The German ans French languages are the most easy to understand.
Italian is "old" Italian.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

For Italian, I've found that the works of Puccini are easier to follow along with than earlier composers. In 19th century works, the language is more florid and the librettists often contort sentence structure for the sake of the rhyme, confounding beginners like me. That being said, Baroque operas can be easy since those da capo arias repeat the same couples of line over and over (and over... and over...).

For French, Carmen has its familiarity and ubiquity working in its favor. At first I found it difficult to follow in French because of the intricate rhythms, but after multiple outings I'm finally starting to get an ear for it. And I find focusing on the French can add an interesting challenge to yet _another_ Carmen.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

As concerns German, I would suggest you start practicing with Schubert's lieder.


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## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

I will use anything and everything to learn vocab from, the opera was just an idea especially since I already listen to it frequently anyway.


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## graziesignore (Mar 13, 2015)

They say that 90% of language learning is vocabulary learning, so "old" Italian probably is just as helpful as "modern" French.


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Probably starting with the libretti set from prose rather than poetry (in verse) ? At least for me prose is always easier to understand than idiomatic expressions of poetry. I was able to follow the French in _Pelléas et Mélisande_ much better than _Carmen_ (I know it is not a very fair comparison given the time gap between two works).


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

silentio said:


> Probably starting with the libretti set from prose rather than poetry (in verse) ? At least for me prose is always easier to understand than idiomatic expressions of poetry. I was able to follow the French in _Pelléas et Mélisande_ much better than _Carmen_ (I know it is not a very fair comparison given the time gap between two works).


What time gap? 
Pelleas et Melisande premiered only 27 years after Carmen.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Pugg said:


> The German ans French languages are the most easy to understand.
> Italian is "old" Italian.


Getting away from opera for a moment, Carmina Burana is written in quite simple language- but it's very, very old Italian!


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

graziesignore said:


> They say that 90% of language learning is vocabulary learning, so "old" Italian probably is just as helpful as "modern" French.


I don't know if that 90℅ figure is true, but the most important part of Italian and French to learn thoroughly is not vocabulary but grammar. Why? Because vocabulary is largely guessable from English (even more so from Latin) but grammar generally isn't. Spoken dialogue and even sung dialogue allow us to hear the grammar and thus the language in its natural environment (or a stylised version thereof) instead of struggling to focus on the stultifyingly dull pages of some dry old school book. Additionally, metre, rhyme (where used) and music naturally aid memorization.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Figleaf said:


> Getting away from opera for a moment, Carmina Burana is written in quite simple language- but it's very, very old Italian!


Carmina Burana is primarily a macaronic mixture of mediæval German and Latin. I wouldn't recommend it as a means to learn modern German, still less Italian.


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Sloe said:


> What time gap?
> Pelleas et Melisande premiered only 27 years after Carmen.


I am just beginning to learn French so no comment. But in my own language, a time gap of 20 years (in the 19th century) reflected a very big change in the idiomatic expressions in literature. Say, the style and language used in a novel in 1860 is very different from one in 1880.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Figleaf said:


> I don't know if that 90℅ figure is true, but the most important part of Italian and French to learn thoroughly is not vocabulary but grammar. Why? Because vocabulary is largely guessable from English (even more so from Latin) but grammar generally isn't. Spoken dialogue and even sung dialogue allow us to hear the grammar and thus the language in its natural environment (or a stylised version thereof) instead of struggling to focus on the stultifyingly dull pages of some dry old school book. Additionally, metre, rhyme (where used) and music naturally aid memorization.


Good advice Figleaf, I am afraid not everyone got it in one


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Strange enough, the Da Ponte trilogy is much more accessible than the 19th-century / early 20th-century libretti in Italian.
Most people here can enjoy Le nozze di Figaro / Don Giovanni or Così fan tutte without reading the text while they still need to have the libretto with them to fully understand what's going on in a Bellini or Donizetti (or Verdi or Rossini, or even Puccini) opera.

That also marks the importance of a good writer, and Lorenzo Da Ponte was an excellent one.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> Carmina Burana is primarily a macaronic mixture of mediæval German and Latin. I wouldn't recommend it as a means to learn modern German, still less Italian.


I've only read certain twelfth century Latin language poems which were included in the collection, and medieval Latin is quite easy to understand because the vocabulary is simpler than in classical Latin and the word order closer to English.

Macaronic? I'll have to look that up...


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

silentio said:


> I am just beginning to learn French so no comment. But in my own language, a time gap of 20 years (in the 19th century) reflected a very big change in the idiomatic expressions in literature. Say, the style and language used in a novel in 1860 is very different from one in 1880.


I've been learning French for a while but I haven't really moved beyond beginner level, due to lack of application. Some operas which I have found quite simple to understand without a translation are _Guercoeur_, _Fervaal_, and _L'Attaque du Moulin_, of which the latter probably has the best libretto. Which is your first language, silentio? Hard to believe it isn't English!


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## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

Figleaf said:


> I've been learning French for a while but I haven't really moved beyond beginner level, due to lack of application. Some operas which I have found quite simple to understand without a translation are _Guercoeur_, _Fervaal_, and _L'Attaque du Moulin_, of which the latter probably has the best libretto. Which is your first language, silentio? Hard to believe it isn't English!


I'm at a fairly high level in French, but not with listening, I still struggle with it I think mostly due to not having ever been there and being surrounded by it. I thought this might be a way of helping me hear the things that are still giving me trouble.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

During my recent trip to Budapest, I'd order white wine in the opera intervals (and elsewhere), and make it sound natural and the Hungarian _Fehér bor kérem_ shouldn't be too difficult I thought. However my attempts were met with a quizzical expression.

On the third night I knew I had it cracked when the barman responded '_Dry or sweet?_'

I'm a believer in vocabulary learning, particularly taking advantage of cognates. However, making yourself understood and understanding what is said requires rather more work.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Don Fatale said:


> During my recent trip to Budapest, I'd order white wine in the opera intervals (and elsewhere), and make it sound natural and the Hungarian _Fehér bor kérem_ shouldn't be too difficult I thought. However my attempts were met with a quizzical expression.
> 
> On the third night I knew I had it cracked when the barman responded '_Dry or sweet?_'


You were more successful than my schoolfriend, Tim. On a school trip to Paris, we spotted a couple of pretty girls, and Tim was determined to chat them up by showing off his mastery of the French language. What he _meant_ to say was "You're like two beautiful birds" ("Vous êtes comme deux jolies oiseaux"), but what he said was "Vous êtes comme deux jolies poissons". They stared at him in puzzlement, and then burst into laughter when he added "Poissons. You know, like tweet! tweet!", and compounded his error by flapping his arms.


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