# Learning a language for classical music?



## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

I've been obsessed with classical music since I was 3, and I've been wondering is it possible to learn enough of the major classical music languages (I mean the non English ones, I don't need to learn English obviously. I consider them: Italian, German, and French, to at least get the gist of operas and songs without subtitles or translations? Do opera singers learn what they are singing, or do they merely learn the proper pronunciation? I consider myself near fluent in French, though I didn't learn it for classical music purposes.


----------



## kyriekyr (May 8, 2019)

Learning the basic of Latin and then Italian can be very enjoyable, if you're into foreign languages. By the way, it will help you to study other European languages. I can recommend one good Italian language school in Sanremo, they have several courses for studying Italian.


----------



## jenspen (Apr 25, 2015)

Manok said:


> ....is it possible to learn enough of the major classical music languages (I mean the non English ones, I don't need to learn English obviously. I consider them: Italian, German, and French, to at least get the gist of operas and songs without subtitles or translations?


My advice about opera would not be worth much but, in my personal experience as a chorister: Having studied Latin, French and some Italian at school and a quite a bit of French as an undergraduate, has made the texts of a lot of choral music, particularly early music, more meaningful to me and much more memorable than they are for the monoglots in the group

Though French is my first second language, I can't understand sung French without having had a close read of the text first. The sounds of Italian are much easier on an English speaker's ear.

But! one of the best decisions I have made in my whole life was to take an adult distance course in German. My ears were opened to Lieder and Bach cantatas and Passions - the great vocal music of the world.


----------



## brahmsgirl (Apr 4, 2019)

As a huge italian opera fan(girl), I - very slowly, by my own (with some coursebook and italian movies / tv shows) - learn italian. I'm still the beginner, but my goal is to sit comfortable in italian opera houses and just soak the music and libretto without constantly looking onto the translation screen (I do it, even though I "know" the original lyrics and the plot).


----------

