Italians are very into ‘cultura’.
Art, literature, opera, ballet, classical music, theatre, cinema and so on.
Kids at school have to read ‘I promessi sposi‘, and worse.
It’s a form of socialisation, like hazing in the military.
Video games and rap?
Right-thinking people wouldn’t regard either as ‘cultura’, I’m sure.
I was trying to convince my wife the other evening, over a bottle of wine, that today’s ‘high’ culture is simply yesterday’s ‘pop’ culture, but fossilised, sterile and idolised by the ‘haves’ who have nothing better to spend their money on.
Read Dickens (some of which is awful, some of which is great) for an insight into what people did for entertainment in the London of his day.
It’s basically the above list, minus cinema, which hadn’t been invented yet.
But theatre, opera et al. would often have been on the bawdy side then, with content unsuitable for minors. At the very least, it was an excuse for a booze-up.
Nice people probably stayed at home and read their bibles, I’m sure. Fast forward ten generations and those same ‘nice’ people are opera fans, who look down on what the masses spend their dollars on.
Anyway, today’s new set of free Italian conversation lesson prompts is on ‘Cultura‘.
Find it here.
Or browse the nineteen others on our page of free Italian conversation lesson prompts.
Bene, gotta go as I have a Turkish lesson in less than thirty minutes.
We’ll probably be using a translation of the conversation lesson prompts as the basis for our conversation (it’s much easier that way!)
See?
I practice what I preach!
A venerdì, allora.