La Bella Lingua

A few days ago I started writing about the top languages that I wanted to learn (I will post that eventually, by the way). Most of you probably know that, at uni, I'll be studying Japanese and Italian, and after uni I might have a go at German (there's no way in hell I'll ever be fluent at all three of course, but it'd be nice to know some basic German on the side, right?) or Macedonian. Truthfully, Sicilian would probably be my ultimate favourite, but where the hell would I learn that?
Usually I fangirl over Japanese because it's different to English, it's very rounded and pretty sounding, their writing system is a lot more creative than the Roman alphabet could ever be and... well, anime and manga is originally written in Japanese, so it must be good. I adore Japan, and I really, really love the language. Unfortunately, it's just me. My family are... well, they're accepting of it, but they aren't fans of the country at all, and most of my friends are into other languages and cultures. Not that that's bad; it's always good to be an individual. It just makes it hard to truly fangirl when you don't have anyone to fangirl with. I can fangirl at them, but that's hardly the same.

Anyway. As I outlined in my language blog post that I have not posted yet (whoops), my great grandmother, who knew seven languages or something, loved Italian the most. I found out a few days ago that her daughter, my grandmother, loves traveling around Italy. I don't know where Italy is in comparison to all the other countries she seems to love, but it's definitely somewhere near the top of her favourites list.

I started to see a trend here, so I pestered my aunts on the other side of my family to see their opinions. As it turns out, they love Italy even more. One of them told me that Italy was her absolute favourite place, especially Sicily. Which is brilliant because it really seems that Sicily doesn't get the love it deserves (neither does the language, but that's a rant for another time).
I told her that I wanted to go to Italy and Spain at some point. She replied with "Spain is brilliant. It was this atmosphere that you have to love. But Italy will always be my favourite. It's beautiful. It has such amazing landscapes, and it has this really extensive history you just end up immersed in. The language is really pretty, too."

...well then.

I'm easily influenced, so I've started to look up more on the country and the language. I've always adored Italian. Pfft, they say France is the country of l'amour, but it's got nothing on how romantic Italian can sound. As I said earlier, I love Japan. My interest in Japanese culture will always top my interest in Italian culture. But when it comes to the languages, Italian may actually come up on top. It's more melodic and bright sounding, and the consonants are just so much sharper and more crisp.

Er, I'll stop fangirling over that now. I spent awhile looking at different places in Italy (Rome is gorgeous and Venice is so one-in-a-kind, but I still love the entirety of Sicily~) and then started looking up a heap of words. Why not add some Italian to my vocabulary, right? I like to think of it as getting a head start on my uni stuff. Yeah. That's my excuse.

Anyway, today I have decided that andiamo is one of my favourite words. It means let's go, basically, but to me it sounds a bit more urgent. It's a very pretty word. It just rolls off the tongue so easily. I dunno, I just like it a lot. Is it bad that I first heard the word through Hetalia?
I've also learnt that Italians use the term che cavolo as something similar to "what the hell". Thing is, it literally translates to what cabbage. So next time something weird and befuddling happens, make sure to exclaim what the cabbage?!?, alright? ^_^

Ti amo, hai capito? ♥ I absolutely adore how this sounds. Heh.
Italiano; la bella lingua indeed.