ITALIAN NEWS for Beginners | Learn Italian with the News Easy Edition

Would you like to understand the news in Italian? I’ll give you a hand! Benvenuto/a al nostro TELEGIORNALE FACILE! Today we talk about NASA astronomical photo of the day for the 25th of December and about holiday spending. Read the headlines with me to learn new words and expressions, looking for similarities with English! Pause the video if you need more time to read, then listen carefully and let me know what you think in the comments. After each story, I ask you a question: answer in the comments!

0:00 Introduzione
0:35 La foto del giorno del 25 dicembre
4:40 Quanto hanno speso gli italiani a Natale?

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Ciao, sono Anna e questo è My Italian Circle! Vuoi capire le notizie in italiano? Ti aiuto io! Welcome to our first easy news in Italian of 2024. Our keywords for today: intelligenza artificiale – fotomontaggio – tavolata – spumante. Ready? I’ll be back in a sec! Non cambiare canale!

Today our first news in Italian takes us to Turin — Torino, where a photographer took a very special picture. Let’s have a look at it: here it is, eccola qua! ANSA, the Italian news agency, describes this shot as follows: Superga, il Monviso e la Luna: three places, all lined up in this picture.

Superga is a hill just out of Turin, famous for a majestic Baroque church: la basilica di Superga. Il Monviso is a mountain on the border between Italy and France; and la Luna is the moon, of course. La foto del giorno Nasa è di Torino, the NASA Picture of the Day is from Turin.

Scattata da Valerio Minato, shot by Valerio Minato, who says: “siamo circondati da meraviglia”, we are surrounded by wonder. Let’s read more about this picture. La Basilica di Superga, la piramide del Monviso e la falce della Luna crescente, The Basilica

Of Superga, the pyramid of Monviso and the waxing crescent moon, tutti in fila, al tramonto, uno dietro l’altro: all in a row, at sunset, one behind the other: arriva da Torino la “foto astronomica del giorno” della Nasa per il 25 dicembre, Nasa’s ‘astronomical photo of the day’ for 25 December comes from Turin.

L’autore è il fotografo Valerio Minato, The author is photographer Valerio Minato. “Il regalo più bello, una gioia immensa” ha scritto sulla sua pagina Facebook. “The most beautiful gift, an immense joy,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “Condividetelo, se vi va, per aiutarmi a far capire che siamo circondati di meraviglia

Anche senza fotomontaggi o intelligenza artificiale”, “Share it, if you like, to help me let people understand that we are surrounded by wonder even without photomontages or artificial intelligence.” Let’s explain the expression falce di luna. Falce literally means sickle: that’s what we call the crescent moon, for its shape.

Luna crescente, instead, is waxing moon, literally, the growing moon. Luna calante is waning moon. Fotomontaggio, photomontage, is an old-fashioned process which we would now call photoshopping. In Italian we also turned the software name Photoshop into a verb: fotoshoppare, to photoshop. Finally, l’intelligenza artificiale, artificial intelligence. This is a very popular topic right now.

So I have a question for you: Questa fotografia è stata creata dall’intelligenza artificiale? È un fotomontaggio? Sì o no? Rispondi nei commenti, answer in the comments! For our second news story we look back at the 2023 holiday season that has just ended, to talk about holiday spending! Let’s read this headline from ANSA:

Coldiretti, a Natale gli italiani hanno speso 3 miliardi a tavola. Coldiretti — the Italian agricultural association — says: at Christmas Italians spent 3 billion in food. A tavola literally means at the table, but it’s a metonymy, una metonimia, a very common figure of speech: we say table but we mean food.

Un miliardo per pesce e carni, 600 milioni per spumante e vino. One billion for fish and meat, 600 million for sparkling wine and other wines. If there is something Italians do not skimp on, that’s food! Let’s read a few lines from this story:

Gli italiani hanno speso quasi 3 miliardi di euro per cibo e bevande tra la cena della vigilia e il pranzo di Natale, Italians spent almost EUR 3 billion on food and drink between Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas lunch, che quasi nove italiani su dieci hanno deciso

Di trascorrere a casa o con parenti o amici, which almost nine out of ten Italians decided to spend at home or with relatives or friends. Tornano le tavolate: a Natale 2023 la media è di 8 commensali, Big family meals are back: at Christmas 2023 the average was eight people eating together.

So, it looks like people spent more time together in the last holiday season, eating and drinking, of course. La cena della vigilia, Christmas Eve dinner, e il pranzo di Natale, Christmas lunch, are the central events of the holidays in Italy; most people do one or the other, but some families do both!

Sparkling wine, lo spumante, is the king of the table: dry before a meal, sweet with pandoro and panettone. Tavolata is an interesting word: it comes from tavola, table, and it evokes the image of a large dinner table with lots of people around. E tu, come hai passato le feste?

How did you spend the holidays? Did you spend endless time sitting at the table, eating and drinking, or did you have an alternative Christmas? Let me know in the comments! You can find more interesting words and more questions in our premium content on Patreon, check it out!

For more news stories, watch the other episodes of this playlist. Next week I’ll be back with an important grammar lesson, don’t miss it! Ciao!