Lesson Transcript

Hello everyone, welcome back to ItalianPod101.com.
My name is Desy, mi chiamo Desy, mi chiamo Desy.
And in this video, we're going to talk about what happens in Italy during February.
febbraio in Italia
So February is febbraio, febbraio, double b, is the second month of the year and it's actually full of events.
We start already right away on the 2nd of February, so il 2 di febbraio, è il giorno della candelora.
Candelora, candel like candela, so like a candle in English, and ora time, so the time of candela, time for candles.
This is a catholic celebration, in fact you may not see it in actual like big cities,
it's more like kept alive in small villages where the church has an active role, even small communities.
On this day, people are supposed to bring their candles to the church so that they can receive the blessing.
Then we have some events, which date is not always the same.
I'm talking about Carnival, of course, but before that, we have Sanremo, Sanremo.
Sanremo is a city in Italy, in Liguria, actually, so on the sea, and it's famous for its music festival.
Actually, not even music, but song festival, in fact it's called il festival della canzone,
in festival della canzone. It is celebrated on the first week of February,
but on the first full week, because it lasts from Tuesday till Saturday, so it's five days,
actually nights, for the people that watch it, but for the people that are present there,
it's five days of contest, and it has been a thing since 1951, so pretty old right now,
because it was meant to live up the sea part of Italy when it was not the season,
not high season, in fact it's in February, but then it became so important that people that go
to Sanremo and win have the right, not the obligation, but the right to then represent
Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest. This is a really prestigious festival for people that
participate, so not only winning, but already being on the stage, sul palco di Sanremo,
it's a goal for artists. In the past years, it was introduced also the young category,
so giovani, giovani. The winner is decided by juries, but not only, in fact there is
il televoto, so tele, like television, comes from afar, and voto is vote, so people can vote from
home. A famous phrase during these days is diamo inizio al televoto. Let's start the voting, diamo
inizio al televoto, or il televoto è aperto, so now you can vote, televoto is now open,
il televoto è chiuso, so it's closed, of course means that you cannot vote anymore,
so we're soon gonna know who is the winner. The winner doesn't only get super famous in Italy,
I mean he's famous kind of already before getting to Sanremo, but not always, sometimes it's even new
artists, and the thing is that the song that they bring to the stage must be new, so no one has to
have heard that before. When they win they're also awarded a little statue, una statuetta
d'oro, a golden statue, which is we can say like the Oscar of musicians here. It's a big event in
Italy not only for musicians, but also for Italian public in general, because they can vote and they
can decide basically who's gonna be on every radio for the next year. As I was saying before,
carnival as well is not always on the same dates, carnevale, it depends on when Easter arrives,
right? So it could be at the end of January, during February, or even in March some years,
but most of the times is in February, and around the first two weeks, so it's a holiday,
people don't go to school, although you go to work, so it's just a holiday for kids, and there's
Martedì Grasso, so Fat Tuesday literally, Mardi Gras, which closes the carnival,
which is opened by Giovedì Grasso, Fat Thursday. Martedì Grasso è l'ultimo giorno di carnevale,
so Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday is the last day of carnival, and it's right before il Mercoledì
delle Ceneri, Mercoledì delle Ceneri, Ash Wednesday. Anyway, regardless of when it actually
happens, we still have like a long period of celebration, it's about like two weeks I'd say,
because you can find costumes and masks, costumi e maschere, all over the place,
not only for kids, but for adults as well. There are some famous carnivals spread around Italy,
one of which is, of course, all of you know it, it's il Carnevale di Venezia, so Venice Carnival,
il Carnevale di Venezia, where you know it's all about luxury and gold and all the Renaissance
costumes, but really famous is also il Carnevale di Viareggio, Carnevale di Viareggio, so Viareggio's
carnival, and that's famous because of floats. In fact, there are so many carri allegorici,
carri allegorici, which can be even 20 meters high, and people spend, and not only people,
actually companies and even more than one, work at the same float for the whole year basically,
and you can find a lot of like irony and political issues that happened, like you can find them
represented on the floats and with costumes as well. Another famous one is il Carnevale
di Acci Reale, this has in particular flowers and lights, so fiori e luci, on their floats, of course.
You can actually find them everywhere, but the biggest ones are there. And the last one is il
Carnevale di Ivrea, where they throw oranges at each other, because it's basically an historical
representation and yeah, it has to do with the tradition of the city, so you can find floats in
this case, but full of people that throw oranges to the people down there, so just on the street,
and they throw them back at them. Sometimes it gets pretty violent and extreme, but it's really
nice to look at from afar. But what we usually throw at each other, especially kids, without
getting injured is coriandoli. Coriandoli is actually confetti in English, but confetti is
not the same in Italian, so you want to distinguish the two words, and coriandoli is made of papers,
so people just, especially kids, throw them around, together with stelle filanti.
It's not proper stars, even though the word is that. It's again paper in just one string that
gets thrown. We're in the middle of February now, and we can find San Valentino on the 14th of February,
which is like all over the world, which is basically all over the world. San Valentino,
la festa degli innamorati, so lover's day. It's not a proper holiday, of course, it's not like you get
the day off, but people celebrate it. In the past, it was more like, you know, the man supposed to
gift something to the woman, but today it's not like that. Couples gift each other things,
and not only actually, they do activities together. In fact, you can see here and there
special menus, menu speciale di San Valentino, which has then like, you know, everything pink
or heart-shaped, or anyway, you can also find due per uno. Especially at museums, for example,
there is this promotion often, not always, but it may be a thing. Something else common is wine
tasting, so degustazioni, or in general, something that you can do like together with your partner,
like going to the spa, or maybe just get away weekend. Anyway, things get pretty expensive
during this time. And the very next day, so the 15th of February, is San Faustino,
San Faustino, and that's when singles celebrate. So right after lovers day, there is single day,
not because San Faustino, so Holy Faustino, was single, because, you know, like he was devoted to
God anyway, but probably just because of the assonance of the name, and because it's the day
after San Valentino. So it's just, let's say, a case, but anyway, it's a common thing to have
many parties, or like blind dates, or occasions for people to meet new people, so that singles
can party as well. And that's pretty much what happens in February, but we still have to say
that although it is usually made of 28 days, there are also years, as you know, one every four,
where we have 29 days, right? The leap year. That's called anno bisestile, in Italian,
and it's also said anno bisesto, anno funesto. Bisesto is another way to say bisestile,
while funesto means something really bad. It's like a fatal year, sinister year or something.
So in fact it's believed that leap years, so anno bisestile, don't bring good luck,
that you may expect something bad to happen. The thing is, that bad thing doesn't only happen
during February, but during the whole year, so it takes 12 months of, you know, being scared for
we don't know which reason. And we have to thank the Romans for that, but it's not clear why.
So it just appears that in the past something bad happened during a leap year, and then like
more than once, and then they associated the things. So yeah, that's pretty much what happens
in February in Italy, but let me know in the comments if you also have the anno bisesto,
anno funesto thing, or if on the contrary maybe it's a lucky year, that could also be.
So let me know and remember that if you want to learn Italian in the fastest, easiest,
and most fun way possible, you just have to go to ItalianPod101.com
and sign up for your free lifetime account. Thank you for watching and I'll see you soon.
Bye bye, ciao ciao!

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