Listening to Italian songs is a great way to learn the language.
A catchy tune can get stuck in your head, helping you absorb new words almost without trying. And it’s much more fun than memorizing vocab lists!
But you have to choose the right songs. If the lyrics are too complex or lack practical vocabulary, they won’t be as useful.
That's why in this lesson, we've picked four Italian songs to help you learn new words. They use simple vocabulary, repeat often, and teach you a bit about Italian culture.
We’ll start with two very simple (if slightly silly!) ones, then move onto a couple of Italian classics.
Ciao ciao , La Rappresentante di Lista
If you give this song a listen, it’s very likely that you’ll be singing it for the rest of the day.
Aside from having a tune that will get stuck in your head, the lyrics (especially the chorus) teach you the words for parts of the body.
For example, it repeats:
| Le mani | Hands | Leh mah-nee |
| I piedi | Feet | Ee pyeh-dee |
| La testa | Head | Lah tehl-stah |
| Le gambe | Legs | Leh gahm-beh |
This song’s also a new release that still gets played a lot in Italy.
Oh, and have you heard of Sanremo? It's a seaside town in Italy that throws a very famous music festival every year. This song gained a lot of attention partly because it was performed there. Have a listen to get a sense of the kind of music they play there.
Gioca Jouer , Claudio Cecchetto
This Italian song is perfect for learning basic vocabulary you’ll use all the time in conversation.
It gives a list of random (but useful!) words, spoken one after another, so they stand out clearly.
The actions in the video also help: for example, when they say camminare (to walk), you see the dancers miming it out. Try them yourself as a fun way to remember the words!
Here are some of the words you’ll see in the song:
| Dormire | To sleep | Dor-meer-eh |
| Camminare | To walk | Kahm-mee-nah-reh |
| Capelli | Hair | Kah-pell-ee |
| Nuotare | To swim | Nwoh-tah-reh |
| Sciare | To ski | Sh-ee-ah-reh |
See how nice and simple they are?
By the way, if you happen to know the song Superman in English, it’s the same tune.
Volare (Nel Blu Dipinto di Blu) , Domenico Modugno
We couldn’t do a list of Italian songs without mentioning this one.
It’s so well-known, you’ll probably start hearing Italians singing along as soon as it’s played. Dean Martin also famously did a cover of it (as well as many other singers).
There are lots of strong emotions in this one: happiness, love, freedom. So no wonder it pulls on everyone’s heart strings.
It has some really simple verbs in there too.
For example:
| Volare | To fly | Voh-lah-reh |
| Cantare | To sing | Lahn-tah-reh |
| Sognare | To dream | Sohn-yah-reh |
And there are lots of words connected with summer. Think flying high above the sea with the sun shining and that’s the kind of image the song is going for.
| Il sole | Sun | Eel soh-leh |
| Blu | Blue | Bloo |
| Il cielo | Sky | Eel cheh-loh |
| L’alba | Dawn | Lahl-bah |
| Le stelle | Stars | Leh stehl-leh |
Parole, parole , Mina
Parole, parole is another classic Italian song showing some strong emotions.
It has a relaxing, slow pace and some of the phrases are spoken rather than sung, so it’s really easy to make the words out.
There’s also loads of repetition, especially the words in the title Parole ( words) which are sung a grand total of 48 times.
Other phrases which get repeated are:
| Che cosa sei? | What are you? | Keh koh-zah say |
| Non cambi mai | You never change | Nohn kahm-bee my |
If that didn’t convey the level of drama in this song, there are also some exclamations that get used like:
| Ascoltami | Listen to me | Ah-skohl-tah-mee |
| Ti prego | I beg you | Tee preh-goh |
| Ti giuro | I swear to you | Tee joo-roh |
The level of over-the-top emotions might be hard to take seriously, but if you do ever find yourself needing to express some intense anger, romance or frustration in Italian, they’ll come in handy.
What to do when listening to Italian songs
Although these Italian songs are simpler than most, don’t worry if there are still loads of sounds you can’t make out. It’s normale!
Start by focusing on the words you recognise, like the ones we shared below each song. For the rest, enjoy the music and let your brain naturally absorb the sounds.
As you gradually become more curious to understand what they’re saying, you can look up the lyrics little by little and translate them.
A couple of tips 💡
To get the lyrics to an Italian song, one option is to simply google “lyrics to…” and then the song name, e.g. “lyrics to Volare ”.
There are also some websites where you can search for lyrics such as:
4 Easy Italian Songs that prove that learning Italian can be fun: Review
You’ve seen how listening to Italian songs is a perfect way to build vocabulary and practice listening skills without feeling like you’re doing homework.
Here’s a recap of some of the four songs, and some of the useful words you’ll hear in each one:
Ciao, Ciao , La Rappresentante della Lista
Le mani -Hands
I piedi -Feet
La testa -Head
Volare, Domenico Modugno
Volare -To fly
Cantare -To sing
Il sole -Sun
Gioca Jouer , Claudio Cecchetto
Dormire -To sleep
Camminare -To walk
Capelli -Hair
Parole, parole, Mina
Ti giuro -I swear to you
Ascoltami -Listen to me
K: Ciao a tutti e benvenuti! Hi everyone and welcome to “Learn Italian with Joy of Languages”.
M: So we’re talking about a very catchy way to learn Italian . A method that might strike a chord with you and be a real hit, so you can be really in tune with the Italians.
K: Ok, enough with the puns! Before we get going, we have a little favor to ask. If you’re listening to this on your podcast app, could you hit the subscribe or follow button? This way you’ll get notified when we release a new episode and you’ll help our podcast grow so we can keep making free lessons like this. Grazie!
M: We’re talking about le canzoni italiane . Italian songs.
K: Specifically, simple Italian songs. Because listening to Italian songs is a nice idea , it seems fun, and having a good tune is a great way to make the words stick in your head. But often at the beginning it just feels like a confusing sea of words. So we’ve chosen four fairly easy Italian songs that you can start with – they have fairly simple vocabulary, and a lot of repetition to help the Italian stick in your head.
M: And we would like to thank our Italian teachers for helping us choose them! They are songs that they shared in the Italian music event a little while ago.
K: OK, so I’ll start by singing a line from the song (sorry in advance!), Matteo has to guess the rest either by singing the rest of the lyrics or saying the name of the song.
M: OK. Sono pronto. I’m ready.
K: Volare
M: [ ... ]
K: So this song is by Domenico Modugno and goes by two names. It’s often known as volare, which means “to fly”.
M: But the official name is nel blu dipinto di blu (x2)
K: Literally translated “in the blue painted blue”. It’s a song title, it doesn’t have to make sense!
M: It’s a real Italian classic, so you can sing along with the Italians if you hear it played in Italy.
K: And the chorus has lots of handy verbs which aren’t too complicated, like volare (to fly)
M: Volare (x2)
K: And cantare (to sing).
M: Cantare (x2)
K: It’s also singing about really happy things, like seeing the sea and the sunset. Don’t worry if you don’t understand much else at first, you can concentrate on those two words in the chorus and take it slowly from there. Ok, next song. Con le mani, con le mani, con le mani.
M: [...]
K: This song is called ciao ciao. It’s perfect for learning the parts of the body in Italian. For example, the chorus goes:
M: con le mani – with the hands
Con – with
Le – the
Mani – hands
M: con i piedi – with the feet
Con – with
I – the
Piedi – feet
M: ciao ciao – bye bye
K: And it’s repeated a lot, so the words will get cemented into your brain if you listen to it a few times. Next, time for a silly one that’s even worse for getting stuck in your head! Capelli, Saluti
M: [...]
K: It’s the Italian version of the superman song, in case you know it. It’s called Gioca jouer. Gioca (x2) means “play”. And jouer is French for “to play”, but you don’t need to worry about that! And the words you heard were:
M: Capelli – Hair
Capelli (x2)
M: Saluti – Greetings
Saluti (x2)
M: It has a lot of really common Italian vocabulary as individual words, not in long sentences, so you can pick them out easily.
K: If you look up the song on YouTube you can also see people dancing along with the actions. If you do the actions as well (feel free to do it in the privacy of your own home!) it will definitely help you remember the words better.
K: Last song! Parole, parole …
M: [...]
K: This is another Italian classic performed by Mina and Alberto Lupo. It’s called parole, parole, which means words, words.
M: Parole (x2)
K: It has a bit of speaking as well as singing, so you can hear the words a bit more clearly.
M: And there are lots of dramatic phrases, like: ascoltami! (x2). Listen to me!
K: Like all the songs we’ve mentioned today, it also repeats the words a lot so you can hear them many times.
Keep in mind that while we’ve recommended these songs because the choruses are simpler than most, there will likely still be a lot that you don’t understand, don’t worry about that, it’s normale!
M: We suggest listening to them a lot in the background, so that your brain can absorb everything. Then piano piano , little by little, piano piano, you can google the song lyrics and start to translate them to understand what they mean.
K: We hope you enjoy listening! To get links to the songs and a list of useful beginner vocabulary in each one, you can go to our blog post in the description.
M: You’ll also hear the real singers, rather than me and Katie singing, which might be nice.
K: See you next time. Or as we say in Italian.
Alla prossima!
Time to check your understanding and remember everything you just learned! Below you’ll find a mini-quiz and some vocabulary cards to help it all go in.
Quiz
How much did you learn? Find out in the quiz!
Click here to take the quiz for this episode: 4 Popular Italian Songs
Vocabulary
I capelli = Hair
Le mani = Hands
I piedi = Feet
Volare = To fly
Cantare = To sing
Dormire = To sleep
Camminare = To walk
Sciare = To ski
La testa = Head
Il sole = Sun
Flashcards: 4 Popular Italian Songs
Not sure how it works? Click here to watch the tutorial
