Bilingual Babies Archives - All Around Italia https://allarounditalia.com/tag/bilingual-babies/ Italy and Italian language for you and your family! Sun, 10 Mar 2024 13:39:07 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://allarounditalia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/1200-x-1200-transparent-150x150.png Bilingual Babies Archives - All Around Italia https://allarounditalia.com/tag/bilingual-babies/ 32 32 The Best Italian Lullabies and Ninne Nanne https://allarounditalia.com/italian-lullabies-and-ninne-nanne/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=italian-lullabies-and-ninne-nanne Wed, 15 Sep 2021 02:25:57 +0000 https://allarounditalia.com/?p=4325 The best ninne nanne to rock your baby to sleep in Italian. Traditional and contemporary songs that are easy to learn and share with your baby.

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Learn our favorite ninne nanne to rock your baby to sleep in Italian.

During those precious minutes while you rock your baby to sleep, Italian lullabies – or ninne nanne – are a lovely way for you to share the Italian language. For most parents and children, the songs routinely sung at bedtime become extra special and memorable. 

In this post, we share our favorite Italian lullabies. Every song is linked to a Youtube video with lyrics or closed captions – just click the song title. You’ll be able to easily follow along, learn the songs, and start sharing them with your baby!

For even more bedtime songs in Italian, check out our Italian Lullabies Spotify playlist or Italian Lullabies YouTube playlist. 

Table of Contents

Baby Sleeping to Italian Lullaby

Ninna Nanna Ninna Oh

Ninna Nanna Ninna Oh may be the most famous lullaby in Italy. In this traditional bedtime song, the singer asks, “questo bimbo a chi lo do / who should I give my baby to?” and then hypothesizes. 

If I give my baby to the Befana or Christmas witch, she will keep him for a week. If I give my baby to the Bove Nero or Black Ox (or the Uomo Nero or Bogeyman in many versions), he will keep him for a year. If I give my baby to the Lupo Bianco or White Wolf,  he will keep him for a long time. 

The most common version of the song ends with the baby falling asleep – il mio bimbo addormentate. Presumably, the singer has decided to keep their baby (phew!). 

Ninna Nanna Ninna Oh is slow, melodic, and soothing. A must-have in your lullaby repertoire. 

Chorus: 

Ninna nanna, ninna oh, questo bimbo a chi lo do? 

Se lo do alla Befana, me lo tiene una settimana

Se lo do al al Bove Nero, me lo tiene un anno intero

Se lo do al Lupo Bianco, me lo tiene tanto, tanto

Ninna nanna, nanna fate, il mio bimbo addormentate

Brilla Brilla La Stellina

You may have guessed it. Brilla Brilla La Stellina is the Italian version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. You already know the tune to this one. 

As for the lyrics, they are not directly translatable with the English lyrics, but the idea is certainly the same. A little star is twinkling in the sky above us. The singer wonders who the star belongs to. Now, the star comes closer. 

A nice, calming, simple song that your child will probably end up learning in both English and Italian. The stars really do unite us no matter where we are!

Chorus:

Brilla brilla la stellina

Su nel cielo piccolina.

Brilla brilla sopra noi,

Mi domando di chi sei.

Brilla brilla la stellina,

Ora tu sei più vicina.

Farfallina Bella e Bianca

Another traditional Italian lullaby, Farfallina Bella e Bianca is usually a favorite of both babies and parents. I learned about this song from my aunt, who remembered it from her childhood.

During the first six months of my daughter’s life, this is the only song that would make her fall asleep for naps in the baby carriage. 

As the title suggests, the song is about a beautiful, white butterfly. The butterfly flies around without tiring. It finds a red, sweet-smelling flower. Then, it finds a sunflower. When the sun comes out,  the butterfly falls asleep. 

A simple and sweet song that will remain in your head long after your baby falls asleep. 

Chorus:

Farfallina bella e bianca

vola vola mai si stanca

vola qua, vola là

Ninna Nanna degli Animaletti

In Ninna Nanna degli Animaletti by Mario Pagano and Luciano Simoncini, children have a wonderful dream about being with their animal friends. As the children are sleeping, the animals are also sleeping: the groundhogs, mice, and the little bear. In the lair, the hare sleeps. In the fountain, the fish sleeps. Soundly sleeping are also the elephant, monkey, frog, and spider.  

In the stall, the donkey dreams of being a butterfly. Under the stars, the gazelle fell asleep. The ant, squirrel, and bunnies sleep. So do the whale, shrimp, ostriches, and codfish. 

The moon shines on the snails. Under a head of lettuce, the turtle sleeps.

Although it may be a bit harder to learn than some of the other lullabies, Ninna Nanna degli Animaletti is really a cute song. As your child will probably love animals, this lullaby is also nice way to teach them the Italian words for many different types of animals. 

Chorus:

Dorme ogni bimbo di questo mondo

Sogna di fare un bel girotondo

Insieme a tutti gli animaletti

Il più bel sogno farà

Ninna Nanna del Chicco di Caffè (Ninna Nanna Mamma)

I love the lullaby Ninna Nanna del Chicco di Caffè by Franca Evangelisti and Mario Pagano. It is written from the perspective of a child. 

In the first verse, the child tells their mom that they will stay in bed with her and sing her a lullaby. In the second verse, all of the houses are sleeping, the city is sleeping, even the ants are resting. But mamma never rests. In the last verse (the sweetest one), the child tells mamma that they will buy her beautiful things when they are older. For now, mamma should close her eyes and dream about everything she would want.   

What is the chorus about? Seven bowls on the king’s table. There isn’t salad. In the bowl for mamma, there is just a coffee bean. Confused? Remember this sung is from the perspective of a child – it doesn’t have to make perfect sense to us adults! 

Fortunately for mamma, at the end of the song, the child says they will put whatever she wants in her bowl on the king’s table – ci mettiamo su tutto quello che vuoi tu. 

For the standards of lullabies, this one has a bit of a faster pace. The silly lyrics and catchy tune make it fun to sing. 

Chorus:

Ninna nanna mamma

Insalata non ce n’è;

Sette le scodelle sulla tavola del re.

Ninna nanna mamma

Ce n’è una anche per te

Dentro cosa c’è

Solo un chicco di caffè

Stella Stellina

Stella Stellina is a traditional lullaby and rhyme that is well-known all across Italy. It is about nightfall. There is a star, a little star. The flame of the candle is going out. In the stall, all of the baby and mother animals are getting ready for bed: the cows, the sheep, the hens. Everyone has their mamma, and everyone is going to sleep. 

As most children tend to love animals, once they start really understanding the words of your lullabies, they will probably like this one in particular. If all of the animals are sleeping, maybe they’ll be convinced to drift off too … 

Chorus:

Stella stellina 

La notte s’avvicina

La fiamma traballa

La mucca è nella stalla

La mucca e il vitello

La pecora e l’agnello

La chioccia e il pulcino

Ognuno ha il suo bambino

Ognuno ha la sua mamma

E tutti fan la nanna

Ninna Nanna di Frà Simon

When you’re ready for a break from repeating the words “ninna nanna” or singing about animals, this is a nice option.  

Ninna Nanna di Frà Simon is a simple tune about two friars who rang Brother Simon’s church bell. Din don, din don went the bell. The friars asked for bread and wine.  At night, they rang the bell. The day was finished, and it was time to go to bed.

This traditional lullaby is easy to memorize and to rock to rhythmically – just like Brother Simon’s chiming church bell. 

Chorus:

Din don, din don

La campana di Fra Simon

Eran due che la sonavan

Pane vin i’ domandavan

Din don, campanon

La campana di Fra Simon

La sonavan nott’e dì

Che il giorno l’è finì

Ed è ora di dormir

Din don, din don

Dormi Piccino

Dormi Piccino by Carlo Rossetto was written especially for mamma to sing. As the song’s repeating line goes, la mamma è con te – mamma is with you.

Mamma invites her baby to dream with her of a land made of toys. She wants her baby to have a sweet sleep and to enter into a dream world, a place where you can even fly. Mamma is watching over her baby, and she will stay with them until the morning. 

As the song finishes, it turns into repetition of whispers of “dormi, dormi”. In particular, I feel like this song is meant for the littlest piccini – during those first very delicate months of baby’s life. 

Chorus: 

Dormi, dormi 

La mamma è con te

These are just a few of the many wonderful Italian lullabies.

To listen to over 1.5 hours of lovely bedtime songs, check out our Italian Lullabies Spotify playlist or Italian Lullabies YouTube playlist. 

If you prefer to listen to music on Youtube, I recommend this playlist of traditional regional Italian lullabies. As your baby falls asleep, these are nice to have on in the background. My favorites are: Fate le Ninne from Abruzzo, Fate la Nanna Coscine di Pollo from Tuscany, Scende la Notte from Molise, and Ninna Nanna Monelletto from Umbria. You can find most of these regional Italian lullabies on our Spotify playlist as well.

Are we forgetting any of your favorite Italian lullabies? Comment below to let us know. 

For the daytime hours, see our post on Italian songs for kids that are perfect for singing and dancing. 

Happy listening, happy singing, and buona notte!

Do you want to meet other Italian/English bilingual families?

We are building a community! Leave us your name and location, and we will update you when next steps are possible. 

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]]> Teach Your Baby Italian https://allarounditalia.com/teach-your-baby-italian/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=teach-your-baby-italian Tue, 27 Jul 2021 02:22:55 +0000 https://allarounditalia.com/?p=3607 How to teach your baby Italian - tips and resources to make it easy (and fun!) to consistently expose your little one to Italian language from Day One.

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Start raising your baby bilingual from Day One.

 

If you want to teach your baby Italian (or raise them to be bilingual in any languages!), this post outlines how to support language development in the first months of their life. 

We live in Brooklyn and are raising our daughter to speak Italian (dad’s native language) and English (mom’s native language). Here, exposure to English is easy. Exposure to Italian has to be generated by us. 

Through our attempts to immerse our daughter in Italian, we’ve learned that planning is crucial! If you haven’t read Prepare to Raise a Bilingual Baby, check it out before continuing.

Ok – pronti? Let’s dive into strategies to teach your baby Italian. If you are teaching your baby a different language, read on, as these tips can be applied to any language. 

Table of Contents

Reading to baby in Italian

Stick to your Language Plan

In the post Prepare to Raise a Bilingual Baby, we mention the importance of establishing who in the family will speak which language and when they will speak it. 

In our family, we speak Italian at home. Outside the home, we use Italian whenever possible. With those who do not speak Italian, we speak English. 

Once your baby arrives, be steadfast about sticking to your plan. To combat our tendency to drop English phrases when speaking to each other, my husband and I added a consequence – like having to wash the dishes – for whoever stops speaking Italian.

Sticking to the “rules” will get harder as your baby grows up and goes to school. So, right from the very beginning, establish habits and rhythms around language.

Chat with your Baby

Keep a Running Dialogue

Research shows that two-way speaking interactions are, by far, most important for language mastery. It’s absolutely possible to have two-way speaking interactions with your baby: their contribution will be smiles and gurgles!

What should you say to your baby? 

Narrate everything you do. Tell your baby about the plans for the day. Comment on your surroundings. Explain what you’ve done after you’ve completed a task. Your baby will take in what you say and start building their vocabulary and comprehension. 

Don’t forget to give your baby a chance to talk too! Ask questions, and solicit their opinion. Even if they can’t respond with words yet, they will understand you are bringing them into the conversation.

Video Chat

Oftentimes, the motivation for raising bilingual children is so they communicate with extended family members. To teach your baby Italian, what better way is there than learning directly from these family members?

If your Italian-speaking family is still in Italy, call often with Facetime and let your baby chat with them. (This is probably already happening because – of course – they’ll want to see the baby!)

We Facetime and video-chat frequently with our daughter’s nonni and zii in Italy. It is great for her to hear them speak Italian. It was also exciting that she recognized them when we brought her to Italy the first time when she was just six months old.

Meet Up

If you are fortunate to live near family and friends who speak Italian, meet up often!

If you don’t have an Italian-speaking network nearby, do your best to create one. You will likely be able to find Meetup or Facebook groups in your area to facilitate introductions.

Especially as your child gets older, it will be important for them to understand that Italian is a live language – not just isolated to your household or to a video screen. Build the relationships starting early.

Share Stories

Read, Read, Read in Italian

Hopefully, you’ve prepared by stocking your bookshelf with great books in Italian. If not, make sure to order some straight away!

Dive into the books, and read them over and over to your baby. Be enthusiastic, make funny voices and sounds. Point out what’s going on in the pictures. Pause on each page to explain more. Ask questions to your baby. These practices turn reading into a two-way interaction, which best supports language development.

Listen to Audio Stories in Italian

Although not as effective for language acquisition as reading, audio stories or audiobooks can be a great complement. They are especially nice for car rides and travel.  

To listen to our favorite audio stories, check out our Spotify playlist – Italian Stories for Kids. 

The Rai Play Radio and its app also has some programs on its Rai Radio Kids channel that you could put on the background for your baby to passively hear the language. 

Rock Out

Listen to Italian Music

Music is a wonderful way to learn language and also culture. At pretty much any moment of the day, you can have music on in the background or make it the main event. 

Not only do melodies make it easier to remember words, having fun singing and dancing together will lead your baby to make positive associations with the songs.    

We love Spotify playlists. You can use ours:

You could also listen to the radio in Italian! With apps such as Radio Garden, you can easily stream any radio station in Italy (or worldwide) for free. 

Sing in Italian

Even without music on, it’s great to get into the habit of regularly singing with your baby. Music is a great way to teach your baby Italian. 

We recommend learning a few children’s songs from our Spotify playlists if you don’t know any songs in Italian already. 

During moments of our daily routine, we sang very simple made-up songs to describe what was going on: changing a diaper, eating breakfast, getting dressed to go on a walk, going in the car, brushing teeth, preparing for bedtime.

These routine songs not only help your baby understand what moment of the day it is, but also help them build their vocabulary.

Play like Crazy

Do Stuffed Animal Theatre

Give Italian names to your baby’s stuffed animals, and start using these names from Day One! Put on shows with the stuffed animals so your baby can hear you use different nouns, verbs, and adjectives. It’s impossible to be too ridiculous with this – get into it!

Make your baby’s stuffed animals friends walk, run, jump, sleep, eat, shake hands, hug, give kisses, wave, dance, etc … Have adventures around the house all together.

Invent Games

For little babies, anything can become a game – and a great opportunity to use different words and expand their vocabulary and comprehension. 

We loved to play Nascondino or “Coperto/Scoperto” – as we called it – where we would hide an object (or hide a person!) and then reveal it. 

Additionally, we enjoyed playing “Che tempo fa?” where mamma would act out all the different types of weather with hand motions and noises. 

“Le Emozioni” was another favorite – where we would ask “Come ti senti?”, and mamma would act out all different emotions with her face, body and words.

Make the Daily Routine Playful

Build simple games into daily life activities that focus on repetition of object names, numbers, colors, etc.  

For instance, whenever we went on a walk, we played an i-Spy type of game that we call “Alla ricerca di …” where we looked for different things like trees, flowers, dogs, other babies. 

Whenever we folded the laundry, we looked for one type of article of clothing at a time and yelled out its color. Alternatively, we looked for all the clothes belonging to one family member at a time and yelled out the clothing type.  

While mamma tried to do some exercise, we counted the repetitions together and made silly noises every time we reached ten. 

When your baby becomes a toddler, these games will be familiar. Many will still be interesting to them, and they will be able to play and respond with words. As an added bonus, they may also be interested in doing things like help you fold laundry!

Make Screen Time in Italian

Typically, parents tend to want to limit screen time for babies; and, frankly, most babies tend to have no interest in screens. They will start to be interested once they are older and more able to sit still.

From a language perspective, keep in mind that watching a screen is considered one-way exposure and has proven to be a less effective method of language learning compared to reading, singing or conversation. 

If you want (or need!) to try screen time for your baby, we recommend animated music videos – such as the Hey Kids Youtube channel –  so the focus is still largely on the music instead of the screen.

For older children, see our post about our favorite movies in Italian on Disney Plus. 

Consider Italian in Childcare

If you need childcare during working hours, explore options like an Italian-speaking daycare (these exist in NY at least) or an Italian-speaking babysitter. 

As there are only so many hours in a week, it would be ideal to be able to expose your baby to Italian even when you’re not with them. 

In summary, do as much as you can to immerse your baby in Italian language.

Some of these things will be easy for your family; others will be more difficult. Our advice is to do what you can, and don’t forget to have fun! Your efforts will pay off, and your baby will start learning Italian. 

Please comment below if you have other tips or ideas for teaching your baby Italian!

Do you want to meet other Italian/English bilingual families?

We are building a community! Leave us your name and location, and we will update you when next steps are possible. 

The post Teach Your Baby Italian appeared first on All Around Italia.

]]> Prepare to Raise a Bilingual Baby https://allarounditalia.com/prepare-to-raise-a-bilingual-baby/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=prepare-to-raise-a-bilingual-baby Mon, 19 Apr 2021 06:22:38 +0000 https://allarounditalia.com/?p=3026 Expecting, and want to raise your baby to speak Italian? How to get ready before baby arrives.

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Get ready to welcome your bilingual baby-to-be.

 

Planning to raise a bilingual baby? Maybe you and your partner have different native languages. Maybe you live in a country with a language different than yours. Or maybe you’d like your child to learn the language of their ancestors.

Whatever your reason may be, it’s important to be ready!

Before your baby arrives, this post outlines what you can do to prepare. It is based on our family’s experience with Italian language, but the strategies can be applied to any language. 

If your baby has already arrived, also check out this post.  

Table of Contents

Bilingual Baby - Italian

Make a Language Plan

Identify Majority and Minority Languages

To raise a bilingual baby, you need to understand at least the basics about language acquisition. 

According to the Linguistic Society of America, exposure and need are the most important factors when learning a language. Exposure leads to vocabulary and grammar development. Actual need to communicate leads to mastery! 

For babies – who only speak baby talk initially – exposure is what’s important!

If you’re raising a bilingual baby, in most cases, it will easier to expose your baby to one language over another.  The majority language is the one that will naturally be more prevalent in your child’s life.  Exposure to the minority language will be trickier.

In our case, we live in Brooklyn and are raising our daughter to speak Italian (dad’s native language) and English (mom’s native language). Here, we need to actively create opportunities to expose our child to Italian. So, in our case, English is considered the majority language, and Italian is considered the minority language.

To ensure consistent and adequate exposure to the minority language, it’s important to have a solid plan. 

Choose Your Approach

Research shows there is no one-size-fits-all approach to helping your baby learn multiple languages. The best plan is the one that will work for your particular family and will provide maximum exposure to the minority language. 

Since my husband and I speak each others’ native languages, we chose to make Italian the language of our home. 

Even though my Italian pronunciation and language skills are not native-speaker level, I am able to fluently and (mostly) accurately communicate to greatly increase our daughter’s exposure to the language. Exposure is more important than perfection. 

Outside the home, we speak Italian with Italian-speaking family and friends. With everyone else, we speak English. 

What will your approach be? Will you speak one language at home vs. outside the home? If both parents do not speak each others’ native languages, will each parent exclusively speak their native language to the children? Or will you do something else?

Start Before Baby Arrives

While waiting for your baby, you should start implementing your language plan. For example, if you choose the “one language at home” approach, start speaking only that language even before your baby arrives. We definitely underestimated the difficulty of keeping English completely out of our conversations at home. 

Let any family members or friends who will be involved know what you’d like their role to be, and make sure they are on board. 

Get into a rhythm as soon as possible.

Stock the Bookshelf

Reading with your baby is a proven way to help them develop language skills. 

If you live in the States, you’ll likely find yourself with many books in English. You’ll receive them as gifts or maybe even still have some from your childhood (if English is your native language, like me). Getting your hands on good books in Italian can be much harder. 

Yes, you can translate English books as you read them out loud, but this is often harder than you might think (especially when you’re sleep-deprived!). Books that rhyme or are about the alphabet do not translate correctly between languages. Plus, before you know it, your baby will start paying attention to words (not just pictures) so you might as well have books with words in Italian right from the start!

Buy or Register for Books

Research where you can find bilingual books or books in Italian and order them. Sometimes, they can take weeks to arrive. 

If you use a multi-store baby registry such as Babylist, you can add books directly to your registry.

Customize a Board Book

There are many websites where you can make custom board or photo books. 

We created a family board book so our daughter could “see” her relatives who live in Italy every day. 

To get started, we asked each family member to send us a headshot and an “action” shot. The book teaches family names like zia, cugino, nonno as well as verb phrases like cucinare, andare in bici, mangiare il gelato, eccetera. 

For example:  Ecco Nonna Giulia.  Nonna Giulia va in bici. 

Our daughter loved reading this book! She also recognized family members when we visited them even though she was just a few months old! 

Whether you’d like to make a family book or another type, making a nice custom book does take quite a bit of time. It is wise to do so before the craziness of taking care of baby begins.

Prepare the Nursery

Hang Pictures

As you work on decorating baby’s nursery or play area, why not incorporate some Italian elements? Anything you can do to surround your baby in the language and culture is worth it – especially something as easy as hanging a painting or photo on the wall.

Name the Stuffed Animals

After countless discussions trying to choose the perfect name for our baby, we really enjoyed giving silly Italian names to our daughter’s stuffed animals. Her monkey is Antonio, her frog is Giovanni, her pig is Pancetta, her bunny is Coniglietto. It goes on and on. 

Come up with some fun Italian names for your baby’s collection of stuffed animals, and use the names when baby comes. These will be baby’s first friends, and they will eventually be motivated to pronounce their names!

Get Ready to Rock

When baby arrives, you are going to be doing a lot of rocking! While rocking, why not rock out with Italian music?! Music is a wonderful way to expose your baby to language and culture.

Use Spotify Playlists

We found it incredibly helpful (and fun!) to have Spotify playlists ready to use in different contexts. You can use our playlists!

As we are inspired by new music, we continue to update the playlists. 

Start listening even before your baby is born so you can learn some lyrics. Also, your baby will hear the songs in the womb and may even recognize them once they arrive!

Learn Children's Songs

When you’re trying to rock and calm, you’ll sing the first thing that comes to mind – which for me were songs in English, my native language. Or if you don’t remember any songs, you’ll just hum (like my husband)! 

Don’t miss out being able to sing to your baby in Italian. These soothing songs will be ones they create positive associations with, learn, and remember. 

Take a few minutes and learn the lyrics to a couple of children’s songs and lullabies. Check out our Spotify playlists, Italian Music for Kids and Italian Lullabies, to pick a few favorite songs. 

So, there you have it! A little planning will go a long way in getting started on the right foot to raise a bilingual baby.

To read on about what to do when baby arrives, see this post!

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