Cinque cose che non sapete su di me
B1 Italian listening practice · Italian · Curated for intermediate learners
What does “gazza ladra” mean in Italian?
Sharing five secrets, the singer La Niña reveals that her album closes with a song for two magpies that visit her garden. In Italian a magpie is a gazza ladra, literally a “thieving magpie,” named for the old folk belief that magpies steal shiny things. She titled the track pica pica, which is the bird’s scientific name.
Italians know the phrase above all from Rossini’s beloved opera La gazza ladra, where a magpie’s stolen-spoon habit nearly gets a girl wrongly condemned. The key word inside it is ladro/ladra (thief). So one bird’s name gives you a vocabulary word, a famous opera, and a charming piece of folklore.
Vocabulary frequency
How common is the vocabulary in this B1 Italian listening practice listening practice?
General Italian frequency
Spoken Italian frequency
Words above this video’s level
Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s B1 level.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.
- ▸In Italian talk about birds and gardens
- ▸In Rossini’s opera La gazza ladra
- ▸Around the word family ladro/ladra (thief), rubare (to steal)
- ▸Teasingly, about someone who magpies away shiny objects
- ▸In Italian nature documentaries