Can Stanley Tucci speak Italian fluently?

No.

“Si” is Eye-talian for “I’m a mega douche who thinks everybody adores me.”

His ego is out of control

Many Americans of Italian descent have been away from Europe for a century now, so why are we expecting them to speak a fluent language from that time?

Girl, I don't expect it.

But don't pretend you can when you can't.

Because that's when the DL douche radar goes off.

LOL - it's obvious he can barely even speak nor understand. Whenever he can't understand he says 'Yes" . Hilarious.

No. He can speak some Italian and has fairly good pronunciation but he never knows when a noun is masculine or feminine which in Italian means he doesn't know if it ends in o or a. Which is easier than French where you can never guess from the ending of the noun what gender it is.

I liked the show, but found the book obsequious.

It appears his Italian is sketchy at best. I have listened very carefully and he seems clueless in that department about 95% of the time.

He does seem to be able to understand spoken Italian, or maybe it's edited that way.

Tucci has such a punchable face.

R7 The Italian language is not that simple. Not every word ends in an o or and a and there are some words that go against expectation. Ending in -a but masculine: problema, diploma, programma. Ending in -o but feminine: radio, mano. Italians also speak very quickly with all the words flowing together. I have no idea about Tucci's abilities. It does seem like many Italian Americans know some Italian, which is nice for them.

God, he is obviously ogling these late teen Italian girls on the Sardinia episode.

It may be regional dialect. Italian changed under Mussolini. Italian Americans had their own variations on the language.

Tucci is still smoking hot.

[quote] I liked the show, but found the book obsequious.

Oh, dear.

^Si

If he can only say "Si," I have some inappropriate questions to ask him ...

He reads convincing lines in Italian I’m “Big night”

[quote]Tucci is still smoking hot.

WTF are you smoking?! His 'look' is dime-a-dozen in NYC. Bald with a big nose isn't remotely hot. Unless the guy looks like Chris Meloni that is!

I think what is very obvious with his look is how the treatment, especially not being able to eat for the better part of a year, from the cancer and therapies has ravaged his body. Watching the show in retrospect you see he most likely only tastes the food and doesn’t swallow, probably having a spit bucket nearby. It almost makes it a bit more questionable doing a food show under those conditions, is it inauthentic?

R21 Ssshhhh ... please don't tell anyone but nothing on TV is authentic, so that means it is indeed inauthentic!

Italians, chime in at 1:42. How does he sound in Italian?

Love him, love the show

Unlike the US where you can understand English even with a heavy drawl, Italy wasn’t a singular country until more recently and had many different regional dialects that were quite uncomprehendable to their neighbors. So even to a native Italian, understanding all the variations of the different regions he traveled to would be unlikely.

Total daddy.

I’d suck every last drop out of him.

Like most first and second generation immigrants with grandparents who don't speak English, it is likely that he understands a lot and can speak enough Italian to get by.

His dad was my high school art teacher (TOOCH!) and I think he might have been born in Italy. His family was still there and I know he visited and the family had an extended stay there one year. I got a kick seeing him on Stanley's show.

He used to really do it for me, but he's too old now. I wouldn't kick him out of bed, but I just don;t get the same charge I did when he was younger.

I'd like to suck on his cannoli.

[quote]Unlike the US where you can understand English even with a heavy drawl, Italy wasn’t a singular country until more recently and had many different regional dialects that were quite uncomprehendable to their neighbors. So even to a native Italian, understanding all the variations of the different regions he traveled to would be unlikely.

This is very true. I was on a bus tour in Italy where the guide (who was from Naples) explained everything in English, Spanish, French, and Italian. I speak Spanish fairly well, and can understand basic French and Italian. And since he was speaking in very simple sentences with basic vocabulary, I could get the gist of all four versions. But when he spoke in the local dialect to the bus driver, I could barely make out a word!

I always thought he pinged but I guess he likes women. 🤔

His head is almost perfectly cylindrical.

He says "Sì" and "Che c'è?" and awful lot.

As an American having studied Italian for more than a year now in Rome, the language is elusive. Yes it is much easier than French. And yes masculine words end in O and feminine A and they share E with a list of exceptions that would fit on one side of page - unlike English. But with the dialects you might as well forget it. Rome is in the state of Lazio and there are about 10 different dialects in Lazio alone. Roman men speak like they've just had dental surgery and drop a lot of the last syllables. That is more common in southern italy. I think that is why we get a lot of "prosciut" for "prosciutto" and "mozzarel" invece di "mozzarella" from our Italian Americans. People from Rome can barely understand people for Sicily, and parts of the south are closer to Greek than Italian. I find it MUCH easier to understand the Italians from the north since the Italian people learn in school comes from Tuscany, thanks to Dante. I think a move to Florence might be in my future.

And they DO talk with their hands. This is not a stereotype. Because of all of the dialects they were necessary to understand each other. It really is a sign language and they really do use them. I have seen it per strada tante volte. And they do say "Mamma Mia!" "Madonna!" and "Ma Dai!"

Italian is explicitly difficult whereas English is implicitly difficult. This means at the beginning Italian is very daunting with all of its verb conjugations, grammatical rules. You will have trouble being understood until you get some of these under your belt. English on the other hand you can learn a very basic version of it and be understood on a basic level. But if you want to excel at English and it's more complex layers, it's hell.

One thing that drives me crazy in Italian is that Signore is one man but a group of women. Why? It can make bathroom signs challenging.

And the one thing that I find fascinating that non english speakers learning english have the most trouble with is something I never learned in school or knew existed - phrasal verbs. They have great difficulty learning them and you can see why. That is what makes learning English hell.

Take the verb to Break but then add: Break Up, Break In, Breakdown, Breakthrough but there is no break under. And they all have very different specific meanings that don't relate to each other at all. There are TON of these phrasal verbs in English which we all just know and use without thinking. Imagine having to learn them. RUN: run over, run in, rundown, run through, run down. I am so glad English is my first language.

My cute Italian language story: In grad school I had an Italian American professor who was a Franciscan Priest who retired while I was there and whom my best friend in the program and myself had gotten very close to. He had moved to Rome to work for the Franciscans placing young priests all over the world in educational programs. For spring break we went to visit him in Rome and went to his Sunday church service, though he tried to warn us against coming since it was in Italian. It was basically like hanging out during one of his class lectures without understanding much at all. Until he said the phrase “la puttana per strada!” And of course we looked at each other wide eyed because we knew what that meant. Later at brunch he told us that he was preaching from the alter that wives and mothers should not be looking down on “the whores in the street.” He was very progressive.

What's nice about Italian and Spanish is that you can look at a word, and if you know the basic rules, you will be able to pronounce it perfectly. Try that in English.

I liked the first season - it felt like sunshine during dark, dreary COVID - but I watched the most recent episode & it just didn't really do it for me, even though it included his parents who are clearly lovely people.

Not to to turn this thread into a discussion about Bourdain, a controversial figure, but it makes you appreciate how hard it is to create a compelling travel show season after season, to be a person that people want as their guide. Not that he's bad and he does have a sense of humor, but there's something kind of insufferable about him that's off-putting.

[quote]Until he said the phrase “la puttana per strada!” And of course we looked at each other wide eyed because we knew what that meant. Later at brunch he told us that he was preaching from the alter that wives and mothers should not be looking down on “the whores in the street.” He was very progressive.

That kind of language just does not have the same weight that it does in English. You'll hear Italians say cazzo , fica, culo and so forth all time in casual speech. Puttana is nothing.

I speak both English and Italian. IMHO English is the more difficult language to learn for the fact that words can have wildly different meanings. Take the word "fly" as an example: to travel through the air, the zipper on your pants, an insect, a baseball term. A "flyer". "On the fly". Etc. There are so many words like that.

And English has so many idiomatic phrases.

R40 I agree with you with words meaning so many different things in English. But at least in English there is a dominate use of a word and the rest are ancillary. In Italian there are words pronounced and spelled the same and all of the uses are extremely common. For instance CI can me Us and There, and sometimes only serves as a filler word meaning nothing at all. SI is the same thing. SI can mean himself, herself, themselves and YES when spoken. SIA can mean I am, You are, He/She is, It is or This or That. CHE is That and What. LEI is Her or You. So all of that makes understanding the language very difficult when you are trying to follow a sentence. It's all about the context. And if you don't understand the context exactly you are shit out of luck.

Grazie a Lei - Thank You or Thanks to her? Ci Sono - There are. Ci piace - We Like. Reading it is a bit easier, but when it's spoken it's sometimes like undoing a knot to get the correct meaning. And by that time you're six knots deep and completely behind. You have to pay close attention to the verb conjugated to know what's going on. Si è trasferito - he moved. Si è trasferita - she moved. Si sono trasferiti - they moved.

[QUOTE]Can Stanley Tucci speak Italian fluently?

For what it's worth, OP.

[Quote]Stanley lived in Florence with his family while young and is fluent.

I don’t think bald men should wear those big heavy plastic frames. Mr Magoo-ish.

Still hot.

Actually, the glasses look great. The fact that you mentioned Mr. Magoo means you are an old.

[quote]Actually, the glasses look great. The fact that you mentioned Mr. Magoo means you are an old.

Yet, YOU seem to know who Mr. Magoo is? Hmmmmm

I am old, but wear big glasses. I love them. Check out Alison Martino on Vintage LA.

All the Italian American kids in Spanish class aced it with no problem.

Is it just me or does he always have a huge bulge in his flat front khakis on the show. He gives small meat, huge potatoes vibe.

My Italian experiences have been skimpy on the meat.

I know this is not a thread about the Italian language, but I don't feel like starting another thread about it. But...

I do find it fascinating how latin based languages might even begin to approach conversations about gender when everything in the language is identified with a gender. Not only that, but the way one speaks constantly reaffirms one's gender.

Paul is ready: Paul è pronto. Maria is ready: Maria è pronta.

You have to choose either or, there is no inbetween. How do you even begin to dismantle an entire language when it's signafiers continually reconfirm the fact that gender exists? I guess you don't and move on to more pressing issues.

R23, judging by the video you've posted, he has extremely basic notions of Italian and his pronunciation is quite good for a native English speaker, but it's surprising that he wouldn't have taken lessons before the show, since he can only carry the simplest of conversations and often reverts back to speaking English. Enzo Caccia speaks with a Campanian accent, which is characterized by the elimination of fricative S, frequent duplication of plosive consonants and the substitution of the "tch" sound for SH. Still, it doesn't differ enough from standard Italian/Tuscan, to be unintelligible.

R25, there were no dialects in the Italian peninsula: all of them were completely different languages with different levels of proximity. Neapolitan, Romanesque, Tuscan (the real name of the Italian language), Corsican and Sicilian are fairly similar to each other and form the Southern Italo-Romance sub-family. Still, Sicilian and Neapolitan have strong French, Arabic, Greek, Occitan and Catalan influences that are not shared by the rest of the Southern Italo-Romance languages. Then you have Northern Italy and its Gallo-Romance and Rhaetic languages, which have strong Germanic, Celtic and South Slavic influences and are MUCH closer to French, Occitan and Catalan than to Italian. And let's not even talk about Sardinian, which had it not been for Spanish and Italian influences, would still be extremely close to Latin.

Anyway, most of these languages were deliberately isolated after the Italian unification in 1861, and some of them have very few native speakers. Most of Italy's population speaks Tuscan/Italian, which was chosen as the language of the Kingdom of Italy because of its literary prestige, even though only about 5% of the peninsula's population spoke it.

R34, Italian people gesticulate just like most Mediterranean peoples tend to accompany their verbal communications with an abundance of gesticulations. Some areas of Southern Italy have depeloped common gestures that have a specific meaning, but that isn't shared by the rest of Italy, who might have become acquainted with these gesticulations after Southerners started migrating to Northern Italy en masse, during the 1920s. Before that, Italy was a peninsula fragmented in small kingdoms and republics that had very different cultures, languages and a very strong sense of local nationhood that wasn't shared by their neighbours. The concept of "Italian" nationhood was imposed by the Kingdom of Italy's political apparatus, and up to the early 20th Century many people resisted it. It took exclusing their languages from the educational system and a propaganda campaign ridiculing non-native Italian speakers, to get people to abandon their languages and agree to adopt "Italian" as part of their identity.

Anyway, I'm surprised by how limited the Italian spoken by Italian Americans is, not to mention how shamefully ignorant they are about Italian culture(s) and history, even though they make such a ridiculous fuss about their origins and their ethnic pride. Stanley Tucci is a very good example of this.

[quote]Stanley lived in Florence with his family while young and is fluent.

No. I just saw this show for the first time the other day and thought, he knows enough to get by. and that's totally fine, but he is not fluent. Fluency takes many years of hearing and speaking the language on a daily basis, and you don't hesitate before everything you say the way he does.

Also, he looks great, but he has totally lost all sex appeal for me, and I used to think he was sizzling hot. In fact he seems kind of neutered to me. He's charming though.

R23, I studied Italian for two years. At 1:42, I would have said "Non ci sono in tutto il mondo..." instead of "non sono nel tutto il mondo."

r51 Not to mention the fact that all inanimate objects have a gender as well.

How does the Italian language, or any engendered language, deal with non-binary? Is non-binary assigned a gender, and how outraged does it make the non-binary?

No he does not speak the language fluently. He does seem to understand the language when someone is speaking, but that could be due to editing.

I looks like an Italian though. His wardrobe choices. And the way he moves.

^ "He looks like an Italian though."

Why isn’t the new season on HBOMax?

I also speaka zee Italian, and he is perfectly…how you say…fluenta.

R51 whoever invented Latinx was obviously an English speaker who had no knowledge of any Romance language or the fact that all nouns have genders in them.

This is what is said about his Italian, along with what HE says about his Italian.

[Quote]When Tucci was 13 years old, the family moved to Florence, Italy, for his father Stan's sabbatical. After two months of attending school in Italian, Tucci became fluent in the language. Since then, he has taken Italian lessons to prepare for acting roles, like Secondo, the charming restaurateur in Big Night, and again for this latest series. Unlike many food and travel series, where the hosts speak almost exclusively in English, Tucci uses both languages. [Bold]But Tucci says there's room for improvement.[/bold] “Every time I went to Italy, I still spoke Italian, and I pitied the people I spoke with,” he says in self-deprecating style. “Before the [CNN] series—so now like a year and a half ago—I started taking lessons again. It was invaluable.”

Tucci is hot. It's his eyes and commanding presence that makes him magnetic, at least to me. I worked with a cousin of his decades ago. He was decidedly not hot but good natured and funny.

His wife is irritating.

^I agree with that, though I'm not entirely sure why. She's Emily Blunt's sister, so she could be far more insufferable, but I don't like the episodes she's on

Wasn't Stanley once a model?

He's a shorty, he could never have been a model.

[quote]Ending in -a but m*sculine: problema, diploma, programma. Ending in -o but f*minine: radio, mano.

Literal violence!

Problemx

Diplomx

Programmx

Radix

Manx

Example: Do you think it’s a problemx to date someone outside of one’s programmx if they haven’t yet received their diplomx?

So he’s just a liar then.

He was a model. He was in this Levi’s ad in 1986

R70 No, he was not a model. He was an actor who was in a Levi’s TV commercial in 1986