By Rui Hu, EDITOR
On 15 Oct., the Italy Consulate in Chongqing held the opening ceremony of Italian Culture Week; the first event was the Italian Language Week. The idea of language week originated in 2001 by Accademia della Crusca and Italy Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is the 18th year of the culture and language week to promote Italian linguistics worldwide. There are events, presentations, forums with different themes each year for learners to experience this historical language.
Davide Castellani, the vice-consul of Italy Consulate in Chongqing
Italian shows its vitality through changes
The 18th Italian Language Week featured with Italian and Internet, Italian’s Network topic, Davide Castellani, the vice-consul of Italy Consulate in Chongqing has emphasized that Italian language week is an important event that would be held every year aims to promote Italian. Demonstrated from Castellani’s speech, Italian is a language for fashion, design, art, wine, even filming, literature, and opera. The event focuses on the language’s changes and application in mass media and internet this year. Thanks to the internet, Italian could be widely broadcast internationally, and the consulate is using WeChat to promote Italian as well.
Davide Castellani (left), the vice-consul of Italy Consulate in Chongqing is accepting interview
Language education in new ways
Castellani also introduced the Italian program “Itali-Amo”, which is a language education interactive practice organized by Italy Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Design Academy. There are ten learning modules teaching in ten different cities in Italy. “Itali-Amo” is a combination word of “Italian” and “love” that means love Italian. Castellani also indicated that the Italian consulate is now using WeChat as the social media platform to showcase the Italian culture by posting films, operas, and events. There is an online film Branding Love will be present on Youku, and the creators team Flickmates studio will come to Chongqing and talk to local audiences.
Dr. Leto represented the relationship between Italian and social media
The first event after opening ceremony is the cultural salon hosted by Dr. Fbrizio Leto, with the topic Italian and social media, with the example of text message and computer games. Dr. Leto represented the relationship between Italian and social media from the message chatting and conversation in video games.