I don’t know if others have noticed this, and I imagine they have, but many Italian writers construct some of the longest paragraphs I have ever seen. These paragraphs, which are seemingly never ending walls of text, tend to put me off reading Italian newspapers and books.
As I understand from my own research into writing skills, psychologists who have studied the way in which Americans and Britons write, have determined that written texts are more readable and easier to understand if they are short. By short I mean around five or so sentences long or around 75 words.
I know at times I write paragraphs which stretch acceptable limits, but I do try to keep my paragraphs quite short. I also leave a line between each paragraph, partially because I think this makes things look a little better, and partially because I have read that this improves readability.
Now what I would like to hear is whether Italians would prefer to see shortish paragraphs and a good amount of space, or whether they prefer paragraphs which are longer than this post.
I have heard it said that Italians are not the world’s greatest readers, and I wonder if the block like walls of text put many Italians off from reading more.
Italian Education Revolves around Oral Exams
Incidentally, someone I know, who was a high level journalist, told me that one of the reasons why Italians tend to resort to block like paragraphs is that they are not really taught to write, or rather, have little experience with the written word. This is because Italian education, all the way up to university level, employs oral tests.
In other countries, Great Britain for example, exams are generally written, which means that Britons have more experience with the written version of their language. Not that all Britons write well. This sounds as though it could be one way of explaining why Italian paragraphs tend to be so long.
Judge for yourselves. Here is the post I have written, without paragraphs, headings, and spaces. See which you prefer:
I don’t know if others have noticed this, and I imagine they have, but many Italian writers construct some of the longest paragraphs I have ever seen. These paragraphs, which are seemingly never ending walls of text, tend to put me off reading Italian newspapers and books. As I understand from my own research into writing skills, psychologists who have studied the way in which Americans and Britons write, have determined that written texts are more readable and easier to understand if they are short. By short I mean around five or so sentences long or around 75 words.I know at times I write paragraphs which stretch acceptable limits, but I do try to keep my paragraphs quite short. I also leave a line between each paragraph, partially because I think this makes things look a little better, and partially because I have read that this improves readability.Now what I would like to hear is whether Italians would prefer to see shortish paragraphs and a good amount of space, or whether they prefer paragraphs which are longer than this post.I have heard it said that Italians are not the world’s greatest readers, and I wonder if the block like walls of text put many Italians off.Italian Education Revolves around Oral ExamsIncidentally, someone I know, who was a high level journalist, told me that one of the reasons why Italians tend to resort to block like paragraphs is that they are not really taught to write, or rather, have little experience with the written word. This is because Italian education, all the way up to university level, employs oral tests.In other countries, Great Britain for example, exams are generally written, which means that Britons have more experience with the written version of their language. Not that all Britons write well. This sounds as though it could be one way of explaining why Italian paragraphs tend to be so long.
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Definitely the first one is easily to read … then again I’m not italian so it’s natural for me to think so?
I find I just skim over big blocks of text like that and read thoroughly only if something catches my eye.
In my own writing, which leaves a lot to be desired thanks to too many reports and grant applications, I have to fight a tendency to chop it up too much in an effort to make it readable.
@Jan – that’s the response the psychologists expect – you are normal;)
@A – thanks for dropping in. You too react as expected, I believe. I think you come from an ‘Anglo Saxon’ culture!
And I know from all my own writing, not just this blog, that finding a happy balance is not always easy.
The experts say write short sentences – 10 to 15 words, and write only four or five sentences per paragraph – but this is not easy, and I often write sentences which are too long.
Nice photos on your blog by the way.
All the best to both of you,
Alex
Well, Italian is a bit convoluted. It was born that way: if you read Mnazoni’s “I Promessi Sposi” you can find paragraphs that last for pages.
I agree that the press, at least, should follow the “short paragraph” rule.
Cristian,
Paragraphs that last for pages! Wow. That’s frightening.
Question is though: Why are paragraphs so long in Italian?? Who started this?
Kind regards,
Alex
Yes, very frightening. The longest paragraph that I can remember is in Chapter 8: in my book it starts on page 244 and it ends on page 249. Quite a block of text.
Now imagine a 15 years old student forced at school to read that beast (no, actually “I promessi sposi” is a great novel, but it’s kind of hard to read, especially if you are young, I think): that poor guy may or may not have a great love for books, but he must read that for almost half a year at school.
He opens the book, looks at the first sentence (the famous incipit “Quel ramo del lago di Como che volge a mezzogiorno, etc.”) and finds a thing that goes on for almost twelve lines, with a lot of commas, semicolons, colons, and no full stops on sight.
The only thing that he had to read previously because of the programs is the Divine Comedy, another easy book. If he is studying English, the next thing that is going to read is something by Shakespeare or The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge (in English, of course. Let’s point out that if he followed the class untill that moment, he may be barely able to “ask Mr Brown how old is his wife” – that is a bit impolite, by the way: one shouldn’t discuss about the age of a lady); all of those flavoured with some cold notion and nothing else.
I think that if he isn’t already a great reader, after this treatment, every last shard of his love for literature can be gone forever.
It seems that the school puts great efforts into destroying one’s passion for books.
It’s about nine years that I’ve finished high schools, so maybe somthing can be changed (but I don’t think so
I don’t have many ideas about why paragraphs are so long (maybe the fact that Manzoni was part of the Committee for the Unification of the Language founded after the unification of Italy can be a clue
)
Hi Cristian,
Many thanks for the long reply!
I understand your point of view completely. I’ve never understood why our educators do their very best, or so it would seem, to discourage reading.
Why books that would appeal to 15 year olds cannot be chosen, is beyond me.
And it always amazes me to hear my students, who, in general, cannot speak English too well, tell me that they have studied Shakespeare at school. What a waste of time.
I mean, the time devoted to studying old English would be much better spent studying modern English – through the use of well written contemporary literature, even if, personally, I think the time would be even better spent attempting to develop speaking skills.
By the time I was reading Shakespeare etc, I could speak and write English, so I was not confused by olde English, unlike, I fear, Italian students who are required to study Shakespeare even though they cannot speak the language.
I feel your pain, I really do!
As for the length of Italian paragraphs – dai, diamo la colpa a Manzoni! – Let’s blame Manzoni! Until someone comes up with a better explanation/idea!
Kind regards,
Alex
hi! I’ve passed quite an hour reading this blog (wich i found casually), it’s really interesting. I’m italian (my written english can prove it hehe) and it’s so interesting to me see external points of view, or better, what strangers think about us. And you well understood italian way to live, driving and thinking.
About paragraphs, this comment too is space-free eheh
I think it’s quite instinctive writing like this, maybe because at school, on newspapers and in evry book we read, there are only block of sentences. Or maybe, italians secretely hates paragraphs. Actually, before reading this post, i never thought about it!
bye bye,
Stefano
Hi Saya,
Sorry I did not reply sooner, but your comment was eaten by the spam system.
Thanks for visiting. Good to hear that you enjoy hearing how others view Italians.
As for these paragraphs, maybe you are right – Italians may hate paragraphs!
Not sure why, but that famous English writer Dickens loved long paragraphs too!
All the best,
Alex
I am familiar with both Italian and British journalism and fiction, and I have translated two novels from English to Italian. I concluded that every language has its logic, not only in terms of lenght of paragraphs, but also, for instance, of punctuation. When I translate I adapt both to the Italian ear. Short sentences can be irritating for us ( We think: well, surely you can add a few words, you do not need to stop every second. as if you had a hiccup…). Things like : “I came home. I opened the door. I saw the cat miaowing” would sound harsh, abrupt, in my language.
Great writers like Manzoni followed the usage of their times ( and, in Manzoni’s case, influenced those who followed), no-one would write like him any longer.
If your Italian is good enough, try and read a good newspaper like La Repubblica, or else Corriere della Sera if you prefer their political stance, and you will find high standards of compositional skills.
Talking about punctuation, I noticed that if you write something humorous, an exclamation can be followed by a full-stop, while in Itlaiian we tend to put an exclamation mark. I also happen to turn semi-clon in colons more than once. Why? Because it sounds right in Italian in that way!
There are other differences. We avoid repeating the same term in a paragraph, you do not. We would not say: “I went to Rome. Rome is a beautiful city. I saw many monuments in Rome” because in second grade we are taught to change “Rome” with “the capital of Italy” or some other phrase, to avoid repeating the same word.
A long paragraph, with more than one subordinate sentence, can be a real pleasure to read. The trouble starts when the writer is not good but uses long paragraphs, and the wrong pairing of nouns and adjectives, or nouns and verbs, goes on and on. But it does not depend on the structure of my language.
Hi Annamaria,
Short, very short, sentences can be irritating to us too! Indeed, the shorter they are, the more aggressive they can be, or may be perceived as being so.
I do read papers like La Repubblica, Il Corriere, Il Fatto Quotidiano and Il Sole 24 ORE, often, and some of their articles are fine. Others are dense, and the writers seem to use 100 words to say what could be said with less than half, or fewer. Whereas Italians might expect this, I’m not convinced that they appreciate it.
I accept that there are cultural differences, but do feel that Italians might be happier to read short, succinct paragraphs – I’ve been told as much by Italians who know English, and like the fact that English writers are often more succinct than Italian writers.
As for repetition, your example: “I went to Rome. Rome is a beautiful city. I saw many monuments in Rome”, would not be good style in English! When nouns are repeated too close to one another in English, the result does not read well. However, I have found Italians to be somewhat paranoid about repetition when writing in English. There, I have repeated the word “English” several times, although I don’t think this will annoy too many native-English readers, although it might worry some Italians!
You do make a very valid point when you say that the way a paragraph is written depends very much upon the skill of the writer. This holds true in both English and Italian.
Please point me towards a long paragraph written in Italian which you consider to be well written. You could even copy and paste one into a comment.
Thanks for your observations.
Best,
Alex
Hello again. I am certain that I will come across a beaufully written long paragraph, but I need some time to spot one. In the meantime I found a long paragraph which I consider neither excellent nor unpleasant to read, just “normal”. It comes from an article on the vulcano’s cloud in yesterday “La Repubblica”.
“Ma è anche uno spettacolo sublime che ridefinisce le nostre reali dimensioni di uomini piccoli piccoli: la polvere che si solleva e assume in cielo forme barocche e ricciolute, i lapilli spruzzati in aria, il risveglio di un vulcano che, nascosto nel ghiaccio, da duecento anni non dava spasmi di vita, neppure un flebile segnale, nessuna pulsazione: il suo cuore di fuoco si era fermato, il magma non circolava.”
I am pretty sure that an English speaker would have placed two full stops instead of the colons. But then again, he would have not attempted to write prose in a sort of poetical form, like journalist Francesco Merlo does here. His intent was not to report news, which appears somewhere else in the main article on the same subject, but to give a feeling of the force of nature behind this event, and to do so he adopted a style involving long paragraphs with a certain rhythm which, if it were broken by full-stops, would result jolty.
Concerning the terms he used, the only combination of words not sounding right to my ears is “spasmi di vita” , a true “licenza poetica” of dubious result. The rest of the text flows well and conveys both the meaning and the writer’s personality behind the pen, or rather, behind the computer keys.
Ciao ciao for now
Annamaria
P.s. Funny, I looked for a website in English for my American husband and I end up writing here myself…
Thanks for dropping in once more, Annamaria,
I wholeheartedly agree with you on the paragraph you found -it is very well written prose, as far as I can tell – and I am no expert on Italian – but then I expect a high standard of writing from professional journalists. I agree that an English writer would have used full stops where the colons exist. But the colons function as a form of full stop anyway, and create a sort of pause. This allows a reader to absorb the words and their meanings more effectively, I consider.
Actually, it’s not the writing, as long as it is not overly verbose, which worries me, nor the punctuation – it’s the length of the paragraphs – without white space – they look daunting – and this puts me off, regardless of how well written they might be.
As for punctuation – again, I have no problem with this – Italian is not English. However, I believe both languages can help readers by presenting them with shorter paragraphs – especially with regard to ‘official’ texts. Long, daunting paragraphs still do exist in English and some, people like Bryan A Garner, have been battling for years to boil such paragraphs down to more readable lengths.
That said, sometimes long paragraphs are a necessity. Sometimes, but not always.
I don’t know if you have noticed, but the online version of La Repubblica is starting to use shorter paragraphs with more white space. I would be very interested to know what the “bounce rate”, and “time on page” metrics were both before and after shorter paragraphs and white space were introduced.
FYI “bounce rate” is the percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than moving to other pages within the same site. I think “time on page” is self explanatory.
Anyway, please do draw my attention to some well written paragraphs or even complete articles.
Have a good weekend.
Kind regards,
Alex