Ciao a tutti! Have you heard of Mina, also known as La tigre di Cremona (the tiger from Cremona)? Her combination of traditional Italian melodies, swing and other styles, as well as her impressive vocal range of three octaves made her an important figure in Italian 1960s and 70s pop music, and between 1958 and 2003, she released an album every single year! This week, we’re listening to her evergreen song Il cielo in una stanza. We think this is a beautiful song, whose slow rhythm will allow you to savour all the words, making it a fantastic learning experience for you.

One of the language points to listen out for in the lyrics is the repeated use of the structure non + verb + più (‘no longer’). See how many examples of this you can find and think about how you would translate them. To help you, you can find the lyrics online by clicking here, or if you’d like to hear the song played more slowly, we recommend watching the YouTube video below and selecting a slower playback speed by clicking on the settings symbol.

Whether you’re learning Italian or another language, we hope you enjoy listening to this song and we’d love to hear what you think of it in the comments. Remember you can find our full Tune for Tuesday playlist on YouTube and Spotify to help you keep practising your language skills while discovering new songs from across the world.