The Saddest Lines

In 1994 to promote the film “Il Postino” Miramax released  The Postman (Il Postino): Music From The Miramax Motion Picture, which, besides the film’s score, includes Pablo Neruda’s poems recited by many celebrities. Today’s lesson is based on the beautiful reading of Love Poem No. 20 by Andy García. It’s a translation exercise and, although the example here is from the original Spanish, I’ve included links to versions of the poem in other languages. It appears to be very easy to find in almost any language on the web as it’s so famous. What I like about using poetry is that it makes people think about how to express themselves in a much more creative way. And of course, there isn’t necessarily a correct answer…

Neruda Teacher’s notes

The saddest lines in Spanish

The saddest lines in English

Here are translations into other languages:

The saddest lines in French

The saddest lines in German

The saddest lines in Italian

The saddest lines in Portuguese