Mon Amour
by zzoilo & Aitana
How to study this song
Learning “Mon Amour” means 82 entries at A1+ — 20 Spanish words, 7 adjectives and 55 verb forms, every one taken from what the song actually says. Work through the glossary first: sonrisa, ojos and cara are the words you will lean on most. This one leans on its verbs: 55 distinct forms against 7 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. At this level the goal is recognition: hear a word, place it, keep going.
The words of this song, in several languages
Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.
Vocabulary
| ES | EN | IT | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| sonrisa | smile | sorriso | sourire | sorriso | glimlach | Lächeln |
Adjectives
| ES | EN | IT | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bonito | pretty, nice | carino | joli | bonito | mooi | hübsch, schön |
Verb forms
| ES | EN | IT | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| voy | I am going | vado | je vais | vou | ik ga | ich gehe gerade |
What this song teaches you
Level · A1+
- Vocabulary words
- 20
- Adjectives
- 7
- Word combos
- 5
- Expressions
- 8
- Verb forms
- 55
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
Mon Amour began as a bedroom recording. Zoilo Tuñón Rosa, who releases music as zzoilo, put it out himself on 30 December 2020 with no label behind it. It found an audience slowly, over months rather than days, the way songs do when nobody is pushing them.
The turn came on 25 July 2021, when Aitana — one of the biggest pop artists in Spain — quoted a line from it in public. The two got in touch, recorded the new version in Madrid on 30 July, and Universal released the remix on 17 August. Three weeks from the tweet to the release.
What makes the song work is smaller than its success: it is a declaration made badly, on purpose. The singer wants to go out and shout about it, then interrupts himself because saying the rest out loud would spoil it.
He promises to look her in the eye and not lie, then admits he will ask her out like a child would. Every grand gesture is undercut by an embarrassed one.
The famous trick is that he runs out of Spanish. Unable to say how much he likes her, he reaches for Basque, then Portuguese, then French. It is funny, and it is an accurate description of being too fond of someone to find the words.
Did you know?
The title is French and the song is in Spanish — worth knowing if you are learning, because a song's title is not always in the song's language.
The line about how the Basques would say it refers to Euskara, the language of the Basque Country. It is not related to Spanish, or to any other living language: linguists have never managed to place it in a family.
Dropping it into a love song as one option among several is an affectionate joke about Spain being more multilingual than it usually gets credit for.
The Eiffel Tower turns up late, and the singer calls the image a cliché before defending it anyway. Undercutting your own romantic gesture and keeping it is most of why the song avoids sounding sentimental.