a me mi piace
by Alfa, Manu Chao
How to study this song
The card for “a me mi piace” is built from 73 study entries at A2+: 33 Italian words, 8 adjectives and 32 verb forms. Start with the glossary: sole, pelle and schiena come up again and again, so they are the ones to know first. This one leans on its verbs: 32 distinct forms against 8 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
| IT | EN | ES | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| sole | sun | sol | soleil | sol | zon | Sonne |
| pelle |
Adjectives
| IT | EN | ES | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| francese | French | francesa, francés | française, français | francesa, francês | Frans | französisch |
Verb forms
| IT | EN | ES | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| fa | does, goes | hace, va | fait, va | faz, vai | doet, gaat | macht, geht |
What this song teaches you
Level · A2+
- Vocabulary words
- 33
- Adjectives
- 8
- Word combos
- 30
- Expressions
- 19
- Verb forms
- 32
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
«a me mi piace» is a song by the Italian singer-songwriter Alfa with Manu Chao as featured guest, released to radio and digital platforms on 9 May 2025 by the label Artist First. The title is written in lower case by the artist’s own choice. English Wikipedia credits the writing to the two artists and the production to Room9, and gives a running time of two minutes and twenty seconds. It is a sunny acoustic pop song carried by guitars and trumpets; Alfa told the Italian news agency ANSA that it has a gypsy soul.
The chorus rests on the melody of «Me gustas tú», the hit that Manu Chao released in 2001, and the Spanish refrain of that record answers every Italian line like a backing voice. In the same statement Alfa stressed that this is neither a cover nor a remix but a new composition that borrows the spirit of the older song. The 2001 original was a list of things the singer likes. The new song keeps the idea of the list and fills it with the life of a twenty-four-year-old from Genoa.
In the first verse Alfa names small pleasures: the sun that warms him and changes the colour of his skin, the curve of a lover’s back that makes him think of southern Italy, upturned noses, the habit of rubbing noses instead of kissing, inventing the words when he sings a song in English, his home town on a day of rough sea, coffee followed by red wine, and that first day of September that still feels like the height of summer. The chorus turns the list into a declaration. The person he is singing to is morning light, a chemical that lifts his mood and a boost to his confidence, and he likes that person more than the Mediterranean, more than a Sunday match and more than a show with every ticket gone.
The second verse compares the loved one to Rome, the city where every road ends up. Then comes a piece of arithmetic about how much of a year is spent asleep, with the conclusion that the two of them together would sleep far less. Walking with his eyes on the ground, he notices that the sky begins right where his feet are and that things look different depending on how you see them.
Manu Chao opens the track with a short spoken exchange in Spanish, sings part of one line in Portuguese and adds a brief bridge that mixes the two languages; a time check from Central America echoes the radio announcements of his 2001 record. This card teaches only the Italian: the Spanish and Portuguese words are left out of the glossary and the questions.