English Translation
I miss you so much!
There are only two sentences with assai in the corpus; is that’s because it’s very unusual?
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No lo so! È una bella parola. Vito Corleone holds baby Michael and says something like “Ben assai, benassai!” Big Godfather fan;-)
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“Assai” is an Italian word, you may have seen in music sheets, tempo expressed as “Allegro assai” (meaning very fast).
But it is currently used mostly by people from the southern part of the peninsula, people from Neaples in particular.
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@mike-lima Mi chiedo, perhaps Vito was saying “Benessere!” There is a famous clip of him holding Michael but it is v difficult to hear it properly. Intriguing.
A few seconds forward…
Yes, I think he says “Michael, tuo padre ti vuole bene assai, bene assai, Michaeluzzo”
@sindaco, oh mille grazie. I have tried so many times to hear and now I can! It’s one of my favourite scenes so now I can enjoy it fully! 
Edit: I forgot to ask about “Michaeluzzo” - is this an endearment?
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If I am not mistaken, ‘assai’ is a Sicilian dialect term with equal value to ‘molto’. I believe it is more commonly used in the south, but understood all over Italia. It makes sense that they’d use it in the Godfather, because the Corleone family was indeed Sicilian. Plus, it just sounds cool.
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Ciao Vito. I went to Savoca where Part 2 was filmed, and met Vicenza, the lady in purple who stood behind Michele at his wedding. I had a private tour with this wonderful lady, all because she overheard me using my best Italian. Che nostalgia eh!
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