lascoltatore

Lascoltatore, more correctly l’ascoltatore, is an Italian noun meaning “the listener.” It refers to a person who listens, rather than speaks, and can apply in everyday conversation as well as in media contexts such as radio, music, or podcasts. The feminine form is ascoltatrice, and the plural forms are gli ascoltatori (masculine or mixed) and le ascoltatrici (feminine).

Etymology and form: the word comes from ascoltare (to listen) plus the agent-noun suffix -tore, a pattern shared with other Italian words like scrittore or cantautore. The standard written form uses l’ascoltatore with the article l’ before a vowel; without the apostrophe, lascoltatore is generally considered a nonstandard variant in Italian orthography.

Usage: in media and everyday speech, l’ascoltatore denotes the audience or individual listener of a broadcast, performance, or conversation. It can also denote a person who pays close attention to spoken content, for example, an attentive listener. In technology and computing, the term is extended to mean an event listener (ascoltatore di eventi), an object or routine that responds to events in an event-driven program.

Examples: Gli ascoltatori hanno espresso entusiasmo per il concerto. L’ascoltatore attento intervenne con una domanda. In informatica, l’ascoltatore di eventi riceve notifiche dal sistema.

See also: uditore, pubblico, audience, ascolto.