Il giornale parla della rapina.

In Italian, nouns are often used with an article where English might leave it out. Il means the, and giornale means newspaper.

So il giornale = the newspaper.

Italian usually sounds more natural with the article here:

• Il giornale parla della rapina. = The newspaper talks about the robbery.

Without the article, giornale would usually sound incomplete in this sentence.

Parlare is the infinitive, meaning to speak / to talk.

In the sentence, the verb has to match the subject il giornale, which is third person singular, so parlare becomes parla.

Present tense of parlare:

• io parlo = I speak
• tu parli = you speak
• lui/lei parla = he/she speaks
• noi parliamo = we speak
• voi parlate = you all speak
• loro parlano = they speak

Since il giornale is like it, Italian uses parla.

Because parlare uses di when it means to talk about.

So the structure is:

• parlare di qualcosa = to talk about something

Here, the noun is la rapina:

• di + la rapina becomes della rapina

This contraction is required in standard Italian:

• di + il = del
• di + lo = dello
• di + la = della
• di + l' = dell'
• di + i = dei
• di + gli = degli
• di + le = delle

So:

• parla della rapina = talks about the robbery

Here della does not mean simply of the in a word-for-word English sense. In this sentence, it is part of the expression parlare di = to talk about.

So:

• della rapina literally looks like of the robbery
• but naturally it means about the robbery

That is a very common thing in Italian: a preposition may translate differently depending on the verb it goes with.

Not always. Parlare can be used in different ways.

Common patterns:

• parlare di qualcosa = to talk about something
  
  • Parlo del film. = I’m talking about the film.
• parlare a qualcuno = to speak to someone
  
  • Parlo a Maria. = I’m speaking to Maria.
• parlare con qualcuno = to talk with someone
  
  • Parlo con Maria. = I’m talking with Maria.
• parlare in italiano = to speak in Italian
  
  • Parla in italiano. = He/She speaks in Italian.

So in your sentence, di is used because the meaning is about.

Rapina means robbery. It is a feminine singular noun.

That is why it takes the feminine singular article la:

• la rapina = the robbery

And after di, it becomes:

• della rapina

So the feminine gender of rapina is the reason you see della rather than del.

Literally, yes, parlare means to speak or to talk. But in Italian, just as in English, inanimate things like newspapers, TV programs, books, or articles can be said to talk about something.

So Il giornale parla della rapina is perfectly natural and means that the newspaper discusses or reports on the robbery.

You might also see similar sentences like:

• Il libro parla della storia di Roma. = The book talks about the history of Rome.
• L’articolo parla di politica. = The article talks about politics.

Usually no, not in the same way.

Dire means to say, while parlare di means to talk about. For newspaper content, parlare di is much more natural if you mean the newspaper’s topic is the robbery.

Compare:

• Il giornale parla della rapina. = The newspaper talks about the robbery.
• Il giornale dice che... = The newspaper says that...

So dire is more likely when a statement follows:

• Il giornale dice che la polizia ha arrestato un uomo. = The newspaper says that the police arrested a man.

Yes, but Il giornale parla della rapina is the most neutral and standard order.

Italian word order is often flexible, especially for emphasis. For example:

• Della rapina parla il giornale.

This is grammatical, but it sounds more marked, as if emphasizing the robbery.

For learners, the safest order is:

• subject + verb + complement
• Il giornale parla della rapina.

If you wanted to say The newspapers talk about the robbery, you would change both the subject and the verb:

• I giornali parlano della rapina.

Changes:

• il giornale → i giornali
• parla → parlano

Notice that della rapina stays singular if you are still talking about one robbery.

If there were multiple robberies:

• I giornali parlano delle rapine. = The newspapers talk about the robberies.

Here:

• delle = di + le
• rapine is the plural of rapina

In Italian, nouns ending in -o are often masculine and nouns ending in -a are often feminine, but nouns ending in -e can be either masculine or feminine.

So you have to learn the gender with the noun:

• il giornale = masculine
• la notte = feminine

A good habit is to learn nouns together with their article:

• il giornale
• la rapina

That makes it easier to build correct phrases like della rapina later.