No time to read this? Why not find something to study instead? A1 – Beginner/Elementary | A2 – Pre-Intermediate | B1 – Intermediate | B2 – Upper-Intermediate | C1 – Advanced | C2 – Proficiency | What’s my level? | Italian level test

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Buondì.

I’ve no time or energy for learning foreign languages. It’s a situation which has dragged on way too long, and about which I suffer from regular pangs of guilt.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” my mother used to tell me, and perhaps she was right. I wanted to do this, I’d planned to do that, and I’d definitely get around to that other thing as soon as…

And then, more than two years ago, we volunteered to mind a cute, seven-day-old pup who, for the purposes of these articles, I call Bug. Because he was like one when he arrived – a little bug, so inconsequential in terms of the space he took up in the world that we could have easily forgotten he was there – except for screaming, and the three-hourly bottle feeds day and night for the first six months.

Twenty six months later, tiny pup Bug now better resembles one of those pit bulls you see burly humans struggling to control in public parks, though he’s rather more good-natured.

Suffice it to say our ‘temporary’ charge takes up a lot more of our energy and time than we expected, not least because his petting zoo / daycare facility is right on the other side of the city, and with Bologna’s ongoing tram works, traffic is even more slow-moving and stressful.

Hence no time or energy for learning foreign languages. E da un bel po’.

So I was pondering this as I drove back from dropping Bug off at the petting zoo this morning (a six or seven mile return trip that took more than half an hour), while listening to the news in Swedish.

If you listen to news broadcasts in a foreign language, you’ll be familiar with the sensation of your understanding sort of drifting in and out. Sometimes you can follow without even noticing, other times it’s all just noise, and then there’s the rest of the spectrum in between, when comprehension is partial, when you can get what’s being said to a greater or lesser degree, often times depending on how familiar the topic is.

You’ll probably also recognise the experience of getting caught up with an unknown word or expression, something so central to what’s being said that, in the background, your brain starts to guess at what it could be.

If subconscious brain comes up with an acceptable hypothesis, then all well and good – that’s how language learning is supposed to happen. But if not, if the grey matter has simply no clue this time, then the word gets flagged up for conscious brain to deal with.

Which is irritating, as besides disrupting the news broadcast, the unknown word reminds me of all those good intentions abandoned by the wayside.

Ma poi I had a cheering thought (I guess I must have slept better than usual), which was that I never understand everything I hear, that that’s totally normal, and that I should totally abandon the negative self-talk and instead give myself a pat on the back simply for being in the habit of listening to foreign language news broadcasts in the car at all. Anyone could, most people don’t.

Decades back, I made the decision to stop listening to English language radio and to ONLY listen to radio broadcasts in the languages I was learning. It seemed like a good idea at the time and, more or less, the resolution stuck.

I still watch English-language TV (all too easy now, with streaming) as my Italian wife prefers it. But when I’m on my own it’ll be Italian, Swedish, French or occasionally Turkish or Spanish.

I tried the same thing with reading, though with less success. I have newspaper apps on my phone for all those languages, but mostly read in Italian or English. Still, I don’t have the BBC or British newspaper apps installed (deliberately), so the go-to for finding out what craziness Trump is up to now is RaiNews.it.

And in moments of leisure (when Bug’s watching TV – he’s fine with Italian or English, either way) this year I’ve been working my way through a twenty-book series of historical novels, mostly in Italian as those are easier to obtain.

What about actual speaking?

Normally on Wednesday’s I have a half-hour conversation with a Swedish pensioner, online obviously, though not today as he has a hospital appointment.

Bug and I speak Italian, though we sing songs in English (The Wheels On The Bus, Old MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and now Christmas carols). With the rest of the family, so Stefi (the face of our Italian school) and Tom (voice of EasyItalianNews.com), it’s English.

Naturally I chat in Italian with Bug’s keepers when I pick him up of an evening. They like to obsess over his bowel movements, so I’ve picked up lots of words meaning ‘soft and runny’. And with other pet owners, and their charges, in the park.

OK, I’ve rambled a little, but the point is this: there’s no point in fretting if I don’t have the time or energy I’d like to have for learning foreign languages AS LONG AS I have at least a few good habits to keep my subsconscious busy.

IF there’s some regular foreign-language input, then the learning will happen anyway. Perhaps not as rapidly or in such an organised, predictable way as when I have time to plan my learning, but not nothing.

Good habits are the key, see?

And especially EASY good habits, things which don’t cost money, time or emotional effort. If whatever you do when you’re driving or doing chores isn’t critical to your wealth and happiness, then why not work at replacing it with a similar activity in Italian, and/or other languages that interest you? These days, with smartphones and so on, that’s easy and free to do.

Then scroll forward a few years: you’ll be amazed at the difference your new habit has made!

Alla prossima settimana.

Half-Price Ebook Easy Reader ‘Giallo a Capodanno’ Just £4.99

Last week’s email about the half-price promotion on the B2-level Italian easy reader eBook ‘Natale a sorpresa‘ could easily have ended up in people’s ‘trash’ folder, along with all the ‘Black Friday’ offers.

So – and because that story is about Christmas – the EasyReaders.org team are leaving it at half-price until the holidays are over, to give you a chance to grab your copy at a discount: ‘Natale a sorpresa‘.

And this week? They have another seasonal Italian eBook for you!

Half-price, B2/C1-level easy reader ebook ‘Giallo a Capodanno‘ is perfect for improving your Italian reading/listening skills over the holidays, though it’s a little harder than ‘Natale a sorpresa‘ so check the free sample chapters for each before you buy:

• https://easyreaders.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Natale-a-sorpresa-SAMPLE.pdf
• https://easyreaders.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Giallo-a-Capodanno-SAMPLE.pdf

Read/listen to one or both of these over the next week or two and you’ll improve your Italian comprehension skills, consolidate the grammar and vocabulary you’ve studied, and get into the festive mood – at half the usual price!

“Sbrigati Alida, o arriveremo in ritardo alla festa di Capodanno!” ripete nervosamente Martina alla sua compagna di stanza. Alida sta sdraiata sul letto con un libro di Agatha Christie fra le mani. Si toglie pigramente gli occhiali da lettura e guarda fuori dalla finestra: “Nevica ancora, che incubo!”

It’s New Year 1970 and Martina’s all dressed up for the party, determined to enjoy it! But her roommate, Alida is more cynical:

“Ascolta: siamo bloccati dalla neve in un collegio in cui viviamo tutto l’anno. Dei duecento alunni che frequentano la scuola, solo sette (sette, porca miseria!) hanno dei genitori che non li vogliono tra i piedi nemmeno durante le feste. E noi siamo tra questi sette. Quindi puoi anche vestirti come Marilyn Monroe… ma rimani una disgraziata!”

Alida would rather read detective thrillers than pretend to have fun with just six fellow students. But who knows? Perhaps something interesting will happen?

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online)
• .mobi (Kindle-compatible) and .epub (other ebook readers) available on request at no extra charge – just add a note to the order form or email us
• 8 chapters to read and listen to
• Comprehension questions to check your understanding
• Italian/English glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
• Suitable for students at upper-intermediate level or above
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Remember, this week ‘Giallo a Capodanno‘ is 50% discounted, so just £4.99 rather than the usual ‘easy reader’ ebook price of £9.99!

Buy ‘Giallo a Capodanno‘ just £4.99! | Free Sample Chapter (.pdf) | Catalog

Find more ebooks, organised by level, then type: A1 | A1/A2 | A2 | A2/B1 | B1 | B1/B2 | B2 | B2/C1 | C1 | C1/C2 | C2

How do I access my ebook?

When your order is ‘completed’ (normally immediately after your payment), a download link will be automatically emailed to you. It’s valid for 7 days and 3 download attempts so please save a copy of the .pdf ebook in a safe place. Other versions of the ebook, where available, cannot be downloaded but will be emailed to people who request them. There’s a space to do that on the order form – where it says Additional information, Order notes (optional). If you forget, or if you have problems downloading the .pdf, don’t worry! Email us at the address on the website and we’ll help. Also, why not check out our FAQ?

P.S.

And as always, don’t forget to read/listen to today’s FREE bulletin of ‘easy’ Italian news.

The regular text + audio bulletins are a fantastic, FREE way to consolidate the grammar and vocabulary you’ve studied, as well as being fun and motivating!

Take a look at their website to get started on improving your Italian immediately!

To get all three text + audio bulletins of ‘easy’ news emailed to you each week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, subscribe (they really are FREE) by entering your email address on this page and clicking the confirmation link that will be sent to you.

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No time to read this? Why not find something to study instead? A1 – Beginner/Elementary | A2 – Pre-Intermediate | B1 – Intermediate | B2 – Upper-Intermediate | C1 – Advanced | C2 – Proficiency | What’s my level? | Italian level test

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Buondì.

Last week I wrote about repairing the club website, which was suddenly missing all its accented Italian characters, so è,é,ò,à,ù and ì. I think that’s the lot. Hope so, anyway.

You can read the article here if you missed it: Oops! Where did all the Italian accented characters go?

E poi, while pottering about the clubhouse a day or so after publishing that, I tripped over our Italian level test and discovered that – how possible after my repairs? – it was STILL missing all its accented characters.

Which was embarassing, as many of the forty questions in the test made no sense whatsover without the accented characters, for instance è (meaning ‘is’) and critical prepositions like à (‘to’). Both single-accented-character words had just disappeared!

I’d come across a note that a club member had emailed about the issue a while back, which I’d then filed in a place where I would remember to act urgently on it, which I then forgot to do. It was probably Bug’s fault. Most things are these days, joy that he is.

Hence the test was broken BEFORE the recent crisis, and the emergency repairs described in last week’s article had no effect, as they were based on restoring backups and fixing those, and the backup for the level test was broken already, as I’d been told but forgotten.

Tutto chiaro? Anyway, I ended up having to go over all the level test’s forty questions (and 160 answers) restoring the è,é,ò,à,ù,ì characters as needed. Which was a workout for my Italian, and not in a good way.

A word about level tests, though not only ours.

A level test is basically a diagnostic tool: it is to language teachers what a thermometer is to medics.

Italians are obsessed with taking their temperature, by the way, and the degrees or half-degrees of Celsius that their home (or even personal) thermometers show when used to verify how they are feeling today, dictate their subsequent actions in a way which cannot be questioned.

36.5 C? You’re fine, but maybe better to check again in an hour or two, just to be on the safe side?

37 C? Oh dear…

37.5 C? If we took you to school, they’d totally refuse to admit you. And they’d call Social Services as soon as we’d reluctantly agreed to take you home again. This is a disaster!

38 C? You’re ill, kid. Stay in bed, keep warm, and eat only white things (don’t ask…) Never mind, though, I can phone my own ‘medico di famiglia’ right away and get three days off work, to look after you.

38.5 C? Still waiting for the ‘pediatra’ to pick up. We need an urgent appointment!

39 C? We’re going to the emergency department. Yes, I know it’s three a.m.

My explanation, twenty-six years ago when I was first a parent in Italy, that we possessed no thermometer but having pressed my palm to my baby daughter’s forehead I thought that she seemed a little warm, was met with INCREDULITY.

How could I myself have survived to adulthood without constantly measuring my temperature? How could I hope to bring up a child that way?? Barbarism.

So anyway, level tests are diagnostic tools, and just as a ‘pediatra’ knows there’s nothing wrong with a child who’s tearing around her office trashing things while the parents anxiously and at length list their darling’s symptoms, so too can an experienced teacher make a pretty accurate guess about your level as soon as you open your mouth.

Our forty-item test, by the way, was designed on the basis that an educated native speaker who was paying full attention might get all the answers correct, as might a particularly anal-retentive and grammar-obsessed student of Italian, assuming all the accented characters were in place.

The test says absolutely nothing about the test-taker’s ability to speak or write Italian, or to read and understand more extensive authentic texts, such as newspapers.

Which are, of course, my strong points.

I never took an Italian course, or studied the grammar, beyond a handful of irregular verbs. I’ve found that ignoring rules and their many exceptions has served me well over the past quarter century. At least I’ve managed to get on with my life in the meantime.

But I got a lousy result on our own level test, for that reason. I don’t recall the score, but it wasn’t great. You could probably do better…

Anyone relying on my result would rightly conclude that my grammar was patchy (at best), though without meeting me they’d likely guess poorly regarding my ‘real’ Italian level. Which might also be true if any of my Italian neighbours took the same test.

‘Serious’ level tests, of course, will – at a minimum – contain stuff that isn’t just tricky grammar nonsense, for example reading comprehension texts and, ideally, some listening. And the results will be interpreted only during a spoken interview conducted by someone who knows what they’re doing. Just as a competent ‘pediatra’ does, when dealing with fussy parents and their vaguely warm offspring.

But there’s the trade-off: the more complete and balanced the test, the longer it takes to administer.

There are also other issues. People who are used to taking or administering tests benefit from a performance gain compared to others who aren’t. Having administed thousands of language tests over my thirty-plus teaching career would give me an advantage were I to do one myself. Years back I aced the A2 (pre-intermediate) Swedex exam, for instance, having mostly ignored Swedish grammar but carefully studied how the test itself was designed and scored.

More to the point, why bother with precision in the first place? When it comes to thermometers, the difference between 36 C and 45 C is literally a matter of life or death – a tenth of a degree one way or another in a reading will make little difference.

Medical thermometers are designed with this in mind, of course. They don’t got down nearly as far as freezing point, or up far enough to certify that a patient is cooked all the way through and safe to eat.

If we’re talking ‘level test’ as a tool for placing new students in the ‘right’ class – something that all language schools need to do – then too much precision can be as unhelpful as too little.

It’s rare that a school will offer more than one class per level, for instance (though perhaps splitting the weakest students into ‘beginner’ and ‘elementary’ groups), so if there are six-to-eight approximate levels, any test that shows results in precise percentage points is not helping much.

Moreover when ‘placing’ students (level tests are often known as ‘placement tests’), experienced educators need to take into account both a student’s preferences and goals (wants to/doesn’t want to start with the basics and progress at a relaxed pace) but also those of others in the class.

Swedish people learning Italian in Sweden (what’s known as a ‘monolingual’ group) are likely to have similar backgrounds and objectives to others in the class (a similar age, too.) But were one of them to come to our Italian school in Bologna (to study in a ‘multilingual’ group) we’d need to place them with other students of different nationalities and ages, who’d necessarily have had different language-learning experiences, and might also have very different objectives.

Insomma, ‘placement’ testing is more of an art than a science, besides needing to be done rapidly, in real time, and as effectively as possible (or complaints will result…)

‘Level’ testing, on the other hand, means nothing without some understanding of the test taker’s purpose. Why are we doing this? What’s the point? How will it help? And, of course, the test design needs to be appropriate to the purpose or purposes.

I’m out of time. Take a look at our newly-repaired Italian level test if you’re so inclined, but don’t feel bad if you don’t do well on it (I didn’t…)

A better way of measuring your progress, at least for me, is to use graded material such as the FREE listening material on the club website or our (not free) ‘easy reader’ ebooks. We have hundreds of them, and the free sample chapters on the Catalog page should give you an approximate idea of your reading/listening level (which may be different, probably will be…)

Start with ‘easy readers’ designated as being below what you understand to be your current level (look here), and work your way up gradually until you get to the free samples that are ‘too difficult’ to read and/or to listen to. At which point, step down a half-level and begin there. As your reading/listening skills improve, step up again, half-level by half-level, to infinity and beyond.

Così. Gotta go, really this time.

There’s a half-price ebook offer below, by the way.

And also GRAZIE MILLE to all the happy EasyItalianNews.com readers who sent donations during their recent appeal. It went really well, apparently.

Alla prossima settimana, allora!

Half-Price Easy Reader Ebook: ‘Natale a sorpresa’ (B2) £4.99

This month, as things slow down in the run up to the holidays, why not use any slack time that comes your way to build your Italian reading/listening skills?

In December 2025 EasyReaders.org will be offering half-price deals on their three seasonal ‘easy reader’ ebooks. First off is B2-level ‘Natale a sorpresa‘.

Read/listen to the eight short chapters over the next week or two and you’ll start feeling all Christmassy, while at the same time improving your Italian comprehension skills, and consolidating the grammar, and vocabulary you’ve studied.

Win, win, win, and at half the usual ‘easy reader ebook’ price!

Matteo’s supposed to be writing a book – he has a deadline coming up – but he’s suffering terribly from writers’ block. All he can do is stare at a blank computer screen. He’s recently out of a relationship, which hasn’t helped…

Worse, it’s December and Christmas is coming! Normally Matteo spends the festive season with his family, but this year they’re visiting relatives in Australia. So it looks as if he’ll be celebrating alone.

Then he has an idea. He’ll call his best friend Filippo, who’ll surely be able to help! Perhaps they can spend Christmas at Filippo’s place in the mountains, or take a trip somewhere…

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online)
• .mobi (Kindle-compatible) and .epub (other ebook readers) available on request at no extra charge – just add a note to the order form or email us
• 8 chapters to read and listen to
• Comprehension questions to check your understanding
• Italian/English glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
• Suitable for students at intermediate level or above
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Remember, this month Natale a sorpresa is 50% discounted, so just £4.99 rather than the usual ‘easy reader’ ebook price of £9.99!

Buy Natale a sorpresa just £4.99! | Free Sample Chapter (.pdf) | Catalog

Find more ebooks, organised by level, then type: A1 | A1/A2 | A2 | A2/B1 | B1 | B1/B2 | B2 | B2/C1 | C1 | C1/C2 | C2

How do I access my ebook?

When your order is ‘completed’ (normally immediately after your payment), a download link will be automatically emailed to you. It’s valid for 7 days and 3 download attempts so please save a copy of the .pdf ebook in a safe place. Other versions of the ebook, where available, cannot be downloaded but will be emailed to people who request them. There’s a space to do that on the order form – where it says Additional information, Order notes (optional). If you forget, or if you have problems downloading the .pdf, don’t worry! Email us at the address on the website and we’ll help. Also, why not check out our FAQ?

P.S.

And here’s the usual Wednesday morning reminder to read/listen to Tuesday’s bulletin of news from EasyItalianNews.com.

Reading/listening practice will help you consolidate the Italian you’re studying, expand your vocabulary, and build vital comprehension skills.

EasyItalianNews.com is FREE to read/listen to.

Subscribing, and so receiving all three text + audio bulletins of ‘easy’ news via email each week -on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays – is also FREE.

Just enter your email address on this page and click the confirmation link that will be sent to you.

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