Buondì.

As is, ormai, traditional on the Friday of sale week, today I present the EasyReaders.Org 2020 Summer Sale Bestseller List, the idea being that you will be able to identify AT A GLANCE which particular products or services are hot, and therefore procure some to facilitate your own language-learning.

Ready?

EasyReaders.Org 2020 Summer Sale Bestsellers!

(data from our online shop, last seven days, sales by no. of items, excluding free downloads)

1. Online Italian lessons: 10 x 30-minute lessons
2. I promessi sposi
3. Online Italian lessons: 5 x 30-minute lessons
4. Il vulcano
5. Anselmo e l’omicidio di Giovanni Borgia
6. Italian Easy Readers ‘Three For Two’ – Level B1
7. Italian Easy Readers ‘Three For Two’ – Level A2/B1
8. Italian Workout! C1/2
9. Nine Book Of The Film Easy Readers – Save 50%!
10. The Tenses You Need To Speak Italian

There’s nothing on that list for beginners, did you notice? Can’t have that, can we?

However, I really am very, very busy processing orders… I’m therefore going to cheat and copy/paste the recommendations I wrote during from the Spring Sale, back in March.

Below you’ll find my personal favourite easy reader ebooks at each level, from the easiest to the hardest!

N.b. If in doubt about what to spend your ‘learn Italian’ budget on, buy some or all of the selection below. But look at the free sample chapters first, so as to check the type and level of the material and to verify that you know how to use it on your preferred device.

Someone wrote this morning to enquire whether our ebooks would work on her iPhone. The answer is that they almost certainly will, but whether or not the writer would know how precisely to make that happen is entirely another matter. Many of our members confess to not being very technically able…

Hence the free sample chapters, which are linked to below and on our Catalog page. Experiment with those first, and hopefully I’ll get fewer ‘please help!’ emails over the weekend!

A1

Rosa la cuoca disastrosa

Can’t cook? Neither can grandmother Rosa. But her health-conscious daughter has begged her to pick up the kids from school and feed them lunch – no unhealthy takeaways mind! Free sample chapter (.pdf)

Colpo di forbici

An elderly couple run the village’s only hairdresser’s. He does the men, she does the women. When it comes to the invevitable gossip, of course there’s a Chinese wall between the two of them. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

A1/2

L’ascensore

Hate your noisy neighbour? Imagine being stuck in a lift with them. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

Il giocoliere

Ever had your purse or wallet stolen and hoped in vain that someone would return it to you? Never happens. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

A2

Cielo libero

A charming story of a nobody who takes a crazy risk to please his child. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

La montagna

A group of childhood friends reunite to hike in the mountains, but the weather takes a turn for the worse. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

A2/B1

2 giugno 1946

The day that women in Italy first got to vote, and the nation decided whether or not to keep its monarchy (spoiler: it didn’t.) Free sample chapter (.pdf)

Il campo di papaveri

My wife wrote this one. The only thing she’s ever written, as far as I’m aware, which is a shame as it’s a proper job (as the Cornish say.) A love story, of course, and the ‘struggling artist’ carrying his canvas in the cover photo is me. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

B1

Caccia all’autografo

Grandad has an old-fashioned tip for his lovelorn student grandson. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

Zio Ciro e la pizza

An American student goes to stay with her black-sheep Italian uncle. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

B1/2

Segreti e polpette

A small-town family restaurant has just one chance to make the big time! Free sample chapter (.pdf)

Un furto ad arte

Rome. It’s very, very hot today. And our failing private detective is about to take his cat to the vet when he gets an unexpected phone call. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

B2

La cicatrice

On a planet far away, a nerdy I.T. guy with an eye for detail ends up in big trouble. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

Valeria, Michele e le maschere

Can you really find love on the Internet? Valeria and Michele decide to find out. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

B2/C1

Prometeo e la guerra dei titani

Remember high school? Brutal, wasn’t it? And that was WITHOUT the ancient Greek… Free sample chapter (.pdf)

Il mistero della quercia

A second-world-war mystery comes to light due to some careless Italian driving. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

C1

La commediante

Like ‘Pretty Woman’, but set in Italy, centuries back. There’s no Richard Gere or Julia Robers and the story is much less patriarchical. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

C1/2

Anselmo e l’omicidio di Giovanni Borgia

The first in a trilogy featuring our medieval investigator, Anselmo. I had my doubts, I admit, but enjoyed all three (the final one is the best…) Free sample chapter (.pdf)

Il vulcano

Obviously it’s much more fashionable these days to lock child refugees in cages or confine them behind barbed wire or on islands. But back in the day, people actually cared about the welfare of vulnerable young people. Here’s the story of one of them. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

C2

La Via Francigena

Italian teacher Roberto’s narrative of his adventures on the famous pilgrim route. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

La carriera – dietro le quinte del Palio di Siena

Skullduggery with horses. This is probably the hardest text we have, and damn good, too. Free sample chapter (.pdf)

+++

Così. The ‘save 20%’ promotion ends on Sunday night – stock up now and you’ll be good until the next similar offer, which is scheduled for the end of September.

Online lesson students – do you have enough credits for the rest of July, plus all of August and most of September?

There are always people who run out, weeks or even months before the next -20% sale, then write to ask if we can give them the discount early.

And the answer is always: ‘Daniel told you to stock up back at the time of the last offer, so sorry, no can do, it wouldn’t be fair on those who did. Buy at the full price, or wait a few weeks.’

2020 Summer Sale: Save 20%!

Save 20% on everything in our online shop these final few days of the 2020 Summer Sale!

• Coupon code 2020-Summer-Sale-20%-Off gets you 20% off everything – remember to copy and paste it into your cart, though
• The ‘Summer Sale’ ends at midnight on Sunday 12th July. The next similar offer won’t be until the end of September so stock up on lesson credits and ebooks while you can!
• There’s no minimum spend – use the coupon as often as you wish until Sunday night
• The 2020-Summer-Sale-20%-Off coupon code will also work on items that are already discounted, such as ebook bulkbuys or packs of online Italian lessons
• Choose from Amazon, Paypal (they process credit cards for us – you don’t have to open an account) or bank transfer (not a good idea unless you have a UK bank account) payment options

Find materials for your level in our online catalog!

P.S.

Listening to Thursday’s bulletin of ‘easy’ Italian news is, as always, completely free.

Mille grazie to everyone who has donated to help us meet the cost of the writers and editors. Read who helped here.

P.P.S.

Fed up with all this commercial stuff? Sick of me always trying to sell you something?

Don’t unsubscribe today, though.

Because from Monday I’ll be GIVING instead of selling!

Next week sees the start of our 30-part free ‘History of Rome’ series – articles (in Italian) with accompanying audio.

That’ll run throughout July and August, and for most of September, at the blistering pace of three free pieces of material each week!

By the end of that lot, we’ll all know our Claudiuses from our Caligulas, our Tiberiuses from our Tituses!

Watch out for ‘Episodio 1. Le origini di Roma tra mito e realtà. La fondazione’ on Monday.

Buondì.

It’s been very hot and humid here in Bologna for the last couple of weeks.

To the extent that I was chatting to a Brazilian girl at our school the other day, who was mopping her forehead with a tissue and moaning about the heat.

“Surely you must be used to it, coming from Brazil?” I enquired. “Yes, but not like THIS!” she insisted.

It’s true – this part of Italy has the most unpleasant climate, both in the summer and the winter. Spring and fall can be lovely, though!

For that reason, the school has air-conditioning/heating in each classroom, which is nice. Yesterday, I escaped from a sweaty house full of adult children and dirty dishes, with the excuse that I needed to go to work. When I got there, I switched on the air-conditioning at reception and, lying back in the receptionist’s swivel chair, took a siesta.

Anyway, Sweden’s disappearing bookshops?

Because it’s been so hot lately, I’ve got into the habit of getting out of bed a little earlier and going out for the daily, cardiologist-mandated, 30-minute-minimum walk, while the temperature is still bearable.

There’s not much to look at in an urban park at eight a.m.. Though we have a nice lake and the sun is shining, the sweaty joggers that pass me are only so interesting. I’ve therefore taken to wearing my headphones and listening to the Swedish news headlines, pardon me for mentioning this yet again.

This morning for some reason, as I listened, I was berating myself for all the words I had forgotten, all the listening practice that I used to do that I no longer had time to do, and of course the long sections of the (real, not simplified) news stories that I wasn’t getting at all, that I simply had no idea about.

And then there was a piece about how many regions in Sweden no longer have booksellers (the translation from Swedish might be something more like book-traders, or maybe bookmongers, which I think is cute.)

Why? Either they didn’t go into the whys and wherefores, or I didn’t understand or didn’t hear that part – perhaps having been distracted by a pretty jogger.

But it got me thinking – how nice it would be to run a bookstore!

And right after that I thought – hang on a minute, but I already AM running a bookstore, at least a virtual one, with ebooks instead of lumps of paper. I too am a bookmonger! At least of sorts.

At which point it occurred to me, tangentially, that I was being foolish to lament my Swedish listening comprehension skills given that:

a.) My level is probably not better than B1/B2, and

b.) I was listening to authentic material, once only, and yet still managing to get the gist of some articles and understand at least something of others.

“You, of all people, should know better than to expect to understand EVERYTHING that you hear or read”, I told myself.

“Dumb, dumb, dumb to get demotivated by what you don’t know, rather than to take strength and encouragement from what you can understand!”

It’s human nature, though.

As we progress with a language, we forget the joys of understanding anything at all, and our expectations switch to hoping to understand everything we hear or read.

It’s sort of a tipping point – one minute we’re proudly boasting that we passed a B1-Intermediate listening test, and a few days later we’re beating ourselves up for not understanding C2 material, an improvement which would normally require three years of part-time study.

Take heart, then. Even those who should know better get down in the dumps sometimes about not undertanding what we hear or read.

But then?

Then we give ourselves a slap and tell ourselves to keep listening every day, and keep reading, even when it’s hard! For if we do – we’ll get there in the end.

Talking of reading, and bookstores, the catalog page at EasyReaders.Org lists all of our ebooks (we only sell ebooks, not books made from dead trees) by type and level.

Which means it should be easy to find something that will suit where you currently are with your Italian (also other languages!)

Use the free sample chapters (linked to next to each title in the catalog) to check the length and level of the material. Whizz down through the free sample chapters, not forgetting to also listen to the audio, which might be easier or harder than you are used to, until you find something that is stimulating but not too difficult.

I’d always suggest thinking of reading and listening in the language or languages you’re learning primarily as ‘skills practice’, also ‘strategies development’ (i.e. how to deal with the parts you don’t get), rather than ‘study’ (so NOT looking up every word or unfamiliar grammar structure.)

Most students get enough ‘study’ already, but lack opportunities to practice understanding, in preparation for real-life situations, such as conversation, or reading authentic materials. One day, though, you will need to do these things.

Our ebooks are designed to bring you gradually up through the levels to the point at which you will have a fighting chance!

Take a look at the ‘bulk-buys’ / ‘multipacks’ section of our online bookstore, for instance.

See the ‘Three for Two A1 Easy Readers‘ product? (Top line, second from left.)

And that next to it, on the right thre’s a ‘Three for Two A1/2 Easy Readers‘ product, and that next to that, on the right again, there’s a ‘Three for Two A2 Easy Readers‘ product?

Each pack of three simplified stories (with audio) is graded, fairly approximately, to a half level.

The idea being that you build up your comprehension muscles on level X, before stepping cautiously up to level X1/2, then 2X, then 2X1/2 and so on.

Until you are the Mr or Ms Universe of Italian listening and reading comprehension! And so ready to kick sand in the faces of your fellow U3A evening class participants.

Some people go the whole hog and buy eighteen easy readers, ranging in level from A1 to B2, all in one go, perhaps with the idea of forcing themselves to progress with their reading/listening.

There are eight chapters in each, so were you to do a chapter a day except at weekends, that would be something like six months’ worth of practice material – at a 50% saving on the cost of buying each ebook individually!

Non male.

(N.b. Use the Summer Sale coupon – see below – and everything in our online shop, even the bulk-buy/multi-packs, costs 20% less!)

Così, allora.

Bologna is nice in the fall and the spring, hint, hint.

And don’t berate yourself about not understanding – look at how far you’ve come, not what you still can’t do.

2020 Summer Sale!

• Use coupon code 2020-Summer-Sale-20%-Off to save 20% on everything!
• This promotion ends at midnight on Sunday 12th of July 2020
• There’s no minimum or maxium spend
• Use the above coupon as often as you wish while the offer lasts
• The coupon code is valid for items which are already discounted, such as ebook multipacks or packs of online Italian lesson credits
• Payment options include Amazon, Paypal (they process credit cards for us – you don’t need to open a Paypal account) and bank transfer (only advisable if you have a UK bank account)
• If you experience problems at the payment stage, email info@imparareonline.co.uk for help and reassurance!

Italian | Catalog

P.S.

Tuesday’s bulletin of ‘easy’ Italian news is here.

Reading/listening to it is an excellent way to do what I was writing about above, without spending any money.

EasyItalianNews.com is free to use because it’s funded by its readers.

See who donated.