Buondì.

Today I have a two-for-one offer (actually it’s a ‘-50% off’ but that’s more-or-less the same thing).

And it’s not just on one ebook.

Indeed not.

This week we have the ‘Book of the Week’ on an entire category of useful materials for improving your Italian: PARALLEL TEXTS.

What are they?

Well, you get one of our original stories in Italian.

But instead of the audio, exercises and glossaries that you find in an easy reader, there’s a line-by-line English translation.

Italian version + English version (instead of the audio).

How would that help your Italian??

These are aimed at people who have a more text-based approach to learning or who like to translate everything.

With the original text on one side of the page and the translation on the other side, it should be child’s play to identify the vocabulary and grammar structures.

You could do it as a ‘textual analysis’.

Or you could treat it as reading practice, reading the Italian text first.

Maybe just a few lines, or an entire chapter depending on how confident you feel, before checking your understanding with the English translation.

Another option is to do it the other way around.

Read the chapter in English first, then see if you can figure out the Italian.

That should be easier

I’ll give you a link in a sec, so you can download some free sample chapters.

To find the free sample chapters, click on the cover image in our shop, then look for the free sample chapter link.

Click the link and the .pdf for the first chapter should download onto your device.

And the links I promised, so you can experiment?

Aspetta!

First, you’ll need to work out how to view the Italian and English versions side-by-side.

You could print the pages, of course, and arrange them on your kitchen table.

But naturally, you’ll want to be able to view them on your screen that way.

Italian on the left, English on the right, just like a ‘real’ parallel text!

It’s not hard to do this, but because of the way that .pdfs work, it won’t just happen on its own.

So here’s what you need to know:

(N.b. If you’re not interested in parallel texts, just scroll down to the end of this article for the free material links.)

Parallel Texts – How To View The Chapters Side-By-Side!

Viewing the chapters of your parallel text ebook side by side (so as to compare the different languages) is not hard, but probably won’t happen automatically.

There are a few simple, free things you’ll need to do first.

The file is a .pdf so will open with whatever the default .pdf reader on your device is.

These can vary and will probably NOT show the chapters side-by-side, as intended.

For this reason, we recommend the free Adobe Reader, which is installed on many computers in any case.

If you don’t have it, download it here (though I’d suggest un-checking the ‘Optional Offers’…)

Once you have Adobe Reader installed, this is what you do:

1. Download the file
2. Don’t just click on it or it will open in a browser, which probably works differently
3. Instead, view it in your device’s downloads file
4. Open with Adobe Reader (right click on the file, choose ‘Open with’, select Adobe Reader)
5. In Adobe Reader…
6. Look in the menu (at the top) for ‘View’, then choose ‘Page display’
7. Choose ‘two page view’ (for the parallel text) or ‘single page view’ for normal documents
8. Use ‘View’ / ‘Read mode’ to make the text larger or smaller so that it fits your screen
9. Use the ‘zoom’ and ‘page up/down’ buttons to navigate through the book

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Got the idea?

Those instructions are repeated in the product information for all our parallel texts, in case you need to refer to them again.

OK, where were we?

So, this week, all of our Italian/English parallel texts are half-price, or two for one if you prefer.

There are sixteen of them, at different levels, so you should find something right for you!

Check them out and download the free sample chapters starting from these two pages of search results from our new shop (the hardest ones come first, the beginner stuff is on page 2):

• Italian/English parallel texts (page 1)
• Italian/English parallel texts (page 2)

The half-price offer on the sixteen ebooks listed above is good until Sunday midnight.

So you have all week to check out the sample chapters and make your selections.

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Only here for the free stuff?

That’s absolutely fine.

So, as it’s a holiday period, try a listening (with NEW task).

The level is A2 (the second from bottom, out of six).

Listen a couple of times, try to answer the questions, listen some more if necessary.

Doubts are normal.

When you’re done, scroll down to check your answers.

And then, to the free transcript!

Read and study.

Use a dictionary if you must.

Finally, I’d always advise listening again, with or without the transcript.

Buon studio!

Il mio viaggio a Parigi

Buondì.

This morning I was checking on some of our other websites.

Not onlineitalianclub.com or easyreaders.org, which you’ll have heard of.

But the ones I mentally group as ‘in development’

What that really means is ‘neglected and unvisited’.

However two of these sites have some good, free stuff which should be of interest to anyone learning, or teaching, Italian:

dontspeakitalian.com

This site is worth a visit just for the cute logo.

It’s part of a group of sites for learners of foreign languages (Italian, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Russian…)

There are fifty pages of material specifically aimed at beginners.

Check the menu on the right-hand side for grammar, exercises, vocabulary lists, listenings and dialogues.

Visit site

learnitalian4free.com

The previous site is ‘finished but not very visibile’.

This second one, in contrast, really is ‘in development’!

Nevertheless, it has some nice listenings (with transcripts), which you won’t find at the club.

And you know what I say: all listening practice is good listening practice!

Check out, for example, the fourteen audios on ‘feste italiane‘, which take you all the way through the year from Christmas to All Saints.

The site has nine listenings on Italian regions, too. Don’t know what happened to the others…

But my favorites are the 11-audio ‘Un giorno nella vita‘ series.

Along with the 9-part ‘Il giorno migliore/peggiore della mia vita‘ series.

Do take a look!

Italian teachers – why not give your students different texts to study from one or more of these sets of material?

They listen, they study the transcript, then briefly summarise to the class or teacher what they have understood.

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OK, so that should be enough to keep you all going over the weekend.

But if not, and still going with the theme of FREE, don’t forget that over at our new online shop there’s a free easy reader for each of our main languages:

• Il ristorante (Italian)
• El restaurante (Spanish)
• Le restaurant (French)
• Das restaurant (German)
• O restaurante (Portuguese)

These are free downloads.

Click the link for the language or languages that interest you.

Add the ‘product’ to your cart.

Then proceed in the normal e-commerce way.

As the total cost will be zero, no payment details will be asked for.

Finally, watch out for an email with the download link.

Once you’ve read your free easy reader, don’t forget to leave a review! This page tells you how.

What about for those of you who have already seen the free easy readers?

Visit easyreaders.org and just browse.

You’ll find that there are free sample chapters for everything, that means dozens and dozens of original stories and workbooks.

Also, the listenings are invariably available FREE online.

Just click the link in the sample chapter, listen to that, then keep listening to hear the entire story!

A lunedì.