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.

Shop for groceries and – assuming you’ve remembered to bring your reading glasses – check out what’s in the food you’re buying.

The number and complexity of ingredients in even the simplest things can be scary – there seem to be either flavourings, colourings or preservatives (careful, ‘preservativi’ in italiano are contraceptive devices) in everything these days, though that probably goes back to the very beginnings of commercial food distribution.

I can imagine a stone-age shopper asking his local smoked-salmon vendor what this new-fangled muck is, what on earth is in it, and what was wrong with the way fish used to be preserved.

Smoked salmon comes to mind as there was a glut of it in my local supermarket over the festive period, since when the piles of unsold fish have been half-price, so of course we’ve been eating masses of it.

Anyway, yesterday I was staring at Google Analytics (webmasters will know what that is) trying to figure out how to stop it collecting data for a website I’d just deleted. GA is one of those useful, free, online services that I shouldn’t be able to do without, were it not for the complexity and the fact that it’s constantly changing.

After minutes of fruitless clicking around, I gave up and Googled how to use Google. There, above the usual ‘organic’ results showing websites that may or may not be helpful, appeared an A.I. (artificial intelligence) ‘summary’.

How much summarising is needed to tell me which button to press on which page, I wondered, but dutifully looked at the two sites side-by-side in my browser (analytics and search results/A.I. overview) and attempted to follow A.I.’s instructions.

Of course they was wrong. I went through it line by line but just came to a dead end. The Google Analytics ‘CANCEL THIS SITE’ button was not where Google’s AI said it would be.

Google calls their new tech Gemini, presumably not after the Zodiac sign – though I was in love with a Gemini once and she was just as frustrating, so could be.

I closed the browser in despair, clicked randomly once or twice more in Google Analytics, and – would you effing believe it – there was the ‘CONSIGN WEBSITE TO OBLIVION’ button.

Così.

There’s A.I. in nearly everything these days (though not yet in half-price smoked salmon) – all the Google stuff, including my Android phone, all the Microsoft products (Windows, Outlook), the default .pdf reader on my computer, and so on. The phrase ‘with bells on’ comes to mind.

“A.I. Summary” or “A.I. Overview” seems to pop up on one screen or another every few seconds of my waking day, but asking any of these ‘intelligent’ assistants how to make them go away seems fruitless.

Ormai I’ve resigned myself to ignoring them. “These things are sent to try us”, my grandmother used to sigh.

A year or two ago I wrote about asking A.I. ‘How to learn Italian’. The result, as I remember now, was a long list of common-sense tips, though with little clear sense of how to prioritise them, then organise day-to-day learning activities.

Still, learning a foreign language IS hard, and complex, and how someone should approach it will necessarily vary according to the person, their situation, the learning opportunities that exist for them, their previous learning experiences, the amount of time available, and so on.

So I wouldn’t really have expected a trustworthy, clear, unambiguous answer to such a banal query.

Maybe if we’re more specific? For instance, asking ‘how to improve my Italian listening comprehension’. I just tried that, but Google still only provides an extensive though rather obvious list of just about everything that could possibly be relevant, rather than any sort of coherent plan.

Could I have done better? Certainly, but no one asked me.

Anyway, the reason I’m banging on about A.I. comes down to a feeling of ‘everything I know is being washed away by the tides of progress’. Perhaps that’s just me getting old…

Tecnology is great for the young, I assume. I ask my kids, for instance, to do a job for me (write an article, say) and can tell they got A.I. to do it for them when it comes back free of spelling mistakes.

Well of course they should get the job done more quickly and with less effort than I could do by using my own eyes, fingers, brain, and decades of writing experience.

The point, though, is that if everything is getting done with A.I., what will I need kids for? Apart from babysitting Bug, naturally, a job that no silicon chip could handle, as he’s at that ‘throw toys around until the break’ phase.

Moreover, where will the creative, idiosyncratic stuff come from? Texts that, hopefully, people actually like to read.

Which brings me to last week’s article, ‘Check out the checklists (they’re not a syllabus…)‘, which was emailed to the club’s twenty-eight thousand members last Wednesday.

It contained various links to materials on the club website, along with explanations, a promotion for the ebooks store, and the usual reminder to read/listen to the three FREE weekly bulletins of ‘easy’ Italian news that my wife and kids produce (so far without A.I. assistance…)

Three hours invested in the article, approximately five hundred (American) dollars a month for the mailing list software, thousands of pages of free materials, and the result was?

Zero comments on the website, zero increase in traffic to the linked-to web resources, but yes – ONE PERSON emailed, though only to say all the links were broken in the emailed article, which they totally weren’t, as he later agreed – the problem was his VPN or something.

Perhaps all twenty-eight thousand club members were busy the same gloomy week in January, perhaps they all got fed up (at the same time) reading my articles, perhaps – who knows – they all learnt Italian! Or quit learning Italian.

But of course, now even email apps have A.I., especially those on phones, iPads and so on. For you, dear reader, are busy. Of course you are!

Good news, though: you no longer need actually read emails you’ve chosen to receive, nor click on any of the bothersome links they might contain, which in any case would just lead to other things to read.

What was so important about last Wednesday’s article that the A.I. summary/overview didn’t manage to convey?

Perhaps nothing, perhaps something, but read the damn article, why don’t you?

‘Check out the checklists (they’re not a syllabus…)‘

E poi, when our expensive mailing system sends me back my own words later today (for I am a club ‘member’, i.e. on the mailing list), I plan to ask my Gmail to summarise them, that’s to say this, and see what happens.

I’m willing to be impressed: “Daniel moaning about new technology and worrying that – if people can’t do something as demanding as reading a long email, no way will they ever master a foreign language, even with A.I. assistance” would be more or less it, in a nutshell.

But I wrote that ‘overview’ myself.

Gotta go. I have to walk, listen to Swedish news on my ear buds before an online conversation with a native speaker this lunchtime, and hit the supermarket to stock up on half-price fish.

Comments on this article are welcome. “How can I comment on an article?” is the fourth question in the club’s FAQ, by the way.

Though perhaps A.I. will find out for you. You could even ask it to write a supportive or disparaging comment, according to your preference.

Either way, it would be a sign of life.

N.b. Our ebooks store is running a promotion this month. Details are below, for anyone that can still be bothered to read.

Alla prossima settimana!

2026 January Sale: ‘easy reader’ ebook picks at your level!

(published yesterday on our ebooks store’s website)

Last Monday we announced that our 2026 January Sale had begun. Find out more here.

So today, as part of that promotion, I’m going to give you my top ebook picks for beginner, intermediate, and advanced-learners of Italian – I hope there’ll be something here that grabs you!

When I say ‘my top picks’, what I mean is the ebooks that I have enjoyed the most (I read them all, multiple times, during the editing and publishing process).

My criteria is just that: enjoyment. Why?

Because as a language-learner myself, I find that if there’s a story that engages me (whether it’s a news article, or fiction, like our ‘easy readers’), I’ll keep turning the page.

And if I can’t (metaphorically) put an ebook down, my reading comprehension skills improve, and with them my knowledge of vocabulary, and my confidence with the grammar of the language I’m learning.

As any teacher (or student) knows, boredom is the enemy! So a writer that knows how to craft a text so that it pulls you in and won’t let go, even if it’s ‘just’ language-study material, is indeed a useful ally!

Don’t forget, the 2026 January Sale is on! To get 25% off everything in your shopping cart, copy/paste the coupon code, which is:

2026-January-Sale-25%-Off

Bene, let’s get to it. I’m on the Catalog page of our online shop, starting a little way down, where it says ‘Italian Easy Readers’ (if you’re learning another language, you’ll need to scroll down the Catalog page and make your own selections, sorry!)

So we have seventeen easy reader ebooks for A1 and A2 students, six at A1 (the lowest level), eight at the ‘half-level’ A1/2, and three at A2 (the harder ones). If you’re not sure which level is right for you, use the Free Sample links and take a look. You should be able to get the gist of the story with only occasional use of a dictionary.

N.b. This article was written a couple of years ago. Since then we’ve published other ebooks, so the selection at your level is probably even more ample than described below. Our Catalog page is always up-to-date, so includes the most recent titles, and free sample chapters!

So honestly? I enjoyed all seventeen. but I’ve been strict with myself and whittled the total down to just two at each level, concentrating on the ones I liked the MOST – the stories that made me actually care about the characters, and about what happened to them next!

(These are extracts from our Catalog page, so you can also see the price, the available formats, and a link to the free sample chapter for each title…)

A1

Colpo di forbici (A1) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)
Rosa la cuoca disastrosa (A1) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)

A1/2

Il giocoliere (A1/2) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)
L’ascensore (A1/2) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)

A2

Cielo libero (A2) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)
L’amore ai tempi del supermercato (A2) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)

What if those were too easy for you? Nessun problema. For ‘intermediate’ learners we have loads and loads of materials – twenty-two separate titles!

The hard part was choosing between them, but again, I’ve been strict and narrowed it down to two stories at each half level…

A2/B1

2 giugno 1946 (A2/B1) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)
Il campo di papaveri (A2/B1) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)

B1

Caccia all’autografo (B1) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)
Dante, gatto vagante (B1) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)

B1/B2

L’imperatore e i giochi (B1/2) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)
Segreti e polpette (B1/2) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)

B2

Natale a sorpresa (B2) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)
Le italiane (B2) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)

Hope there was something there that called out “Read me!”

But if you looked at the sample chapters and they were STILL to simple for you, firstly, well done for reading Italian for such confidence, and secondly, brace yourself now for the hard stuff!

B2/C1

Prometeo e la guerra dei titani (B2/C1) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi)
Il bar (B2/C1) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi)

C1

La commediante (C1) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi)
I racconti della vestale (C1) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi)

C1/C2

Anselmo e l’omicidio di Giovanni Borgia (C1/2) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)
Il vulcano (C1/2) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)

C2

La Via Francigena (C2) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)
La carriera – dietro le quinte del Palio di Siena (C2) £9.99 Download FREE sample (.pdf, .epub, .mobi/Kindle)

Bene. Hope you found lots that will keep you reading in and listening to Italian in 2026!

The prices marked above are the usual, year-round prices but with the 2026 January Sale promotion (which ends on Sunday February 1st 2026) everything in our online store (EasyReaders.org) is 25% cheaper!

Copy and paste the coupon code 2026-January-Sale-25%-Off into your shopping cart, then scroll down to check the cart total has been reduced by 25%.

Make your selections today!

EasyReaders.org

N.b. Check out the ‘easy reader’ ebook MULTIPACKS, which get you a three-for-two deal, or better.

AND the 25% discount!

Assuming you remember to use the coupon code, that is…

2026-January-Sale-25%-Off

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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OnlineItalianClub.com | EasyItalianNews.com | Shop (ebooks) | Shop (online lessons)

OnlineFrenchClub.com | OnlineSpanishClub.com | OnlineGermanClub.com

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No longer interested?

All bulk emails we send (including this one) contain an unsubscribe link, usually at the bottom. Scroll down to find it, click the link and select ‘unsubscribe’. That will permanently remove your email address from our ebooks mailing list.

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.

And indeed ‘buon anno’, as I didn’t email last week, except for promotional stuff, which doesn’t really count.

So what’s new this new year?

On Monday I had an email from someone who had recently come across the website and said she was excited to use the mass of materials she found there.

She wrote that she’d found the downloadable checklist for the A1 level but was confused about how to use it, specifically that the lessons/materials in the checklist were in a different order from the way the A1 material is displayed on the website.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, look here to find both the free A1 materials and the downloadable checklists. Links to the other five leveels are at the top of that page, so if you’re not beginner/elementary you can go right to materials which are more suitable.

While the emailer said was happy with the idea of using the checklist to measure her progress, she admitted that she couldn’t quite see how to use it, for example the studied on/score and reviewed on/score columns.

This was my reply:
…
“The checklist is not a syllabus or a plan of any kind, just a tool to record what you’ve done, what you haven’t, and perhaps to remind you of what you might have missed or put off that could still be useful.”

“In which order you use the material on the website depends entirely on your objectives – for instance, some people may already have studied Italian extensively but have zero listening skills. So they’d prioritise the listening material and ignore everything else. Whereas a beginner might choose to study grammar, vocabulary, or whatever.”

“It doesn’t matter that much where you begin, as long as you do begin, and then make better choices as you learn more (or you could look for an app that will tell you precisely what to do, whether or not that’s appropriate.)”

“If you haven’t read this article, you should: How to learn Italian (or any language)”

“And to answer your other questions briefly, the columns in the checklist for dates allow people to record the date they used something and to note the date they came back to revise it. Many wouldn’t bother, but you could.”

“And the ‘Lessons’ are just grammar, not in any way integrated with the other materials on the site, as you would find in a coursebook or app.”
…
Whether she found that helpful or not, I couldn’t say, as there was no response. But anyway, just to reiterate the point, OnlineItalianClub.com is NOT AN APP (you probably noticed) OR A COURSE, but a collection of resources and opportunities for people who are making their own language-learning decisions.

Compare our site with the famosissimo Duolingo (“The world’s most popular way to learn”), for instance.

First difference? The internet says they’ve raised $183 million US dollars in capital over the years, while I’m sitting on the couch in my toy-scattered living room with a laptop on my knees working entirely for free.

Second difference, their courses have pre-planned ‘learning trees’. You can’t just start where you please.

I used Duolingo’s free Swedish, Turkish, French and Spanish ‘courses’ (thanks, venture capitalists), which each had a starting point (for beginners) and got gradually more difficult as I progressed, exactly as you’d expect from a language app/course.

But while at that time I was a beginner in Swedish and Spanish, I totally wasn’t just starting out in either Turkish (I lived in Ankara for three years) or French (studied it at school). So ideally I’d have wanted to ‘place’ myself at an appropriate point in the Turkish/French ‘courses’, rather than starting from zero like a newbie.

That’s how ‘real’ language schools operate, by the way. For example our Italian school in Bologna). When someone signs up for a course there, we evaluate their level, including speaking not just their theoretical knowledge, and assign them to the most appropriate class where, hopefully, they’ll feel comfortable interacting with other students, and go on to spend their days doing something appropriate to the level they already reached.

Back to the club, though, where we organise our free materials for learning Italian in different ways. Browse the menus and you’ll find alphabetical lists of grammar topics, listening tasks and so on.

But we also group materials according to the six levels of the CEFR (see “Italian Levels: What’s my level in Italian?“)

There’s a menu item on the website that looks like this: Six Levels!

It takes you to the ‘Levels & Level Test‘ page.

What we’re hoping to do with that is to help you orientate yourself, and to give you CHOICES about how to proceed…

Click on any of the ‘level’ links, for example A1 – Beginner/Elementary and at the top of the page you’ll see this:

“Materials organised by level: A1 | A2 | B1 | B2 | C1 | C2”

See? This is not like Duolingo at all. Not only do we not have $183 million in the bank, there’s no fixed path. Start where you like, study what you like, when you like, how you like. Or don’t study (I never do…)

Below the level links on each of the level pages (we’re looking at examples from the A1 page, but they’re all organised the same way), you’ll see this text:

“Want to plan your studies with this free material and track your progress?”

“Download the A1 – Beginner/Elementary Study Checklist:”

“printable .pdf | editable .doc”

Which is where we came in. SCROLL ON DOWN PAST THE CHECKLISTS and you’ll find links to all the A1/Beginner/Elementary materials, organise by type, then alphabetically.

That’s helpful, but true, it’s not a syllabus. There’s no ‘path’ to follow. Think of it, instead, more as a ‘menu’ of options, from which you get choose.

As I replied to the email writer, “if you haven’t read this article, you should: How to learn Italian (or any language)”

And when you’ve done that… avanti! There’s the whole of 2026 to make progress in!

Alla prossima settimana.

2026 January Sale! Save 25% on Ebooks for Language Learners!

The EasyReaders.org 2026 January Sale has begun!

Which means that students of Italian, Spanish, French, and German can save 25% on ebooks to supplement or guide their language-learning.

Everything in our ebooks store, EasyReaders.org, is a quarter cheaper if you remember to use coupon code: 2026-January-Sale-25%-Off

Ebooks for students of Italian, Spanish, French, and German can be found on our Catalog page, where everything is organised by language, type, and level.

Or follow these links:

Italian | Spanish | French | German

Use the following coupon code to save 25% on your orders, for as long as the promotion lasts, with no minimum or maximum spend:

2026-January-Sale-25%-Off

First make your selection from our range of ebooks, which have been especially written to keep you interested and so making progress.

Then go to your shopping cart and apply coupon code 2026-January-Sale-25%-Off to reduce the cart total by 25%.

Scroll down to verify that the cart total has been reduced by 25% BEFORE proceeding with your payment…

Coupon code 2026-January-Sale-25%-Off is good until midnight on Sunday February 1st 2026.

You can use it as often as you wish until then, with no minimum or maximum spend.

Do find some time to stock up on the easy readers, parallel texts and grammar workbooks you’ll need to improve the language you’re learning in 2026 –  at an unbeatable price – as the next sale won’t be until May, so a long way off!

Browse our Catalog now: Italian | Spanish | French | German

And don’t forget to apply Coupon code 2026-January-Sale-25%-Off in your shopping cart, to reduce the total price by 25%.

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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OnlineItalianClub.com | EasyItalianNews.com | Shop (ebooks) | Shop (online lessons)

OnlineFrenchClub.com | OnlineSpanishClub.com | OnlineGermanClub.com

+++

No longer interested?

All bulk emails we send (including this one) contain an unsubscribe link, usually at the bottom. Scroll down to find it, click the link and select ‘unsubscribe’. That will permanently remove your email address from our ebooks mailing list.