Begunner

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Buondì.

Last week I was going to write about taking my younger daughter out for driving practice, but I wasn’t feeling well, and was pushed for time, so just did something ‘promotional’.

If you like ‘promotional’, scroll right on down to where I’ve posted a long FAQ-type article on ‘easy reader’ ebooks, and a reminder of our ebook store’s ‘Beach Reads!’ promotion, which involves using the coupon code (you’ll find it if you look, many people don’t) to save -25%.

If you like ‘promotional’ but don’t have cash to spare, scroll even further on down, almost to the bottom of this, to where it says P.S. There, you’ll find a reminder to read/listen (for free) to yesterday’s EasyItalianNews.com bulletin, with apposite links.

And if you don’t like ‘promotional’ and aren’t interested in annecdotes about learner drivers in Italian traffic? At the very end of this emailed text, there’s a paragraph on how to unsubscribe. Keep scrolling ’till you see it, then follow the instructions. Ciao ciao!

So anyway, daughter Hannah (Italians call her ‘Anna’ because Italians are inept with the /h/ sound), who is picture editor and freelance writer at EasyItalianNews.com, now has a medical degree. Hurrah! Bank of Mom and Dad is closing early today!

While Hannah is eliminating all the career options she definitely doesn’t want to specialise in (too much blood, antisocial hours, whiny moms, too competitive, involves smashing bones, etc.) she’s supplementing her ‘easy news’ money with freelance doctor gigs, of which there appear to be many, the cost of properly employing people in Italy being what it is.

For instance, she does night shifts and weekends at an elderly care facility, spent Sunday morning dealing with concussions and broken bones at a rugby tournament, and has a month of holiday cover lined up at the general practitioner’s where she did some of her work experience.

It’s bits and pieces, really, but each shift helps pay the rent, while narrowing down which area of medicine might be a tolerable way to spend the next forty years.

The best freelancing rates for baby doctors are offered by the regional (so state, not private) Guardia Medica services, which treat people out of hours and at weekends, when family doctors have their feet up and a gin & tonic to hand.

Each zone, presumably, has a Guardia Medica ‘office’ where the suffering can queue up for – say – an emergency antibiotics prescription, which may not be prescribed without someone qualified yawning and peering down your throat.

Here’s the rub, though: the local Guadia Medica has to actually be local, so within reach of residents in each area. And remember this is a service staffed by young freelancers?

That’s because everyone in the system who knows better will be avoiding working the anti-social hours, but in particular will be avoiding having to drive to some place which is technically within the region but otherwise in the middle of nowhere.

Kiddies! Want to earn the big bucks for working Sunday nights? We need someone in Lostville. Sure, it’s an hour away… But not to worry, we’ll provide a vehicle and fuel.

Obviously, you’ll need a ‘patente’ (= driving licence), though.

Which is where I came in. Getting your ‘patente’ in Italy means a.) passing a written exam, which she’s done, b.) doing a minimum number of lessons with a qualified instructor, also done, then c.) taking the practical test, which is looming.

Five or six hours of driving lessons aren’t a lot. I think I did at least twenty when I was Hannah’s age, plus practice with mum and dad (they still shudder.)

So daughter two took a train home to Bo so her mother and I could take turns sitting in the passenger seat (and paying for fuel) while she got used to changing gear, not stalling, remembering to use the hand brake, and so on.

Each weekday afternoon I drive to the other side of the city, through horrible traffic and the fearsome ‘tramworks’ – which are blocking half the city right now – to pick up Bug from his petting zoo.

So that was another opportunity for Hannah to get some driving practice. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Italians, by the way, say “prendere due piccioni con una fava” (catch two pigeons with one broadbean).

We set off and, apart from the usual learner-driver glitches that you’d expect, things went relatively well.

The car she’d done her official lessons in had all sorts of features that ours doesn’t have, apparently. Meaning it never stalled, did any emergency braking required (i.e. when starting off on a hill) without the driver’s intervention, and so on.

So, there was stuff to get used to. But she wasn’t scared of traffic, which was good, and responded well to instructions and feedback from her dad, which was excellent. Lesson no. 1 – don’t sass the instructor, especially if he’s working for free.

We were almost at our destination, having survived a half hour of Bologna traffic with no collisions. True, she’d nearly mowed down three impatient motorcyclists at a roundabout, but no actual harm was done, except possibly to the bikers’ undergarments.

Anyway, we’re now on the final stretch, driving around Bologna’s ‘viale’, which is the big road that goes around the medieval center, following the course of the old city walls and periodic entrance gates.

The ‘viale’ is three lanes each side, and the part we were on has a tree-lined central reservation in the middle, with – crucially – a cycle lane running along it.

This bit, I warned Hannah, is tricky.

Move to the left-hand lane, when it’s safe to do so, indicate left, and up there – by the high school, do you see – we’ll pull across the central reservation. Look both ways for cyclists!

There’s three lanes of speeding traffic on the other side, so we’ll wait there in the middle, nice and safe, neutral, hand brake on, until the pedestrian crossing lights go red and all the traffic on the other side stops.

Here we are then, stationary, in the middle of the cycle lane, in the shade of the trees, waiting for the traffic on the other side of the ‘viale’ to stop, so we can – carefully – cross the three empty lanes, drive around the high school, and park illegally while picking up Bug from the zoo.

Patience. Yes, there are fifteen cars behind us now, some of them beeping angrily. But just wait. Be calm. when the lights change, you can go. Don’t stall.

Oops, now here’s an angry cyclist, annoyed that we’re nearly blocking the cycle lane (there’s absolutely no other option.) She could pass between us and the car in the queue behind, but no. She’ll stop right there and wave her fist at me through the passenger window.

OK, great! The lights have gone red at the pedestrial crossing, the traffic is stopping! Ready to go? Don’t stall!

But before poor Hannah can figure out the clutch, the gears, and the hand brake, the INCREDIBLY STUPID CYCLIST has pulled in front of us, and stopped right there, blocking us, and the fifteen incandescent drivers behind us, from moving at all.

Even though the road ahead is now completely clear!

‘Learner’ drivers in Britain have to display a large capital ‘L’ on the front and rear of the vehicle they’re practising in.

In Italy, it’s a big, black ‘P’ (for ‘principiante’) in the rear window, plus a smaller one in the windshield, in front of dad.

So the INCREDIBLY STUPID CYCLIST, who’s unwittingly risking her life blocking a ‘principiante’ who has very limited experience controlling this or any other motor vehicle, peers through our windshield, past the unmissable black ‘P’, at the young female driver and her annoyed father, and tells us, quite clearly:

“You should learn to drive!”

In italiano, obviously. I don’t recall the exact words.

And then she rode off, which she could have done minutes previously, and we crossed the empty three lanes safely and reached our destination. With Hannah serene, but me still cussing.

Look up ‘beginner’ in an English/Italian dictionary (do the still exist?) and the translation will likely be ‘principiante’. Do the same the other way round, so in an Italian/English dictionary, to get the same result.

But personally, I like the ‘P’ in italiano = ‘L’ in English equivalence much better.

Hannah is a ‘learner’ driver, without a shadow of a doubt, but I wouldn’t say she’s a ‘beginner’.

‘Beginner’ is both too precise yet not precise enough, in my humble opinion. And that’s as true for language-learning as it is for driving.

I’ve taught many ‘beginners’ classes and I can therefore state that in none of them were all the participants equally ignorant of the basics. There’s always a range of knowledge, from perhaps absolute zero (very rare) thru ‘done a beginners’ course before but…’, up as far as students who really should be in the next level but because – whatever irrelevant reason – they ended up here.

Any intelligent, experienced language teacher will be trepidant when presented with a ‘Beginners’ class, knowing they’ll need to take extra special care to ensure that everyone feels at home, that no one feels humiliated or bored, and so on.

Beginners’ classes are a minefield. Rush though one thoughtlessly and someone will get their lower extremities blown off, metaphorically speaking.

The problem goes away very soon, almost always, assuming the teacher approaches the situation with care. Differences in knowledge and previous experience, which can initially seem vast (to the participants), are smoothed over easily with just a few hours of instruction.

In the same way, a ‘beginner’ driver is totally no longer any sort of ‘beginner’ after thirty minutes in Bologna’s traffic. They’re on the road to becoming a battle-hardened, patente-holding road warrior! Remember Mad Max? Those guys learnt to drive in Italy.

‘Learner’ is a much more helpful term, I find. For one thing, it has the huge advantage of being applicable to anyone who is actually ‘learning’, no matter what their level of previous experience. I personally learnt a LOT in just a few hours sitting in the car with Hannah.

Or rather than ‘beginner’, what about ‘beganner’? It refers to someone who started learning, perhaps multiple times, but stopped without getting far… Sound familiar? Beganners are legion.

My favorite, though, is ‘begunner’, a term which is just loaded with optimism and hope. I’m no ‘beginner’, pal. I’m a ‘begunner’. I’ve begun, now I’m on my way!

Gotta go. I’m ‘learning’ (though not ‘studying’) Swedish, and have an online conversation with a native speaker before lunch.

Alla prossima settimana!

Beach Reads! ‘Easy readers’ and how to use them

‘Easy readers’? The term may evoke memories of the simple books you learnt to read with as a child.

But besides helping five-year-olds, ‘Easy readers’ are a valuable, yet often neglected or ignored, tool for language learners.

At EasyReaders.org we like them so much we named our ebooks store after them, and they’re by far our biggest product category, with around a hundred and thirty titles published, across twelve ‘half-levels’.

We have sixty-five ‘general’ Italian easy readers, plus twenty-nine ‘History/Historical’ readers, ten ‘A Day in the Life of…’ stories (which are also historical), six classics of ‘Italian Literature’, five of ‘World Literature’, eighteen ebooks based on classic Italian movies, and nine telling the stories of operas.

None of them were written for children.

All  our ‘easy readers’ for language learners have text and online audio, and all have free sample chapters to download, so you can verify that the level of the material is right for you.

Our ‘easy readers’ are best browsed on the store’s Catalog page, where you’ll find them organised by genre and in level order, from easiest to hardest: Catalog

But wait! There’s a promotion on right now. Scroll down to the P.S. to find out how to save 25% on ‘easy readers’ and other ebooks!

Not convinced ‘easy readers’ will help you progress with your Italian?

Take a look at these Frequently Asked Questions.

How will ‘easy readers’ improve my foreign language skills?

Assuming your goal is to speak and interact in the language you’re learning, listening practice is essential from day one, as whenever you speak you’ll also be listening. And if you don’t understand what others say to you…

Unfortunately, few learners get enough listening practice, which is a problem. After all, there’s not a lot of point studying grammar, vocabulary, and so on if you can’t then understand it when you hear it, right?

And if you can’t read confidently in the language you’re learning, everything will be that much harder to assimilate.

‘Easy readers’ offer the reading and listening skills practice that your language course or app may not otherwise be providing. Better still, they come at all levels, from beginner to advanced, so you can select material that’s right for your current learning stage.

How do I listen to the audio at the same time as reading the .pdf?

(Try this by downloading a free sample from our Catalog page…)

You need to juggle two applications on your device (computer, tablet, etc.), the .pdf reader (which opens the .pdf ebook) and the web browser (which will play the online audio when you click on the audio link in the ebook text).

First, download the .pdf ebook. Save it some place safe, where you’ll know to find it again. Then click on it. Your device’s usual .pdf reader will open it. On Apple devices, try using the Books app to open the .pdf download link.

‘Easy readers’ have a link to the online audio at the top of Chapter 1. The audio files for the entire text, not just Chapter 1, are available to listen to, absolutely free of charge, at Soundcloud.com. Click the audio link in the free sample chapters (get them from the Catalog page) to locate the FREE online audio files.

When you click the online audio link, a new browser window will open on  your device showing the Soundcloud.com interface. Press the play button (white triangle in an orange circle). The audio will begin. Make sure you have the audio on your device turned on, and up enough so you can hear it.

You can see from the Soundcloud.com page whether the track is playing or not. If you still don’t hear anything, the problem is at your end (on your tablet, smart phone or computer.) Verify that by visiting another site with audio and seeing if THAT works. If not, you’ll need to figure out how to play audio on your device, or use a different device.

Audio playing OK? Now minimise the internet browser showing the audio player (leaving it playing.) Go back to your .pdf viewer and view the ebook as you did before. To listen and read at the same time, all you have to do is juggle the two windows (leaving both applications on and working.)

Switch to the browser to pause, stop, replay, etc. And back to the .pdf viewer to follow along with the text.

How to use your ‘easy reader’ to improve your reading/listening skills

(Try this by downloading a free sample from our Catalog page…)

1.) First read/listen at the same time. Aim to complete a chapter per study session. Don’t worry about stuff you don’t understand, don’t stop to look things up, just try to finish the chapter, reading as best you can at the speed of the audio. You should get a sense of achievement just by ‘finishing’ the audio + text, even if your understanding of it is very limited. At this first stage, that’s fine.

2.) Now (maybe another day) read again at your own pace, without the audio. Best to guess the difficult words from context if you can. Use a dictionary only if you really must, as it will make the whole thing more arduous and reduce the benefit you’ll get from actual reading… [optionally, repeat stage 1 at this point]

3.) The next stage is to listen again but this time without the text. This phase is to work on listening comprehension and only that. You should by now have a reasonable idea of what’s going on in the text, so the challenge is to see how much you can pick out when just hearing it. You can repeat this as often as you want. It’ll be hard at first, but will get easier with practice. And come back to it again in the future! As with a song, the more times you hear it, the more you might get out of it.

4.) When you’ve done all the chapters, find another ‘easy reader’ and repeat the process. Stay at approximately the same level of difficulty until you can do the steps above with confidence. Then move up to something harder, knowing though that you’ll feel less confident at first. Gradually push up through the levels until you feel confident moving on to authentic materials like novels, films, etc.

Help! I can’t figure out how to play your audio recordings multiple times.

The audio tracks for our ‘easy readers’ are hosted on Soundcloud.com, so as not to overload our store’s server. When you click on the ‘Listen online’ link (which you’ll find in the ebook text, if you look), a browser window will open showing the page at Soundcloud.com for this particular audio book. You’ll see ‘Play’ and ‘Pause’ buttons.

The problem comes when your track finishes. Where the ‘play’ and ‘pause’ controls were, you see a message ‘Explore more tracks like this on Soundcloud.com…’, when what you really want to see is the ‘Play’ command, so you can hear the track again.

Look for the little X in the right-hand corner of the Soundcloud ad. Click on that, and the grey part will disappear. You’ll then be back where you were before and will see the ‘Play’ command you need to hear the track again as many times as you wish.

How do I add the ebook to my Kindle or other ebook reader?

When you buy an ebook from our store, you’ll automatically be sent a link to download the .pdf version of the text. Other versions of the ebook text (used for Kindle/other ebook readers) can’t be downloaded that way, but will be emailed manually to buyers who request them. Do that by adding a note to your order form, or emailing us separately (just reply to any of the automated emails the online store sends you.)

When we manually email you the .mobi and/or .epub versions you asked for, save them to a location on your computer or tablet where you’ll easily be able to find them again when you need them i.e. on the desktop, or in the ‘downloads’ folder.

Switch on your Kindle/ebook reader and connect it to a computer’s USB port using the cable that came with the device when you bought it. It will appear as an external storage drive on the computer’s desktop (in Windows navigate to ‘My computer’ to find it).

Click on the device icon on your computer and look for a folder named “documents” or similar (the one in which other ebook files are stored). Now drag or copy/paste the .mobi/.epub ebook version from the location you previously saved it on your computer to the folder on your Kindle or other ebook reader.

When it has finished copying, unplug your Kindle/other ebook reader. Your ebook should then be readable on it.

Kindle users can also add .epub files to their devices by emailing them to the special ‘Kindle’ email. Locate your Kindle’s “Send-to-Kindle email address” by switching on your Kindle, selecting “Settings” from the home screen menu, then choosing “Device Options” followed by “Personalise Your Kindle”. There’s a note of your “Send-to-Kindle E-mail” under that heading.

Don’t Forget to Save 25% in the Beach Reads! Promotion

Don’t forget to save 25% on the ebooks you need to give your foreign language skills a boost in the current Beach Reads! promotion.

Until Thursday 11th June everything in our online store, EasyReaders.org, is 25% cheaper IF you remember to use this coupon code:

2026-Beach-Reads-25%-Off

To get your discount, just copy and paste coupon code 2026-Beach-Reads-25%-Off into your shopping cart, then scroll down to check the cart total has been reduced by 25%.

Make your selection from our range of ebooks, which have been especially written to keep you interested and making progress:

Catalog

Or browse Italian ebooks by level: A1 | A1/A2 | A2 | A2/B1 | B1 | B1/B2 | B2 | B2/C1 | C1 | C1/C2 | C2

Coupon code 2026-Beach-Reads-25%-Off also works on graded material for learning Spanish, French or German.

Apply coupon code 2026-Beach-Reads-25%-Off in your shopping cart to reduce the cart total by 25%!

Stock up on online easy readers, parallel texts and grammar workbooks – at an unbeatable price!

Italian | French | Spanish | German

Here’s that coupon code again:

2026-Beach-Reads-25%-Off

Don’t forget to use it when you order to save 25% on the price of everything in your cart!

P.S.

And as always, here’s a 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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