Buondì.
It’s cold and rainy here in Bologna today. Hope it’s nicer where you are!
Anyway, we have various items of business, today.
First an update on last week’s free online Italian lesson offer, which has now ended.
Over ninety people signed up. Some of you have already done your online lesson. Others have been contacted, but are waiting on a teacher. Very few of you may still be waiting to be contacted by Lucia, our teaching manager.
For any issues, you know how to find me. Lucia and I can sort your problem out!
Next, I have some online exercises for you.
They’re on numbers.
If you’ve ever had to write out a cheque in Italian, you’ll know how important it is to be able to write the numbers as well as say them!
The exercises all have the same, very simple, format.
They’re useful for beginners but also really for anyone, as a review and for practice.
By the way, they get harder as you go through them…
Numbers – Gapfill (1)
Numbers Gapfill (2)
Numbers Gapfill (3)
Numbers Gapfill (4)
Numbers Gapfill (5)
Numbers Gapfill (6)
And finally, there’s news of a new Italian-English parallel text, published today over at easyreaders.org.
Here’s the link to download the usual free sample chapter (.pdf) so you can see what this is about.
And here’s how to…
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:
- Download the file
- Don’t just click on it or it will open in a browser, which probably works differently
- Instead, view it in your device’s downloads file
- Open with Adobe Reader (right click on the file, choose ‘Open with’, select Adobe Reader)
- In Adobe Reader…
- Look in the menu (at the top) for ‘View’, then choose ‘Page display’
- Choose ‘two page view’ (for the parallel text) or ‘single page view’ for normal documents
- Use ‘View’ / ‘Read mode’ to make the text larger or smaller so that it fits your screen
- Use the ‘zoom’ and ‘page up/down’ buttons to navigate through the book
+++
‘La montagna‘ is 25% off this first week, just £5.99.
EasyReaders.Org currently has 9 other parallel texts, at different levels, all with FREE sample chapters. The price of those is €7.99.
Use the search box to look for ‘parallel texts’ and you’ll find them easily.
Personally, I’d take a look at a few of the samples to see if I found this approach helpful (some people prefer NOT to have the English translation…)
Just to be clear, ‘easy readers’ have the original text with audio but no translation. ‘Parallel texts’ have the original and a translation.
Either or both approaches could be a fun and effective way to boost your progress with Italian, especially when it comes to reading, but also with the aim of consolidating your knowledge of grammar and learning new vocabulary.
Over to you.
- Free sample chapter (.pdf)
- Buy the full version of La montagna‘ for £5.99
- Browse ebooks
A mercoledì!