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:
- 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
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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):
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!