Helpful language-learning tip

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 yet again I’ll begin by reminding club members that this week there are three more episodes of the FREE Summer Series.

Click this link to find them. Scroll right down to the bottom of the page. The grey non-links are the yet-to-be-published episodes, the red ones are live and ready to read/listen to. They’re free, so don’t hesitate to click around and take a look.

Bene, that done, what helpful language-learning materials and tips do I have for you this week?

Beh, for want of better ideas, let’s talk about something that seems totally obvious to me, but clearly isn’t to everyone…

While answering customer service emails over at the ebooks store (I detest doing customer service), I replied to someone who wanted to know which ebook he should buy.

I won’t paste his email, as I haven’t asked his permission, but he gave a helpful amount of detail, at least. Perhaps enough for me to tell him approximately where he should start and what he should buy.

But hey, give a guy a fish vs. teach a fellow to fish for himself, and all that. Once a teacher, always a teacher.

Insomma, imagine we’ve just strolled into an actual bookstore together, say Feltrinelli, the one right below the famous two towers in Bologna, just a few steps along from our Italian school.

Helpfully, I’m showing you the ‘easy readers’ section, so floor-to-ceiling shelves of slim volumes from different publishers, the skinniest ones being level A1 (beginner, elementary) and the chunkier volumes to their right the higher levels, from A2 (pre-intermediate) all the way up to C2 (proficiency).

But what’s MY level, you ask me?

Well, if you’re a student at our school, I might know the designated level of the class you’re in, but that wouldn’t tell me how weak or strong your reading/listening skills were – I’m not an Italian teacher, and am rarely in the school, anyway, as I ‘work from home’ a lot, which mainly means clearing up Bug dung and feeding hungry adult children.

Your teacher, if you have one, might know. But teachers often err, or simply give wrong advice. There’s a far better way than asking the teacher…

“What I do is this” I tell you, and pick a French easy reader off the shelf, one from the left-hand side.

I open it and leaf through the first few pages until I get to chapter one, which comprises a few lines of text printed in a nice big font. Beginners clearly have limited eyesight, as well as weak foreign-language reading skills.

“I’ll take a look at the first few parargraphs of chapter one, and if it looks easy – so no real challenge at all – I’ll pass, put the book back on the shelp where I found it, pick one at the next level up, and do the same thing.”

“When I find MY level, it should be pretty obvious, right? Not too easy, not too hard, so just right, like the little bear’s porridge. Why don’t you try?”

Of course, ‘just right’ is personal to each learner, and only they can really know it when they see it.

Some of us are tolerant of ‘not understanding’ for instance, which means we can read more efficiently and effectively, by ignoring or guessing at unknown words and structures.

Others – so the more anal or inexperienced learners, and most engineers – like to understand every little thing, so will naturally feel happier with easier material. Different strokes for different folks.

Bear in mind also that ‘easy readers’ aren’t just written text, but usually have an audio recording to listen to, too. Which means that if you consider buying one, you should be evaluating your current level in two different skill areas.

For instance, my French reading could be pretty good (French is, after all, very like Italian…), but my French LISTENING could be weaker.

Actually it isn’t, as I listen to France.info quite often when I’m done with the news in Swedish. But for a typical learner it probably would be. French pronunciation is famously distorted, and most foreign language students prioritise things other than listening practice, silly beans that they are.

The point being, if my priority was to build listening skills (which it almost always is, in fact) then I’d make my easy reader pick based on sampling the audio as well as the written text.

That’s probably impossible to do in the Bologna branch of Feltrinelli, but easy enough online at our ebooks store, where all the free sample chapters have a link to the online audio.

All you need to do is download the free sample .pdf, open it on your device, and click the ‘listen online’ link at the head of chapter one.

Then, as I told you, if it’s too hard, pop it back on the virtual shelf and pick an easier one.

Which reminds me, occasionally people will leave reviews of our ebooks (which is very, very welcome, so please do), and every now and then someone will write that they liked the story but that the audio was way, way too fast!!

They were disappointed, etc. and won’t be recommending us, blah, blah.

The problem, of course, is that the reviewer has a reading comprehension ability that is appropriate for the level of their ebook pick, and for their Italian evening classes back home in Wollongong, or wherever, but has zero listening skills.

We see this often at the school. People arrive full of enthusiasm for the first class, which will be taught entirely in Italian, by an Italian. So totally NOT IN ENGLISH. Not all our students even speak English. The teachers may not, either.

Two hours later, at the mid-morning break, they stagger like zombies out of their (air-conditioned) classrooms, totally shell-shocked.

They couldn’t understand anything! Everyone else in the group seemed to understand! They must be in the wrong level! We must have made a mistake! They want their money back! And so on.

A contributing factor can be that students from Spanish/Portuguese/French-speaking places find Italian much easier, compared with us poor English native speakers, who – absent experience learning other foreign languages – will often struggle.

That can come as a horrible surprise. After all, no one likes feeling like the weakest student in the class (though someone usually does…)

You didn’t understand? But hasn’t Daniel been telling you since the year dot to practise your listening skills, at all costs?

He has, right? Yet you didn’t do it, not even a teeny bit, because you were obsessing about verb conjugations and such silliness.

And now, see, your ‘formal’ knowledge of the language might be level such and such, but you can’t speak or understand worth a damn.

My wife and her teachers do actually evaluate students’ levels, face-to-face on the first day, to try and avoid this happening.

But sometimes clients insist. They’re in a B1 class at home, so would like to be in a B1 class here, please. With their friend. That’s very important, staying with their friend. Certainly important enough to ignore the professionals’ gentle attempts to guide them into the correct group…

So anyway, I replied to the email writer:

The ebook catalog is organised in levels and every title has a free sample. Why not start with A1 (the lowest) and work up through the free samples level by level until you find something that is challenging but achievable. Then buy a copy and work through the whole thing.

You can find out more about how to use free Italian reading/listening material to improve your comprehension skills by reading this: https://easyitaliannews.com/how-to-use-easyitaliannews-com/

Though most people don’t bother. Judging by the number of complaints from EasyItalianNews.com users that the audio is just TOO FAST (it isn’t), those guys have the same listening skills issues as some of our ebook buyers.

At first.

For the ones who stick with it, though, the problem quickly goes away. With practice, your brain adapts. And suddenly, you can understand.

Bits, at least, but that’s how it works.

Back to the ebook catalog. Sensitive types, so the blushing violets amongst you, could even start from the beginning and work up graduallly. That would be great for our sales figures!

But seriously, as I’ve emphasised several times now, there are FREE SAMPLE CHAPTERS for everything (and EasyItalianNews.com is completely free) so there’s no need to spend a single cent, unless you want to.

N.b. Earlier in the year I spent weeks reorganising the ebook store catalog page into multiple sub-pages by half-level, like this:

Find more ebooks, organised by level, then type: A1 | A1/A2 | A2 | A2/B1 | B1 | B1/B2 | B2 | B2/C1 | C1 | C1/C2 | C2

Which means that you could use those pages as a tool to quickly and easily evaluate your own reading/listening skill levels.

Choose the half-level below what you think yours should be, pick a title that looks interesting, download the free sample .pdf, and read/listen to the first chapter.

Too hard? Too easy? Just right? Proceed accordingly. Drop down or up a half-level, and repeat.

As I said, it’s totally normal that your reading/listening skills should be out of synch, with each other and with the level of whatever class you might be taking. These things are always a compromise, and will in any case reflect the practice you have or haven’t done and your priorities.

There’s more about levels here, by the way.

Così.

No doubt a significant percentage of people reading this will be thinking, oh yes, yes, that’s all very logical, but I’ll worry about reading and listening when I’ve fully understood the GRAMMAR.

See? That’s why I detest doing customer service.

Because people (but absolutely not the kind, courteous email writer mentioned above) can be very, very dumb.

Alla prossima settimana!

Easy Reader Ebook of the Week, ‘Tumulto a Firenze’, £4.99

This week’s eBook ‘easy reader’ is the C1/2 (advanced/proficiency) ‘Tumulto a Firenze’, another original story written to keep learners of Italian turning the pages and so improving their reading/listening comprehension skills, their grammar (there are lots of examples of the ‘passato remoto’, see below), and their vocabulary.

The thrill of revolution! At half the usual price!

Nel 1378 la situazione sociale, politica ed economica della Repubblica di Firenze è precaria. La città è stata fortemente debilitata dalla Peste del Trecento e da una recente guerra contro lo Stato Pontificio. La nobiltà cittadina e il “popolo grasso” (ricchi banchieri e imprenditori) aumentano dunque la pressione nei confronti dei lavoratori salariati (soprattutto lavoratori della lana).

Nel dialetto toscano, “ciompare” significa battere, colpire, picchiare. Si definivano dunque “Ciompi” i battilana. Vi erano molti tipi di lavoratori di tessuti, e i Ciompi sgrezzavano la lana. Si occupavano solo della fase iniziale e più dura della lavorazione.

Nell’estate del 1378, a fronte di uno scontro tra nobili e corporazioni, anche i poveri salariati si riversano in città. In un primo momento il loro numero e la loro disorganizzazione sono sconcertanti. Presa coscienza della propria superiorità numerica e supportati inizialmente dalle Arti, i lavoratori della lana, detti Ciompi, iniziano a esigere diritti politici.

“Svelto, Luigi, prendi le armi!” mio padre aveva fatto irruzione, tutto trafelato, nel retro della casa. Io e mia sorella Angela, che stavamo battendo la lana, interrompemmo il lavoro.

“Quali armi? Che succede babbo?” chiesi sorpreso.

“Non c’è tempo, ti spiego durante il cammino… tu prendi il coltellaccio, che non si sa mai!” Mi strinse una spalla con la mano. Gli lanciai uno sguardo interrogativo ma obbedii.

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online)
• .mobi (Kindle-compatible) and .epub (other ebook readers) available on request at no extra charge – just add a note to the order form or email us
• 8 chapters to read and listen to
• Comprehension questions to check your understanding
• Italian/Italian glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level (NO English!)
• Suitable for students at upper-intermediate or advanced/proficiency levels
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Remember, this week ‘Tumulto a Firenze’ is 50% discounted, so just £4.99 rather than the usual ‘easy reader’ ebook price of £9.99!

Buy ‘Tumulto a Firenze’ just £4.99! | Free Sample Chapter (.pdf) | History/historical Italian ebooks | Catalog

Find more ebooks, organised by level, then type: A1 | A1/A2 | A2 | A2/B1 | B1 | B1/B2 | B2 | B2/C1 | C1 | C1/C2 | C2

How do I access my ebook?

When your order is ‘completed’ (normally immediately after your payment), a download link will be automatically emailed to you. It’s valid for 7 days and 3 download attempts so please save a copy of the .pdf ebook in a safe place. Other versions of the ebook, where available, cannot be downloaded but will be emailed to people who request them. There’s a space to do that on the order form – where it says Additional information, Order notes (optional). If you forget, or if you have problems downloading the .pdf, don’t worry! Email us at the address on the website and we’ll help. Also, why not check out our FAQ?

P.S.

Don’t forget to read/listen to Tuesday’s FREE bulletin of ‘easy’ Italian news.

The regular text + audio bulletins are a great way to consolidate the grammar and vocabulary you’ve studied, as well as being fun and motivating!

To get all three text + audio bulletins of ‘easy’ news emailed to you each week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, subscribe (it really is FREE) by entering your email address on this page and clicking the confirmation link that will be sent to you.

Or check out their website and get started on improving your Italian immediately!
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