WWII begins / NEW ‘easy Italian reader’ -25% this week

Buondì.

As you’ll have observed from the title of this article, there are two things I have to tell you this Monday morning.

First off, we’re into the final two weeks of our ten-week-long, thirty-part Summer Series of articles with online audio.

We began in July, way back in the nineteenth century, so proper history! But, as the summer has progressed, the generations have rolled by, until now, here we are, in living memory territory!

My Italian father-in-law was telling us recently, after a pleasant dinner, about (SPOILER ALERT!) his hard childhood years in wartime Italy, and his own father’s escapades as a conscript, then prisoner of war, then escapee.

He and his mother and siblings ended up hiding in a cave at some later point in WWII, unable to make bread for fear of giving themselves away, and with little food anyway.

When someone in the group of neighbours and friends managed to obtain a chicken, they’d share out the bird. Being very young, the boy thought he was getting a great deal by asking for, as his share, the chicken’s head, it being the biggest (so presumably least desirable) portion.

My own parents often mentioned (ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT!) that, when they were small, there were POW camps near their homes in south-west England, hosting Italians captured in North Africa. The prisoners worked on local farms and so on. Some of them never went home, apparently, going on to marry local women and make their lives in Britain.

Check out today’s free article to learn about how Italy, an ally of France and Britain in WWI, ended up backing its former enemy, Germany, in the subsequent conflict just 21 years later. That’s less than a generation… plenty of unlucky people lived through world wars!

Episodio 25. L’alleanza con la Germania: l’Asse Roma-Berlino (1936) e il Patto d’Acciaio (1938)

N.b. The previous twenty-four episodes in this series can be found on our History page, along with the ninety Summer Series articles from previous years. Scroll right down to the end to find the latest ones.

E poi, we have a NEW ‘easy Italian reader’, discounted -25% this this first week! I’ll paste the details below, for anyone who’s in the mood for a bargain.

A mercoledì.

L’acqua di Giulia

Improve your Italian reading and listening comprehension skills with our new Italian ‘easy reader’ ebook, L’acqua di Giulia, which is level B1/B2 (intermediate), and discounted 25% this week.

Join us in seventeenth-century Sicily, where thirteen-year-old Giula is just back from the market with a basket of vegetables. Things aren’t great at home, though…

Giulia aveva percorso la strada dal mercato a casa sotto il sole cocente di Palermo a mezzogiorno. C’era abituata a quel caldo soffocante. Era entrata in casa portando alcune verdure in un cesto pesante. Anche se aveva solo tredici anni, era lei a sbrigare la maggior parte delle faccende di casa, dato che sua madre lavorava e sua sorella Girolama era più piccola di quattro anni.

Aveva spalancato la porta, spingendola con il piede, aveva appoggiato il cesto sulla tavola di legno e sua sorella era arrivata a pulire le verdure con un coltello. Sua madre, che stava in cucina, le aveva detto a voce bassa: “Tuo padre non si sente bene, deve restare a letto a riposare. Non disturbarlo.”

Giulia aveva annuito e si era messa a pulire silenziosamente la cucina. Ognitanto si sentivano dei gemiti dalla stanza dove stava il malato, ma Giulia non si avvicinava. Suo padre era un uomo violento, un mascalzone che beveva e picchiava la moglie e le figlie.

• .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/English glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
• Suitable for students at intermediate level or above
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Buy L’acqua di Giulia just £7.49 | FREE sample chapter (.pdf) | History ebooks | Catalog

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.

Did you read/listen to Saturday’s FREE bulletin of ‘easy’ Italian news?

If so, well done! Keep it up, make it a habit, and in a few months you’ll notice the difference in your communication skills.

Subscribing is FREE, too, which makes it easy to remember to read/listen to each bulletin. Enter your email address on this page and you’ll get the Italian texts (+ online audio) via email, as soon as they are published, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

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