Short Stories in Italian for Beginners

by Olly Richards

An unmissable collection of eight unconventional and captivating short stories for young and adult learners.

"I love Olly's work - and you will too!" - Barbara Oakley, PhD, Author of New York Times bestseller A Mind for Numbers

Short Stories in Italian for Beginners has been written especially for students from beginner to intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, and most importantly - enjoyment! Mapped to A2-B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference, these eight captivating stories will both entertain you, and give you a feeling of progress when reading.

What does this book give you?

· Eight stories in a variety of exciting genres, from science fiction and crime to history and thriller - making reading fun, while you learn a wide range of new vocabulary

· Controlled language at your level, including the 1000 most frequent words, to help you progress confidently

· Authentic spoken dialogues, to help you learn conversational expressions and improve your speaking ability

· Pleasure! It's much easier to learn a new language when you're having fun, and research shows that if you're enjoying reading in a foreign language, you won't experience the usual feelings of frustration - 'It's too hard!' 'I don't understand!'

· Accessible grammar so you learn new structures naturally, in a stress-free way

Carefully curated to make learning a new language easy, these stories include key features that will support and consolidate your progress, including

· A glossary for bolded words in each text

· A bilingual word list

· Full plot summary

· Comprehension questions after each chapter.

As a result, you will be able to focus on enjoying reading, delighting in your improved range of vocabulary and grasp of the language, without ever feeling overwhelmed or frustrated. From science fiction to fantasy, to crime and thrillers, Short Stories in Italian for Beginners will make learning Italian easy and enjoyable.

Genres: Italian Literature, Fiction, Short Stories, Language, Italy, Reference, Ebooks

203 pages, Paperback

First published December 13, 2015

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a weird book, man. The stories are really weird. But helpful.

[Nick Pageant · Rating 5 out of 5]

My G. continues his quest to pull me up from ignorance and teach me the bella lingua. This was his best effort so far. I really enjoyed this book. The stories are entertaining and written with enough simple words that I was able to scratch my sexy, masculine jaw and figure out the tough words through context. Highly recommended for anyone with some basic Italian skills. If you're learning another language, this series has a lot to choose from. I'm assuming they're all just as good as this one.

C'è solo un modo per imparare a parlare italiano. Pratica! E incontrare un bel uomo italiano. Egli ti aiuterà.

[Aerin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Utile e piacevole! Il mio italiano è ancora molto cattivo ma questo libro mi ha aiutato a migliorare.

[Katka Mrvová · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really useful textbook for advancing your Italian, and I believe it’s a very effective way to learn - by reading simple stories full of dialogues.

Just two things that really annoyed me and I think could have been made better.

#1. Italian-English Glossary

This is a book for people who SPEAK English but DON’T SPEAK Italian. In that case, I think those people can figure out for themselves that:

‘stupido’ means stupid,
‘approvare’ means to approve,
‘timida’ means timid,
‘familiare’ means familiar,
‘disgusto’ means disgust,
etc.

Often, I felt as if Olly Richards is making fun of us - bolding so many of these words that are literally THE SAME in both languages.

On the other hand, I had to constantly google many other words that were, in my opinion, much more challenging as they don’t resemble their English counterparts at all.

For example:

colpiscere (to hit)
accorgersi (to notice)
soccorsi (rescuers)
rivolgere (to address someone)
spezzare (to break)
ferire (to hurt)

He ommitted these from the glossary but for some reason ‘stupido’ made the list.

#2. The stories themselves

I think it would have been much more enjoyable reading if the stories were actually interesting and made sense.

Many of them were just absurd, lacking a good storytelling, even sense.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stories!

I bought the audiobook and Kindle version. Italian is my fifth foreign language, and since I already know Spanish, French, and Portuguese, I was able to understand the stories on the first go. However, I will continue to listen and read along to improve my understanding and build my vocabulary. Listening while reading along is an excellent way to learn a language. And repetition is key! I teach English as a second language and use stories with great success. If you are learning Italian, this is a fun and effective way to learn new words and phrases without getting bored. Thanks, Olly!

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

he fet rage quit perq les històries són terriblement avorrides i preferiria passar-me la tarda mirant el sostre de l’habitació. Els personatges són tots plans i totes TOTES les històries acaben de forma molt precipitada i sense sentit (les que tenen final, perq algunes simplement sembla que les tallin i ja)

És útil per aprendre vocabulari i una mica de conjugacions però no per molt més

[Yana Bruggeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

È un libero con diversi storie strane e pazze
Ma è molto buono per imparare/migliorare l’Italtiano 🤌🤌 Mi è piaciuto

[feedesmots · Rating 5 out of 5]

Questo libro mi permette di approfondire la conoscenza e la pratica della lingua italiana. È pratico, semplice e ben organizzato. Mi piace molto. 🇮🇹

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finalmente ho finito questo libro! È un libro per migliorare la conoscenza della lingua Italiana. Il livello è veramente facile e si può leggere senza troppa difficoltà. Le storie sono un pò pazze ma sono molto utili per imparare le nuove parole. E allora ho scritto questa recensione in Italiano! Mi piace più la storia che si chiama “La capsula spaziale”. Mi piace questo modo di studiare Italiano e cercherò più libri come questo.

(As a few other reviews have noted, a few of the answers on page 192 are incorrect which is not fantastic. I had to double check with my handy nearby Italian to check I had understood properly. And the choice of bold words (those added to the vocabulary lists) was sometimes a bit weird: some were easy and had been added while others which were clearly more obscure weren’t in the lists.)

I should note that the handy Italian has also proofread my Italian and corrected several errors in the making of this review :D

[Kyo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories are short and easy to read and it's nice that they have a word list at the back of every chapter with difficult words and phrases. The recap at the end of each chapter and the 'test' to test yourself were also helpful and fun! Sometimes the words bolded were not in the back, but my biggest issue with these stories are that they are just really really weird???

Anyway, I was really happy that I could read this in Italian relatively easy, so if you're starting to learn Italian I'd recommend giving this a try!

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book. It is very helpful for beginners and for people that have not used the language for ages. Strongly recommend it!

[Ujjwal]

Oddio , Aiuto!

[Heverton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leitura gostosa, boa para iniciantes, os textos não são longos, o vocabulário é simples, histórias simples porém te ajudam a ampliar o vocabulário, gostei muito !!

[Jildou · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finally finished this book. Why did it took so long? Because they are uninteresting short stories. By times I got irritated at how bad the storyline was.

But if that's the only complaint I can give a book, who's so limited in it's freedom because it wants to teach beginners Italian, then I think Richards did a good job writing it.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can now say I read in 5 languages 🤗

[Katy Larkman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've given this book of short stories 3 stars because the writing is so well pitched at the high beginner to low-intermediate learner of Italian, as promised on the back cover. The language content has been skilfully chosen, & is appropriately reinforced throughout the book. I was, therefore, very pleased to be able to understand a great deal of the vocabulary, to be able to understand more or less all of the detail of the narratives, & to feel that I was simultaneously making progress with the language.

However, there were very odd omissions from the glossary, & I had frequently to refer to an Italian dictionary to remedy this deficit. Additionally, vocabulary was given in the vocab sections following the individual chapters which definitely belongs to a beginner-beginner level, eg padre, cliente, palazzo. There were also several typos which let the text down.

The biggest failing, however, was the nature of the stories which, as other reviewers have said, are bizarre. Time-slip stories, with the honourable exception of charming children's stories such as Tom's Midnight Garden & A Traveller in Time, are rarely interesting &, as here, are hard to pull off. The sci-fi was deeply odd, & even the one 'credible' story in the sense of 'it could have happened' was rather unpleasant, involving as it did an elaborate, prolonged, & nasty 'joke' as a birthday surprise. It is a pity that the stories fell down on these points as the writer clearly has a gift for scaffolding language learning, & I was very satisfied with the language learning element.

[Lamadia · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I think this book helped my reading skills some, the stories are just poorly written. They don't make any narrative sense and seem to just jump around and end out of nowhere. There were also lots of editing errors. However, I don't know how many other language learning aides like this are out there for self-educating. It was worth reading through them, but I think next I'll just try actual books or newspapers in Italian.

[Renan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The most important thing you need to know is that the audiobook doesn't match the text.

So if you're looking for the audio+text combo for beginners, you're better off with the dozens of podcasts and youtube channels that offer that combo, a lot of them free.

Lucrezia - https://learnitalianwithlucrezia.blog/ (podcast w/ free transcript)
Barbara Bassi - Italian Stories In Italian (podcast w/ free transcript)
Stefano (youtube w/ italian subs)
Podcast Italiano / Davide (youtube w/ italian subs)

Now, if for some reason you want to settle for second-rate fiction without accompanying audio, here is the review:
The stories are a little strange, they end abruptly, and they always have some mystery that never really grabbed me, but that's better than them being completely boring. They don't feel very Italian (one is pretty much The Hobbit).

The highlighted vocabulary feels a tad random. I can't believe a polyglot actually picked those by hand.

This book is easier than "10 Exciting Short Stories to Easily Learn Italian" by Touri Language Learning, but it is not easier than those sources I mentioned at the beginning.

[David Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was once again a series short good little stories each story being divided into four chapters.

One negative about this book is that the little vocabulary section at the end could have been expanded more, but than to be fair its listed as a book for high beginners to low intermediates.

I struggled with some of the grammar points, because this was listed as stories for beginners but on closer inspection it is listed as for high beginners. So that could have been clearer.

I feel like those who reread this book many times will get most benefit from it (as i plan to do) even thought it was a hard read for me it was a million times more interesting than slogging through a grammar book. Although the two (in my opinion) should be used in conjunction.

[Christophe Guérin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bien écrit. On a la sensation d'apprendre et de s'améliorer à chaque fin de chapitre. Rapide et simple, je recommande pour ceux qui veulent rapidement apprendre l'italien tout en ayant du plaisir. Une base en italien est néanmoins requise, en plus d'une maîtrise de l'anglais.

[Elmer Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun book with entertaining stories. The combination of the length of the chapters and the words used, makes the book good and fun to read. I was able to get my beginner level of Italian a small step further!

[Bridget Crossan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Demanding enough to tax your abilities but not so difficult for beginners. Stories are interesting and insightful.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Brian Kell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book if you want to begin to read in Italian.

[Lars · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give it three stars mostly for the educational aspect. The stories themselves range from innocent children’s stories, magical realism to the absolutely bizarre, but you can always see the «so-very-morally-significant-plot-twist» coming from a mile away. As expected though, I guess some sacrifices have to be made in order to make it all comprehensible to learners like me. I did also appreciate the focus on vocabulary-building and the little quizzes at the end of each chapter.

[CKPineapple · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with the other books, the chapters are short and digestible. It progressively gets harder but it should still be largely understandable for beginners regardless.

Favourite story? Lo Scrigno

[JadeDakini · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was enjoying reading something on my level of the moment, still giving the vibe of reading a book.
Will try other books from the author in Italian.

[Lilly Minasyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Racconri brevi, facili e vari, alla fine c'erano domande a cui rispondere. Più per l'italiano di livello B2.
4 stelle perché fa il lavoro, niente di male da dire 🙈

[Lieke Norder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sono italiana ora?

[george (taylor’s version) · Rating 4 out of 5]

learning? 10/10. plot? 2/10

[Yingli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was fine, good reading practice if anything