Reading

 Though people often say the best way to learn a language is to a country where you can become fully immersed in it, learning how to listen or speak does not provide everything needed to become fluent. Reading is one of the best ways to learn sentence structure, improve grammar, and expose yourself to new vocabulary. Below are some resources that can facilitate the development of reading comprehension and tech listeners about Italian culture and society: 

BEGINNERS:

  • Learnamo has a wide variety of reading comprehension exercises for beginner and intermediate Italian learners. Most are not more than a paragraph or two in length plus a few questions to test comprehension.
  • Lingua.com has plenty of short texts geared towards beginner and intermediate level Italian learners. Most exercises are composed of 2-3 paragraphs of text followed by 4-6 questions to test comprehension. While the topics may not be very exciting, they touch on lots of important and useful vocabulary.

INTERMEDIATE:

  • Saber Italiano has a collection of short articles and stories aimed towards intermediate level Italian learners. Most articles are about 1 page in length and are followed by 4-6 questions to test comprehension. Topics include the Italian government, the history of pizza, and soccer in Italy. 
  • ITALY Magazine is loaded with articles about contemporary life in Italy. Though many articles are written in English, there is dual-language selection with a wide variety of articles written in both English and Italian. Readers can easily toggle between languages using the tabs at the top of the article. 
  • Divulgazione Lingua Italiana gives a helpful outline of how to choose a short story that is suitable for your level and provides links to several websites with all different types of literature for all levels.

ADVANCED:

  • La Repubblica is a popular Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Because it is geared towards native speakers, advanced students may find it useful for learning more advanced vocabulary as well as staying current in Italian news.
  • Liber Liber is an e-book and audiobook database that offers free downloads of works by many Italian authors. Geared towards native speakers, there are no parallel translations of the text into English.