Short Stories in Italian for Beginners

By: Olly Richards

Narrated by: Matteo Ghilardi

Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

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

What does this book give you?

• Eight stories in a variety of exciting genres, from science fiction and crime to history and thriller - making the process fun while you learn a wide range of new vocabulary.
• Controlled language at your level, including the 1,000 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 listening 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:

• Comprehension questions to aid your understanding.
• A bilingual word list.
• Full plot summary.

As a result, you will be able to focus on enjoying the stories, 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.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2018 Olly Richards (P)2018 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critic reviews

"Olly's top-notch language-learning insights are right in line with the best of what we know from neuroscience and cognitive psychology about how to learn effectively. I love his work - and you will too!" (Barbara Oakley, PhD, author of New York Times best seller A Mind for Numbers)

Loved it!

The stories are fun with a good variety of themes like pirates and time travel, old kingdoms, spaceships, etc. Each one is divided into 3 chapters. Each chapter is around 10 minutes long.
The narrator's pace is good, not too fast.
The PDF includes a summary of the story, vocabulary and a short test (choose the best answer).
For some reason there's a transcript of only one of the stories, I wish all of them had it, but since the narration is not too fast and understandable, it doesn't matter much.
Would definitely recommend.

MOST TEXT MISSING

This might be a good tool for learning Italian if the PDF did not have most stories missing. The first full page is no. 6, then 7, then 13, etc. The transcript starts with annexes while the actual stories are misplaced.

Olly Richards doesn’t miss

Great as always. I love the stories, they’re easy to follow and I love the vocabulary and review at the end of every chapter. This is the best way to learn a language. Thank you Olly.

incomplete

accompanied pdf missing most of first chapter.
I would think they would have corrected it during proofing. I would have given a much better review but not alot can be done with a problem like this.

Great. Interesting plots. Words used with a plan.

New words are used not once, bit few times so you may better understand them and better remember them. I listened about 10 times alread, and bought another 5 titles of this author. Very very recomended.

Narator is perfect.

A great addition to your language-learning arsenal

Initially, I was a little skeptical about this series of Olly Richards. Nevertheless, listening to his "Short Stories in Italian" was definitely a good investment of my resources. The audio book has a number of short stories and is accompanied by a PDF. The PDF has a summary for each chapter of each of the stories, as well as a short list of new words and their English equivalents. Furthermore, a number of MCQs (as well as their answers) to test the reader's comprehension of the stories is also supplied. Every now and then, a full chapter of a story is provided in text. This is nice, though it would have been much more helpful to simply provide the full text with the audio book, especially that the book is primarily aimed for language-learners.

A few chapters missing but still great

I like these simple, short yet imaginative stories that are at a novice level to read and understand the narration. Unfortunately, I have come to at least 2 missing chapters.

book download does not match audio

The book does not match the audio. You need to purchase the complete book separately.
not clear

Really good, just wish there were transcripts too

Nice and clear, well read. It. Would be great if there were Italian/English transcripts available as well.

Narrator is too shouty!

I’ve bought most of Olly Richards’ short stories as I love studying languages.
The stories are basically the same in each language, which I find a great way to learn. However, the narrator in this book, the Italian short stories, seems to like to shout a lot, and it’s REALLY irritating!
I end up shouting back at him and having to turn the volume down!
The stories themselves are ok, but are sometimes a bit bizarre!
When I first listened to them I thought I’d misunderstood the plots in a few of them. As it turns out I hadn’t, they were just a bit odd!!

cheated out of supporting material

The book would have been good but the supporting material did not download and there was no link or helpline to find out how to do it...

best way to learn languages

loved it. I wish there was a transcript of everything though, not just a summary of the stories.

Great for learners

I really enjoyed this. Good stories and well paced.

Minimum word count is now achieved.

Good Stories but narrator terrible

Stories are good, but narrator is quiet and then SUDDENLY STARTS SHOUTING VERY LOUDLY. It startles you and is very annoying