Better Reading Italian: A Reader and Guide to Improving Your Understanding Written Italian

A good learning tool for the intermediate to advanced student, Not a dual language reader so you must be on the higher intermediate side. Very good.

I disagree with the reviewer who said that this book was not helpful and who had been studying Italian for a year in Italy. Reading Italian and learning Italian in a class are two different things. If you're living in Italy, you're using the language more to communicate verbally and aurally. So unless you read the newspaper, in the early stages of language acquisition, your strengths are not in reading - they are in listening, communication, and reading only to the extent of the basics. This book takes you beyond the basics. This book is certainly not for beginners, and I also disagree that the selections are boring. Many of the selections are from world famous authors!! This book is helpful to people who have done or are doing an intermediate Italian course and are just moving into more intermediate studies. There is some helpful and useful vocabularly in the book. The selections that were selected are hallmarks of Italian literature, and I found that after reading the selections that I wanted to know more about the books or articles that these selections were drawn. So my point... If you are a beginner, this book is *not* for you. The reading selections are probably going to be difficult. There are better items out there for a beginner. If you have been studying Italian for at least 2 years, then this is a great place to start to learn some specialized vocabulary and familiarize yourself with Italian literature and other written sources. Ignore the reviewer who says that this book is boring and evaluate the book for yourself if you feel you are at that level.

While there is still a set of comprehension questions at the end of each feature story, one of the things I like most about this book is that it helps you begin to bridge the gap from "textbook" books on Italian, and to start jumping into "regular" books in Italian. That, and the fact that the articles have a variety of subject matter, from sports to poetry to industry, etc. This is not a book that I've been working through from start to finish, but one I pick up occasionally to supplement the other things I've been reading/working with, from "Italian Verb Drills" workbook by Nanni-Tate, to the copy of the Corriere Della Sera I brought home from my last trip.