Customer Reviews

Le avventure di Pinocchio (Italian Edition)

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I bought this book thinking it was an original version, and was surprised to see it was a very simplified edition. I've studied Italian for two years and this book was easy for me. The grammar starts out simply in the present tense and moves into past and future tenses as the book progresses. Each chapter (about 2 - 3 pages) starts with a few colloquial expressions used in the chapter and there is a fairly comprehensive dictionary in the back of the book, which saves time looking up unfamiliar words.

The reading style is about a 3rd grade level. The first chapters have very short simple sentences and the paragraphs become longer and grammatically more difficult as the chapters progress. This book seems targeted for someone with one year of study and going into their second year of study.

With this version of Pinocchio, beginning students of Italian have found a friend. Not only will they discover a charming story of a wooden puppet, but they will begin their enjoyment of reading in Italian. The story has been simplified for the beginner. The grammar remains fairly simple as well. The first five chapters mainly use the present tense, with a few imperatives in the mix. The following chapters introduce other tenses such as the future and imperfect. But by that time the student has gained enough experience to meet the challenge of learning some of the other common tenses. And with each chapter the student will learn a lot of useful vocabulary, vocabulary that will help in reading other books in Italian.

The end of each chapter contains review questions on the content of the reading. In addition the review contains vocabulary and grammar exercises. Ideally a student would read the story with a group of beginners, but any solitary student would benefit from reading this story. If a student falls under the spell of this charming story, the rewards of reading Italian will open like a favorite book offering many hours of reading pleasure.