Due amiche e un album di fotografie - Italian Short Stories for Beginners

Do you know that there is a German-speaking region in Italy? Do you know that when hiking in the Dolomites, you can refuel at a local “malga“? And do you know what typical food in the Dolomites is like? If you don’t, you can learn everything about it in simple Italian by listening to and reading my short story “Due Amiche e Un Album di Fotografie.”

This short story book includes:

• 16 bite-sized chapters with slow audio narrated by a native speaker (access is free online).
• 16 sets of online flashcards.
• A bilingual word list at the end of each chapter.
• Insights into relevant vocabulary, grammar, and common mistakes made by English speakers when learning and speaking Italian.
• Interesting facts about Alto Adige, one of the alpine regiones of Italy.
• Dialogues and experiences you'll commonly encounter while traveling in Italy.
• Review questions for measuring comprehension at the end of each chapter.

Due Amiche e un Album di Fotografie is a short story book designed for beginners, advanced beginners and lower intermediate learners (A1-A2 CEFR), and optimized for English speakers and for enhancing a fun (non-overwhelming!) learning experience.

Why learn with short-story books?

• Our brain is not designed to memorize words in isolation. We need to relate a new input (a word, a grammar pattern, a sentence) to an image.
• Stories will provide you with visuals to relate to the new words and sentences you encounter while reading.
• When you try to use a new word or sentence, remembering the visual provided by story will help you.
• You'll absorb naturally the main principles of Italian sentence building (how to connect words and grammar together).

Serena’s storytelling method is the result of over a decade of experience teaching Italian to English native speakers in conversation-based classes.

What other readers have said:

"I am delighted with your stories. The vocabulary at the end of the story had exactly the words that I did not understand. I will look at the photos soon. This will make the experience unique and personal to my Italian teacher. I do not think that anyone has put their own pictures into stories written for teaching. How wonderful that you can be so creative, teach, write, take photographs, it all feels like magic and inspired. Thank you for being my Italian teacher, and thank you for your contributions to students who love Italy and the Italian language. You are a blessing to all of us."