A 30-day Italian reading plan

How does the 30-day Italian plan work?

Each day is one real chapter from the Contos Italian library, listed by its English title, so you never have to decide what to read next. Spend about 15 minutes on it using our daily reading routine: flashcards, two reads, a paragraph aloud, one sentence of your own. The month rests on three rules:

1. A chapter a day, nothing more required. The A1 chapters here are 140–215 words long, a few minutes each.
2. Every seventh day, go back. Rereading on days 7, 14 and 21 brings recent words round again before they fade, the kind of repeat meeting Paul Nation says vocabulary from reading needs.
3. Wait for day 22 to step up. By then you have 18 A1 chapters behind you, and A2 begins with characters you already know.

The route sticks to chapters 1 and 2 of each series, which anyone can read free. Each chapter stops on a cliffhanger, though, so if a story hooks you, see the Premium version of the month further down.

Days 1–14: which A1 Italian stories come first?

The first fortnight samples six A1 series across romance, mystery, crime and comedy. Trying several early on shows you which genres you will actually want to keep reading.

Day 1 opens the flagship series: Marco comes home from Milan to his grandmother's seaside guesthouse with a secret, while a guest called Giulia keeps extending her stay. After that, a shy dog walker in Turin keeps meeting the same stranger on the same park bench, a grandmother investigates what vanishes from her building's laundry room every Monday, and a text meant for one Marco reaches another and ends in an engagement nobody planned.

Days 15–30: how do you step up to A2?

Week 3 adds three more A1 series, including a sci-fi comedy about a housekeeping robot that knows too much. Day 21 sends you back to the first two chapters of The Bellavista Guesthouse, because on day 22 you meet the same story again, written at A2.

Retelling a story you know is the gentlest way up a level. Compare the start of chapter 2 at each level, the same morning in the same kitchen:

The A2 version adds time (il mattino dopo, presto, già) and movement (scende), and its chapter 1 runs to 248 words against 171 at A1. But you already know Marco, Giulia and Nonna Pina, so your attention is free for the new language. Then come two Milan stories, a sketchbook dropped on a commuter train and a cat missing from a courtyard, and a hill-town choir in Umbria with a conductor who is hiding something.

What if you want to finish a whole series?

Chapters 3 and later need Contos Premium. If you have it, trade the sampling for depth: follow the series you like to its end and keep the reread days. For example:

• Days 1–8: The Bellavista Guesthouse at A1, all 8 chapters.
• Days 9–14: one six-chapter A1 series, start to finish.
• Days 15–20: another full A1 series, with day 21 for rereading.
• Days 22–29: The Bellavista Guesthouse again, now at A2, and day 30 for review.

Whichever route you take, look at your known-word count on day 30. Contos moves you to A2 at 500 known words. Short of that, a further A1 series will do more for you than pushing on. Next steps: how to learn Italian by reading and what each CEFR level means.