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Stichos creates free A0 and A1 reading passages on demand with line-by-line English translations.

I libri di Gionata

Gionata cammina in centro a Firenze.

Gionata walks in the center of Florence.

Il sole brilla nel cielo azzurro.

The sun shines in the blue sky.

Ha due libri pesanti nello zaino.

He has two heavy books in his backpack.

Deve restituire i libri in biblioteca.

He must return the books to the library.

Gionata entra nella grande biblioteca.

Gionata enters the big library.

L'ambiente è molto silenzioso e caldo.

The atmosphere is very quiet and warm.

Lì trova il suo amico Marco.

There he finds his friend Marco.

Marco legge un grosso libro d'arte.

Marco is reading a big art book.

Gionata cammina piano verso di lui.

Gionata walks slowly towards him.

I due amici parlano a bassa voce.

The two friends talk in a low voice.

Parlano dei libri presi in prestito.

They talk about the borrowed books.

Un gatto nero dorme sulla sedia.

A black cat sleeps on the chair.

Il gatto fa un piccolo verso.

The cat makes a small noise.

Gionata sorride e accarezza il gatto.

Gionata smiles and pets the cat.

Poi va al banco della bibliotecaria.

Then he goes to the librarian's desk.

La donna sorride con molta gentilezza.

The woman smiles very kindly.

Gionata consegna i libri alla bibliotecaria.

Gionata hands over the books to the librarian.

Lei controlla subito i due volumi.

She immediately checks the two volumes.

Tutto è in perfetto ordine.

Everything is in perfect order.

Gionata saluta il suo amico Marco.

Gionata says goodbye to his friend Marco.

Poi esce dalla biblioteca con calma.

Then he leaves the library calmly.

Ora va al bar della piazza.

Now he goes to the square's coffee shop.

L'odore del caffè è molto buono.

The smell of coffee is very good.

Gionata chiede un espresso, per favore.

Gionata asks for an espresso, please.

Prende il caffè caldo al banco.

He has the hot coffee at the counter.

Beve il caffè e riposa un po'.

He drinks the coffee and rests a bit.

Quick facts about Italian

Speakers

About 65 million people speak Italian as a first language (a 2022 figure, as cited by Wikipedia).1

Did you know?

Double consonants are pronounced with more force and length than single ones, and the difference changes meaning: caro means "dear" but carro means "cart", and note ("notes") differs from notte ("night").2

The main challenge

The compound past uses two different auxiliaries: avere for transitive and some intransitive verbs, and essere for the other intransitive verbs, including many verbs of motion and change of state such as cadere ("to fall").3

Sources

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_language
  2. https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/lettere-doppie_(Enciclopedia-dell'Italiano)/
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_grammar

About the Italian language

Language familyIndo-European → Italic → Romance (Italo-Dalmatian). Standard Italian is based on literary Florentine Tuscan.1
SpeakersAbout 85 million in total, around 65 million of them native speakers (Ethnologue, 2022 figure, as cited by Wikipedia). Estimates of second-language speakers vary widely, from about 3 million to 21 million.1
Primary scriptLatin alphabet with 21 native letters; J, K, W, X and Y appear mainly in loanwords. Accents mark stress on final vowels, as in città and perché.2
Word order & typologyBasic subject–verb–object order, rearranged for emphasis. Verbs inflect for person, number, tense and mood, so subject pronouns are usually dropped (null-subject). Nouns have two genders, masculine and feminine.3,4,5
Official statusOfficial in Italy, San Marino and Vatican City, and one of Switzerland’s four national languages (Ticino and Grisons), with regional official status in Slovene and Croatian Istria. One of the 24 official languages of the European Union since 1958.1,6,7
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_language
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_alphabet
  3. https://wals.info/datapoint/81A/wals_code_ita
  4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_grammar
  5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null-subject_language
  6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Switzerland
  7. https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/languages_en

Italian reading proficiency benchmarks (CEFR)

Stichos levelApproximate framework equivalentReader profile
A0Pre-A1Early Beginner
A1CEFR A1Beginner
A2CEFR A2Elementary
B1CEFR B1Intermediate
B2CEFR B2Upper Intermediate

The main Italian certificates are themselves set on the CEFR scale: CILS (Università per Stranieri di Siena) runs A1, A2, UNO-B1, DUE-B2, TRE-C1 and QUATTRO-C2, and CELI (Università per Stranieri di Perugia) runs CELI Impatto (A1) and CELI 1 to CELI 5 (A2 to C2). Stichos levels describe reading difficulty and are not an exam equivalence.

Reference corpora

Italian has a well-documented core vocabulary and large reference corpora of the written language.1,2

  • Nuovo vocabolario di base: Tullio De Mauro’s 2016 update lists about 7,000 words drawn from a corpus of about 18.8 million word occurrences: some 2,000 fundamental words (fondamentale) that cover 86% of running text, 3,000 high-use words (alto uso) covering another 6%, and 2,500 high-availability words (alta disponibilità) for everyday objects and events.1
  • CORIS/CODIS: The University of Bologna’s corpus of contemporary written Italian, begun in 1998 under Rema Rossini Favretti, is refreshed every three years through a monitor corpus; the project site gives its size as 180 million words.2
  • Register: Stichos writes standard, dialect-neutral Italian at every level, with tu for casual narrative and dialogue and Lei for professional or unfamiliar exchanges.
  1. https://www.internazionale.it/opinione/tullio-de-mauro/2016/12/23/il-nuovo-vocabolario-di-base-della-lingua-italiana
  2. https://corpora.ficlit.unibo.it/coris_eng.html

Readability design principles

Italian has its own readability measures rather than relying on English formulas.1,2

  • Gulpease Index: Defined in 1988 by the GULP group (Gruppo Universitario Linguistico Pedagogico) at Sapienza University of Rome, it counts letters instead of syllables: 89 + (300 × sentences − 10 × letters) / words. Scores run from 0 to 100; below 80 is hard for readers with only primary schooling, below 40 hard even with a secondary diploma.1
  • READ-IT: Dell’Orletta, Montemagni and Venturi (2011) built the first advanced readability tool for Italian, combining raw-text features with lexical, morpho-syntactic and syntactic ones and scoring both whole documents and single sentences.2
  • Stichos: Stichos sets difficulty with level-by-level grammar rules and sentence-length limits rather than a single readability score: A0 sentences are single clauses of 3 to 5 words with no conjunctions.
  1. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indice_Gulpease
  2. https://aclanthology.org/W11-2308/

Script & grammar scaffolding

  • Tenses: A0 and A1 stay in the present (presente indicativo); A0 allows only the fixed polite formula vorrei beyond it. A2 opens the passato prossimo, the imperfetto and the futuro semplice. B1 adds the trapassato prossimo and the present conditional (condizionale presente) for requests and wishes.
  • The subjunctive: The congiuntivo is left out through A2. B1 introduces the basic present subjunctive for opinions and feelings, and B2 opens all four subjunctive tenses alongside the past conditional and the gerundio.
  • The literary past: The passato remoto is kept out through A2, out of spoken dialogue at B1 and out of informal settings at B2; C1 opens it fully.
  • Commands and requests: Beginner requests use a noun and a politeness word (Un caffè, per favore). A1 allows just five informal commands, guarda, vieni, prendi, aspetta and siediti, plus the hand-over formula Tieni / Tenga.

Related academic & framework resources

Frequently asked questions

What writing system does Italian use?
Latin alphabet with 21 native letters; J, K, W, X and Y appear mainly in loanwords. Accents mark stress on final vowels, as in città and perché.
Is Stichos suitable for complete beginners with zero prior knowledge (A0)?
Yes. A0 is a primary focus, designed for readers with no prior knowledge. A1 then adds basic everyday vocabulary and simple connected clauses as your foundation grows.
Are Stichos levels the same as CEFR levels?
Not exactly. Stichos levels use the familiar CEFR names, from A0 to B2, and are modelled on the CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference), so a Stichos B1 is meant to feel close to a B1 in your course book. They aren't an official CEFR rating, and different books and exams draw the lines in slightly different places. A0 is Stichos's own addition, just below the framework's first level.
Are the stories written by AI, and how accurate are they?
Yes. Stories are generated by AI and then checked by further automated steps against the grammar and vocabulary rules for your level. That catches most problems, but it isn't a human editor, so an occasional unnatural phrase or slip can get through. Treat Stichos as practice material, and check anything you're unsure of with a teacher or a reference.
Can I read stories with explanations in my native language?
Yes. Stichos allows you to pair any target language with any native support language. You can read a Croatian story with French glosses, or a German story with Spanish explanations.
How does word lookup work while reading?
Tap or click any word for its meaning in that sentence, explained in your own language. In the full version, you can save any word to your Vocab Bank for later review.
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Yes. The preview is free and needs no account. If you join the Reading List, we use your email to send your 3 free sample stories (PDF, after you confirm your address) and to let you know when we fully open. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle it.
Do stories include audio or narration?
Story narration isn't part of the preview. At launch, the Premium Audio add-on reads every story aloud in a natural-sounding AI voice, in 39 of our 40 languages (Esperanto doesn't have audio support yet).

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