Can you read a book in Italian? And above all… what level can you get to? In this article you’ll find out with a complete reading test, from level A1 to level C2, built on real sentences taken from six masterpieces of Italian literature: Pinocchio, Cuore, Il fu Mattia Pascal, I Malavoglia, La coscienza di Zeno and I promessi sposi. At the end you’ll know exactly what your reading level is, and you’ll also learn some secrets about Italy’s most famous books.
The Ultimate Test of Italian Classics: From Pinocchio to The Betrothed
The rules are very simple. For each level you’ll find a passage from one of the six classics, followed by two questions: one on grammar and one on vocabulary. A level is “passed” if you answer correctly at least one question out of two. Your reading level is the last level you manage to pass. If you get two out of two… congratulations, level passed with flying colors! Watch out: no dictionary and no translator, otherwise the test doesn’t count. Before starting, you can also take a look at our guide on the best Italian books to read.
Level A1 — “The Adventures of Pinocchio” by Carlo Collodi (1883)
Let’s start with the most translated Italian book in the world: Pinocchio. Small curiosity: “Collodi” was not the author’s real surname. He was called Carlo Lorenzini, but he chose as his pen name the name of his mother’s Tuscan village: Collodi, precisely.
Here is the beginning of the book, one of the most famous openings in all literature:
«C’era una volta… — Un re! — diranno subito i miei piccoli lettori. No, ragazzi, avete sbagliato. C’era una volta un pezzo di legno.» [Once upon a time… — A king! — my little readers will say right away. No, kids, you got it wrong. Once upon a time there was a piece of wood.]
A tip before the questions: at level A1 you don’t need to understand every word. To answer, the ones you know are enough. Ah, and “diranno” is the verb DIRE in the simple future: a tense that is studied at level A2, so don’t worry.
Level A1 Questions
- Grammar: in the text there’s “avete sbagliato”. What is the infinitive of this verb?
- Vocabulary: what is “legno”?
A) an animal from the woods
B) the material of trees: it’s used to make tables and chairs
C) a type of bread
Level A1 Solutions
The infinitive is SBAGLIARE. “Avete sbagliato” is a passato prossimo: verb AVERE in the present + past participle (sbagliato).
And legno is obviously answer B: the material of trees. In fact Pinocchio is a puppet made of wood.
Level A2 — “Cuore” by Edmondo De Amicis (1886)
Let’s go up a level with Cuore, the diary of a boy from Turin, Enrico, who tells the story of a school year. This book has made entire generations of Italians cry: even today, when a story is very moving and sentimental, we say it’s “da libro Cuore” [Cuore-book style]!
«Oggi primo giorno di scuola. Passarono come un sogno quei tre mesi di vacanza in campagna! Mia madre mi condusse questa mattina alla Sezione Baretti a farmi inscrivere per la terza elementare: io pensavo alla campagna e andavo di mala voglia.» [Today, first day of school. Those three months of vacation in the countryside passed like a dream! My mother took me this morning to the Baretti Section to enroll me in third grade: I was thinking about the countryside and I was going reluctantly.]
Before the questions, an important note: did you see “passarono” and “condusse”? They are in the passato remoto, a tense you’ll find very often in books. For now it’s enough to recognize that it’s a past tense: “passarono” = “sono passati”, “condusse” = “ha accompagnato”. “Inscrivere” is simply the old form of “iscrivere”.
Last thing: “andare di mala voglia” means going unwillingly, without desire. Keep this expression in mind: it’ll come in handy soon!
Level A2 Questions
- Grammar: in the text there’s “QUEI tre mesi”. Why do we say “quei” and not “quelli” or “quegli”?
- Vocabulary: what is “campagna”?
A) the opposite of the city: a place with fields, trees and animals
B) a type of school
C) a season of the year
Level A2 Solutions
The dimostrativo QUELLO, in front of a noun, behaves exactly like the definite article. Here’s the scheme:
| Articolo | Forma di QUELLO | Example |
|---|---|---|
| il | quel | quel libro |
| lo | quello | quello studente |
| l’ (maschile) | quell’ | quell’amico |
| la / l’ (femminile) | quella / quell’ | quella casa / quell’amica |
| i | quei | quei mesi |
| gli | quegli | quegli amici |
| le | quelle | quelle case |
Therefore: “mesi” takes the article “i” → QUEI mesi! The campagna, instead, is answer A. Watch out though: in Italian there is also the “campagna elettorale” or “pubblicitaria” — like the English “campaign” —, but here Enrico is talking precisely about fields, trees and clean air.
Level B1 — “The Late Mattia Pascal” by Luigi Pirandello (1904)
Now it gets interesting! Luigi Pirandello, Nobel Prize winner in literature in 1934, tells us the story of Mattia Pascal, a man who… is believed dead by everyone! “Il fu”, in fact, is a bureaucratic expression used for deceased people: “il fu Mattia Pascal” means “the late Mattia Pascal”. And he, instead of correcting the mistake, takes advantage of it to start a new life with a new identity.
«Una delle poche cose, anzi forse la sola ch’io sapessi di certo era questa: che mi chiamavo Mattia Pascal. E me ne approfittavo.» [One of the few things, indeed perhaps the only one I knew for certain was this: that my name was Mattia Pascal. And I took advantage of it.]
Level B1 Questions
- Grammar: “mi chiamavo Mattia Pascal”: what type of verb is “chiamarsi”? And why is it here in the imperfetto and not in the passato prossimo?
- Vocabulary: “approfittarsi di qualcosa” means:
A) to forget something
B) to take advantage of something
C) to be afraid of something
Level B1 Solutions
“Chiamarsi” is a verbo riflessivo. Here it’s in the imperfetto, “mi chiamavo”, because it doesn’t indicate a concluded action, but a state that lasted over time. For states and descriptions in the past you use the imperfetto; for concluded actions, the passato prossimo. Compare:
| Sentence | Tense | Why |
|---|---|---|
| “Da bambino abitavo a Roma” | imperfetto | State / description in the past |
| “Nel 2010 mi sono trasferito a Milano” | passato prossimo | Action concluded at a specific moment |
“Approfittarsi”, answer B, means to take advantage of and is built with the preposition DI: “approfittarsi DI qualcosa”. It’s precisely for this reason that in the text you find “me NE approfittavo”: that little NE replaces “di questo”… mark it down, because at level C1 the NE will come back as the protagonist! Last bonus for the most curious: “ch’io sapessi” is a congiuntivo imperfetto, and “ch’io” is the elision of “che io”.
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Join the LearnAmo AcademyLevel B2 — “The House by the Medlar Tree” by Giovanni Verga (1881)
Let’s fly to Sicily with Giovanni Verga and his masterpiece of verismo: the story of a family of fishermen from Aci Trezza. Delightful curiosity: the family’s real surname is Toscano, but everyone calls them “Malavoglia” — which would literally mean “poca voglia di lavorare” [little desire to work] — although in reality they are very hard workers! In Sicily this family nickname, often ironic, is called “‘ngiuria”. And “mala voglia” does it remind you of something? Exactly: just like Enrico from Cuore, who went to school “di mala voglia”.
«Un tempo i Malavoglia erano stati numerosi come i sassi della strada vecchia di Trezza; ce n’erano persino ad Ognina, e ad Aci Castello, tutti buona e brava gente di mare, proprio all’opposto di quel che sembrava dal nomignolo, come dev’essere.» [Once upon a time the Malavoglia had been as numerous as the stones on the old road of Trezza; there were some even in Ognina and Aci Castello, all good and fine sea folk, just the opposite of what the nickname suggested, as it should be.]
Level B2 Questions
- Grammar: “proprio all’opposto di QUEL CHE sembrava dal nomignolo”. What does “quel che” mean? And with what other expressions can we replace it?
- Vocabulary: what is a “nomignolo”?
A) a nickname
B) an identity document
C) a small insult
Level B2 Solutions
“Quel che” means “quello che”, that is “ciò che”, “la cosa che”. It’s called pronome relativo doppio, because it joins two elements in a single expression: a demonstrative (quello) + the relative (che). You can check out the complete guide on pronomi relativi to go deeper. In the text: “all’opposto di quel che sembrava dal nomignolo” = “il contrario della cosa che il soprannome faceva pensare”. Other examples:
- “Non capisco quello che dici.” [I don’t understand what you’re saying.]
- “Ciò che conta è la salute.” [What counts is health.]
And while we’re at it, two bonuses: “erano stati” is a trapassato prossimo, for an action prior to another moment in the past; and “ce n’erano” hides the combination CI + NE (“lì c’erano alcuni di loro”).
The “nomignolo”, answer A, is a nickname, often affectionate or playful: it comes from “nome” plus the suffix “-ignolo”.
Level C1 — “Zeno’s Conscience” by Italo Svevo (1923)
Level C1: let’s enter the mind of Zeno Cosini, the man of the “last cigarette”. Zeno wants to quit smoking and writes everywhere the date of his “last cigarette”… too bad he smokes hundreds of “last cigarettes”. Basically our “starting Monday I’ll go on a diet”. Incredible curiosity: Italo Svevo is a pseudonym — his real name was Ettore Schmitz — and his private English tutor in Trieste was… James Joyce! Yes, exactly the author of Ulysses: the two became friends and Joyce helped make the novel known in Europe.
«Vedere la mia infanzia? Più di dieci lustri me ne separano e i miei occhi presbiti forse potrebbero arrivarci se la luce che ancora ne riverbera non fosse tagliata da ostacoli d’ogni genere, vere alte montagne: i miei anni e qualche mia ora.» [See my childhood? More than ten lustra separate me from it and my far-sighted eyes could perhaps reach it if the light that still reverberates from it were not cut off by obstacles of every kind, true high mountains: my years and some of my hours.]
Level C1 Questions
- Grammar: in the passage there are two particles NE: “me NE separano” and “la luce che ancora NE riverbera”. What do they replace?
- Vocabulary: how many years are “dieci lustri”?
Level C1 Solutions
Both NE particles replace the same thing: la mia infanzia. “Più di dieci lustri me NE separano” = “mi separano DA essa“ (separare DA qualcosa); “la luce che ancora NE riverbera” = “la luce che ancora riverbera DA essa“. Do you remember Pirandello’s little NE, “me ne approfittavo”, which replaced “DI + qualcosa”? Here’s the quality leap: NE can also replace complements with DA. And it doesn’t end there: even “arrivarCI“ refers to childhood (“arrivare A essa”). The whole sentence revolves around a word that Svevo names only once, at the beginning. To go deeper, you can check out the guide on the particelle CI e NE.
Bonus for review: “potrebbero arrivarci SE la luce non FOSSE tagliata” is a periodo ipotetico di secondo tipo — SE + congiuntivo imperfetto (here in passive form!) + condizionale presente.
And the “dieci lustri”? One lustro = 5 years, so ten lustra = 50 years! The word comes from ancient Rome: the lustrum was a purification ceremony that was celebrated every five years. Last bonus: “presbiti” — presbyopic eyes are those that see poorly up close.
Level C2 — “The Betrothed” by Alessandro Manzoni (1840)
And here we are at the grand finale: THE Italian novel par excellence, the one that all Italian students have studied at school — some with love, some with a bit of trauma. The opening of The Betrothed is one of the most famous (and longest!) sentences in our literature. You can also read the complete summary of The Betrothed if you want to know the plot. Curiosity: to write the definitive version, Manzoni went to Florence to “risciacquare i panni in Arno” [rinse the clothes in the Arno], that is to revise the entire language of the novel on the Florentine model. A book that literally contributed to creating modern Italian.
Take a deep breath, because what you’ll read is only the FIRST PART of a single, very long period.
«Quel ramo del lago di Como, che volge a mezzogiorno, tra due catene non interrotte di monti, tutto a seni e a golfi, a seconda dello sporgere e del rientrare di quelli, vien, quasi a un tratto, a ristringersi, e a prender corso e figura di fiume, tra un promontorio a destra, e un’ampia costiera dall’altra parte…» [That branch of Lake Como which turns toward the south, between two uninterrupted chains of mountains, all inlets and bays, according to the projecting and receding of these, comes, almost suddenly, to narrow, and to take the course and shape of a river, between a promontory on the right and a wide shore on the other side…]
Level C2 Questions
- Grammar: “VIEN… A RISTRINGERSI, e A PRENDER corso”. What value does the construction “venire a + infinito” have? And why does Manzoni write “vien” and “prender”, without the final vowel?
- Vocabulary: “che volge a mezzogiorno”: what does “mezzogiorno” mean here? (Watch out: it’s a trap!)
Level C2 Solutions
“Venire a + infinito” indicates a gradual process, an “arriving little by little at”: the lake, slowly, comes to narrow until it takes the shape of a river. “Vien” and “prender”, instead, are examples of troncamento (or apocope): the dropping of the final vowel, typical of the literary style. Think also of “amor”, “cuor”, “ciel”.
And “mezzogiorno”? No, the lake isn’t looking at the clock at 12:00! Here “mezzogiorno” means SOUTH. In literary and geographical texts the cardinal points are said like this:
| Cardinal point | Literary name | Alternative |
|---|---|---|
| North | settentrione | — |
| South | mezzogiorno | meridione |
| East | oriente | levante |
| West | occidente | ponente |
Not by chance, Southern Italy is also called “il Mezzogiorno”.
Summary of the Six Levels and the Six Masterpieces
Here’s a summary of the six passages, with the author, the year and the key words encountered. To go even deeper, you can check out the guide on the classics of Italian literature.
| Level | Book (Author, Year) | Key words |
|---|---|---|
| A1 | Le avventure di Pinocchio (C. Collodi, 1883) | legno, sbagliare |
| A2 | Cuore (E. De Amicis, 1886) | quei, campagna, di mala voglia |
| B1 | Il fu Mattia Pascal (L. Pirandello, 1904) | chiamarsi, approfittarsi (di) |
| B2 | I Malavoglia (G. Verga, 1881) | quel che, nomignolo, ‘ngiuria |
| C1 | La coscienza di Zeno (I. Svevo, 1923) | NE (DA), lustro, presbite |
| C2 | I promessi sposi (A. Manzoni, 1840) | volgere, mezzogiorno, troncamento |
How to Calculate Your Level
Remember the rule: a level is passed if you’ve answered correctly at least one question out of two. Your reading level is the last level you managed to pass. Here’s a table to help you:
| Last level passed | Your reading level |
|---|---|
| A1 | Beginner |
| A2 | Elementary |
| B1 | Intermediate |
| B2 | Upper intermediate |
| C1 | Advanced |
| C2 | Mastery (native level!) |
And if you didn’t pass the C2, no drama: even many native Italians no longer remember what “volge a mezzogiorno” means.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the Difference Between Passato Prossimo, Imperfetto and Passato Remoto?
They are the three main past tenses in Italian. The passato prossimo (“sono andato”, “ho mangiato”) indicates actions concluded in a more or less recent past, and is the most used in spoken language. The imperfetto (“andavo”, “mangiavo”) describes states, habits or ongoing actions in the past, without indicating their beginning or end: “Da bambino giocavo sempre in giardino” [As a child I always played in the garden]. The passato remoto (“andai”, “mangiai”), instead, is typical of literary language and of southern Italy, and indicates actions concluded in a distant and psychologically remote past: “Dante morì nel 1321″ [Dante died in 1321].
Why Is Italian Literature So Difficult to Read?
Classic Italian literature (Manzoni, Verga, Pirandello, Svevo…) can be difficult for three main reasons. First, the frequent use of the passato remoto, a tense not common in spoken Italian in northern Italy. Second, the presence of old or literary words (like “mezzogiorno” for “south”, or “nomignolo” for “nickname”) that are no longer heard in everyday language. Third, the construction of very long periods, with multiple subordinate clauses, typical especially of the 19th century. Don’t get discouraged: reading the classics is like lifting weights for your linguistic brain!
What Is Verga’s Verismo?
Verismo is an Italian literary movement from the second half of the 19th century, inspired by French naturalism of Zola. The veristi, including the Sicilian Giovanni Verga, wanted to represent reality in an objective and impersonal way, without moral judgments, giving voice above all to the humble classes: peasants, fishermen, workers. Verismo tells about Southern Italy with rawness and realism, often in a language contaminated by local dialects. I Malavoglia (1881) is the masterpiece of the movement.
Why Is “The Betrothed” Considered So Important?
Because Alessandro Manzoni, with the definitive writing of the novel (1840-1842), has actually contributed to creating modern Italian. In the 19th century Italy was not yet unified and there was no true common “Italian language”: dialects were spoken above all. Manzoni decided to rewrite his novel using as a model the cultured contemporary Florentine, physically going to Florence to “risciacquare i panni in Arno”. His linguistic choice became the point of reference for literary language and, indirectly, for post-unification school and official Italian.
What Are the CI and NE Particles?
CI and NE are two small pronominal particles fundamental in Italian. CI replaces complements of place (“Vado a Roma” → “Ci vado”) or complements introduced by the prepositions A and CON (“penso a te” → “ci penso”). NE replaces quantities (“Bevo due caffè” → “Ne bevo due”) or complements introduced by the prepositions DI and DA (“parlo di questo” → “ne parlo”). As you saw in Svevo’s passage, an advanced use of NE can mark the passage from intermediate to advanced level!
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