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Il piccolo caffè

The Little Café

A newcomer inherits a tiny family café and plans to leave. A stubborn local recipe and the regulars slowly turn it into home. Start from absolute zero Italian.

Chapter 1A1

Ciao, nonna

Hello, Grandma

Before you read
Sono and è: the verb to be

Italian's verb essere (to be) gives you sono for I am and è for is. You almost never need a word for I or she: Sono Nina just means I am Nina, and Marisa already points to è. Drop the pronoun and let the verb do the work.

Il and la: every noun has a gender

Italian nouns are either masculine or feminine, and the word for the just changes to match: il caffè, il tavolo, il pane are masculine, while la porta, la foto, la nonna, la cucina are feminine. Adjectives agree too: vecchio becomes vecchia next to a feminine word like porta.

C'è: there is

C'è squeezes ci (there) and è (is) into one word, so c'è il pane means there is bread. You will meet it constantly: it is how Italian points at things in a room.

Dice: how Italian says who is talking

Instead of a label above the words, Italian books tuck the speaker right into the sentence: Nina dice: "Ciao" means Nina says, "Hi." You will see dice again and again from here on.

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About this story

The Little Café is an A1 Italian reader.

A newcomer inherits a tiny family café and plans to leave. A stubborn local recipe and the regulars slowly turn it into home. Start from absolute zero Italian.

This free chapter contains 57 learner-friendly sentences. The complete book has 10 chapters.

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