Easy Italian Reader w/CD-ROM: A Three-Part Text for Beginning Students: A Three-part Text for Beginning Students (Easy Reader Series)

I am enjoying this book and finding it very helpful, but think it would be pretty scary for a complete beginner to start with. Often the reader is required to give opposites of words which are not in the text being studied, and often there are words which need to be understood in order to answer the questions, but there is no translation given. I think this is frustrating for the reader. Surely the point of a graded reader is that the student doesn't have to keep reaching for a dictionary, thus breaking the flow of the reading and learning? I am managing by ignoring the words I don't know in order to keep the flow going, as I imagine I'll pick them up at some other stage along the way. Good for very confident post-beginners or pre-intermediates onwards.

This book is brilliant! I have just completed entry level business italian and my italian is so basic it is almost non-existent. I actually understood most of the first three exercises immediately. I would recommend keeping a dictionary by your side.