Italian Short Stories to Accelerate Your Learning

Italian short stories are a great way to boost your language skills. They come in all shapes and sizes and can help you get to know grammar, slang, lexis, idiomatic expressions, and much more. Unlike novels or other long forms of content, short stories are easy to digest.

Italians are storytellers by nature, and Italy has been the birthplace of some of the greatest writers in history (Dante Alighieri, Alessandro Manzoni, Italo Calvino etc.).

Whether you are passionate about poetry, thrillers, or mysteries, here are some great resources that can help feed your Italian language appetite. 

Don’t forgot that you can import these stories into LingQ so you can study the Italian words and phrases. Just use the LingQ Importer browser extension which is available for Chrome,  Safari, and Firefox), and create your lesson with one click.

If you don’t have the browser extension, simply click on the Import button in the top right of the Italian Library. There you can add your story and the lesson will be generated.

Italian short stories for beginners

Noi parliamo italiano
This website is a great resource if you’re a beginner. Along with short stories, this website also contains recipes, various dialogues, and fables. It’s easy to navigate and contains lots of practical examples.

Favole della buonanotte
This website has a huge collection of children fairy tales made up of easy Italian vocabulary. Drift into a good night sleep while boosting your language knowledge.

Il rifugio segreto
“The Secret Shelter”, which is this website’s name translated into English, offers a great collection of simplified Italian short stories on different topics. Also, audio and PDF files are available.

Il regalo di compleanno
“The Birthday Present” is a funny 12-part short story about two siblings out shopping for a gift for their mother. This story is in the Italian LingQ Library.

Intermediate learners

Poesie e racconti.it
Poesie Racconti has a huge collection of short stories and which are categorized by genre (comedy, drama, horror, thriller etc.) This website also holds an impressive collection of poetry. 

Lingua.com
Lingua has a good collection of short stories about everyday topics. Audio tracks, comprehension exercises, and PDF files are available too.

La festa di Natale
This festive story is by the same author as Le Avventure di Pinocchio and is in the LingQ Library.

Advanced learners

InKroci
This website is an online magazine containing content written by both famous and independent writers.

Dieci Racconti Italiani
This website has a selection of 10 short stories written by some of the most popular Italian authors. 

Le fiabe italiane di Italo Calvino
Author Italo Calvino spent two years (1954-1956) writing this popular collection of Italian fairy tales: These stories were influenced by the different regions of Italy. The language can be archaic and a bit of unusual, making it a more appropriate read for advanced learners. 

Il Corvo
This narrative poem by Edgar Allen Poe is about death and hope. It’s already in the LingQ Library for you to start reading!

Looking for more than short stories? Check out these posts on Italian YouTube videos, audiobooks, podcasts.

LingQ is free to try and right off the bat you’ll have tons of professionally created Italian content you can start going through. You can also take your lessons on the go using LingQ’s mobile app (available for iOS and Android). Good luck!