Books by level / Italian books
La favorita del Mahdi: reading level, length and free edition
La favorita del Mahdi by Emilio Salgari is a novel in Italian. Our team rates it B2. It runs to 113,371 words with 12,852 different word forms, about 9.5–19 h of reading at 200 to 100 words per minute, and it is free from Project Gutenberg.
- Author
- Emilio Salgari
- Language
- Italian
- Level
- B2
- Form
- novel
- Words
- 113,371
- Different word forms
- 12,852
- Forms for 95% / 98%
- 7,184 / 10,585
- Reading time
- 9.5–19 h
- Free edition
- Project Gutenberg
Avventura esotica nel Sudan in rivolta, tra il deserto e le truppe coloniali.
Is La favorita del Mahdi right for your level?
To recognise 95% of the running words in La favorita del Mahdi, you need its 7,184 most frequent word forms; for 98%, the share at which most readers manage a novel without a dictionary, 10,585. The median Italian B2 book in our table needs 5,871 forms for 95%, so by this measure the book is harder than most for its level: number 8 of 11, easiest first.
A word form is any spelling that appears in the text, so “walk” and “walked” count twice, and names count too. These numbers are a guide to how much vocabulary the book asks for, not a test. The level itself was set by hand by our team. Before you commit, read one page of the free edition and count the words you do not know: the one-page test takes two minutes.
Which words should you know before you start?
These are the words that La favorita del Mahdi uses most often but that are not among the 2,000 most common word forms across all 20 Italian books in our library; the number is how many times each appears. Names of people and places are left out. Learning a handful of them first makes the opening chapters easier.
- mahari 71
- zeribak 54
- insorti 53
- basci 50
- bozuk 50
- pistole 50
- favorita 48
- schiavo 47
- pianura 47
- balbettò 47
- fucili 45
- prigioniero 45
- furiosamente 44
- leoni 43
- cammelli 42
How does it begin?
Era la sera del 4 Settembre 1883. Il sole equatoriale, rosso rosso, scendeva rapidamente verso le aride e dirupate montagne di Mantara, illuminando vagamente le grandi foreste di palme e di tamarindi e le coniche capanne di Machmudiech, povero villaggio sudanese, situato sulla riva destra del maestoso Bahr-el-Abiad o Nilo Bianco, a meno di quaranta miglia a sud di Chartum.
From the Project Gutenberg edition, which is in the public domain. If this paragraph already feels slow, try a book one level lower.
How long does it take to read?
| Words | 100 wpm | 150 wpm | 200 wpm | 250 wpm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 113,371 | 19 h | 13 h | 9.5 h | 7.5 h |
Learners reading a book at their level often manage 100 to 150 words per minute, and readers in their first language 200 to 250. Where these speeds come from, and a calculator for your own: How long does it take to read a book?
Where can you read it for free?
The free edition is Project Gutenberg eBook #25180. Project Gutenberg publishes books that are in the public domain in the United States, as EPUB, Kindle and plain text, free and without an account. Copyright terms differ by country: if you live outside the United States, check that the book is out of copyright where you are before you download it.
To read it with a translation over every word you tap, open it in Readlang Mobile on iPhone or iPad.
What to read next at B2
Italian books at the same level that ask for a similar amount of vocabulary:
- L’Innocente, Gabriele D’Annunzio: 77,999 words, 7,329 forms for 95%
- I Robinson italiani, Emilio Salgari: 67,116 words, 6,377 forms for 95%
- Dopo il divorzio, Grazia Deledda: 56,909 words, 5,871 forms for 95%
- Il mistero del poeta, Antonio Fogazzaro: 60,698 words, 5,718 forms for 95%
- L’infedele, Matilde Serao: 24,283 words, 4,010 forms for 95%
- Documenti Umani, Federico De Roberto: 58,657 words, 7,314 forms for 95%
See also all Italian books by level and books at B2 in all five languages.