Books by level / Italian books
L’umorismo: reading level, length and free edition
L’umorismo by Luigi Pirandello is an essay in Italian. Our team rates it C1. It runs to 51,514 words with 9,013 different word forms, about 4.5–8.5 h of reading at 200 to 100 words per minute, and it is free from Project Gutenberg.
- Author
- Luigi Pirandello
- Language
- Italian
- Level
- C1
- Form
- essay
- Words
- 51,514
- Different word forms
- 9,013
- Forms for 95% / 98%
- 6,438 / 7,983
- Reading time
- 4.5–8.5 h
- Free edition
- Project Gutenberg
Saggio in cui Pirandello teorizza la differenza tra comico e umoristico.
Is L’umorismo right for your level?
To recognise 95% of the running words in L’umorismo, you need its 6,438 most frequent word forms; for 98%, the share at which most readers manage a novel without a dictionary, 7,983. The median Italian C1 book in our table needs 4,856 forms for 95%, so by this measure the book is harder than most for its level: number 4 of 5, 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 L’umorismo 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.
- umorista 64
- comico 51
- umoristi 43
- elementi 37
- umoristica 37
- rappresentazione 36
- humour 32
- ridicolo 32
- condizioni 30
- speciale 29
- retorica 28
- critica 28
- estetica 27
- poeti 26
- disposizione 24
How does it begin?
Alessandro D’Ancona, in quel suo notissimo studio su Cecco Angiolieri da Siena, [1] dopo aver notato quanto vi sia di burlesco in questo nostro poeta del sec. XIII, osserva: «Ma per noi l’Angiolieri non è soltanto un burlesco: bensì anche, e più propriamente, un umorista .
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 51,514 | 8.5 h | 5.5 h | 4.5 h | 3.5 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 #56958. 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 C1
Italian books at the same level that ask for a similar amount of vocabulary:
- I Canti, Giacomo Leopardi: 25,789 words, 4,856 forms for 95%
- La mandragola · La Clizia · Belfagor, Niccolò Machiavelli: 29,244 words, 3,353 forms for 95%
- Enrico IV, Luigi Pirandello: 18,998 words, 2,518 forms for 95%
- I promessi sposi, Alessandro Manzoni: 230,062 words, 10,406 forms for 95%
See also all Italian books by level and books at C1 in all five languages.