Italian grammar A2

What A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2 actually mean

A1 to C2 are not this site's invention. They are the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the scale the Council of Europe published in 2001 and updated in 2020 with the Companion Volume. It measures what you can actually do in the language, not how many rules you have memorised. The CILS, CELI and PLIDA exams are calibrated on it, and so are the language requirements for an Italian residence permit and for citizenship.

Source: Council of Europe, Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, 2001, and Companion Volume, 2020. coe.int

What you can do at this level

You understand sentences and frequent expressions about things close to you: family, shopping, work, where you live. You handle routine exchanges and can describe your background in simple terms.

Where to put your effort

On your own: possessives, the imperative, everyday vocabulary. With a teacher: choosing the auxiliary and placing pronouns, which are fixed by speaking rather than by reading lists.

Coming to Italian from English

English builds every compound past with have. Italian chooses between avere and essere, and with essere the participle agrees with the subject: e' andata, not e' andato, for a woman. The other hurdle is that one English past tense splits into passato prossimo and imperfetto.