(And Why “Non È Pronta” Was The Best Thing Anyone Ever Said To Me)

This week I received my results for an important test that I was afraid to take.

You see, there is a woman at a language school in Parma who told me, with considerable condescension, that I was not ready to take my Italian language test.

She was right. But she said it in a way that made me determined to prove her wrong somewhere else entirely.

Let me back up.

The Backstory

In 2017, my citizenship application was kicked back because Italy had changed the requirements for document legalization mid-process. I wrote about that here. One of the new requirements (added while I was already procrastinating about the background checks) was a B1 language certification for citizenship by marriage.

I had been stumbling along at what I generously called A2 for years. Comfortable enough for the market, the coffee bar, the neighbors. Not comfortable enough for a formal language exam. I told myself I would get to it.

I got to it in 2022.

The Phone Call That Changed Everything

In 2022, feeling cautiously optimistic, I sent an email to a language school in Parma to inquire about booking the test. They told me I couldn’t book until I had spoken with someone by phone.

At that point in my Italian journey, the telephone was my nemesis. I could have a perfectly coherent conversation face to face. The moment someone spoke to me through a phone — no facial expressions, no lip reading, no visual context — my brain would simply empty itself of every word of Italian I had ever learned.

I called anyway.

I fumbled immediately. The woman on the other end listened for a moment and then said, in a tone I can only describe as magnificently dismissive:

“Ah signora, non è pronta.”

Madam, you are not ready.

I thanked her, hung up, and decided two things simultaneously. First: I would get ready. Second: I would take the test anywhere in Italy except Parma.

The First Tutor

I had been taking online lessons with One World Italiano School for awhile (I love them, as you will see later), but decided I wanted some specific test prep, so I hired an online tutor and we got to work. Pietro Roccaforte was wonderful, and we worked through B1 materials diligently for months. By the way, Pietro’s family also has a wonderful olive oil business in Sicily – if you need some oil, I highly recommend it 🙂 Roccafortebio.it/en – tell them Danita sent you, so he’ll smile!

Pietro knew that I really wanted to improve my Italian, and we decided that I should do my preparation with the standard B1 exam materials, not the B1 Cittadinanza exam. These are different tests with different structures and different passing criteria, but I didn’t know how different yet. What I knew was that I was a perfectionist (straight A student in High School) who was getting increasingly frustrated with the listening comprehension sections and convinced I would never score above 75% on the audio tests.

Reader: I was stressed. Deeply, unnecessarily stressed.

The Cagliari Plan

As I mentioned above, I had been taking online conversation classes with a school in Cagliari, in Sardinia. It occurred to me that if I could take the B1 Cittadinanza test anywhere in Italy, I might as well take it somewhere I actually wanted to visit.

So that is what we did. Joe and I took the night ferry from Livorno to Olbia, trained down to Cagliari, spent a week there with the test scheduled in the middle, and returned via Porto Torres to Genova on another night ferry. A language test vacation. I recommend this approach entirely.

So, in early 2023, I enrolled in a proper B1 Cittadinanza preparation course through the Cagliari school where I would take the test. The first two lessons had almost nothing to do with Italian.

Assunta explained how the test actually worked.

The B1 Cittadinanza has four sections: listening comprehension, reading comprehension and grammar, writing, and oral. The first three written sections each consist of two sets of six questions. To pass each section, you need to answer seven out of twelve correctly.  In other words, get just over 50% correct and you pass!

Here is the part that changed everything for me: the first six questions in each set are always easier. The second six are harder. Which means that if you answer all six of the easier questions correctly, you only need one correct answer from the harder set to pass that section.

I had been preparing as though I needed to get ninety percent on everything. I did not. I needed to be solid on the fundamentals and competent on the harder material. That is a completely different preparation strategy.

My first tutor had given me excellent language training. My second tutor gave me the mechanics. Both were necessary. Neither was sufficient without the other.

The other thing Assunta assured me of: the test uses real-world, everyday Italian. A short newscast about a local festival. An email to the comune about a neighborhood issue. A conversation about something that interests you personally. No trick questions. No obscure vocabulary. The language of actual Italian life — which, after six years of living it, I happened to know reasonably well.

The Test

I will not pretend I was calm walking in. I was not. But I was prepared in a way I had not been before — not just linguistically but procedurally. I knew exactly what was coming, in what order, and what I needed to do.

I passed with a score of 45 out of 48 (94%).

Forty-five out of forty-eight. On a test I had been convinced I would barely scrape through.

What I Would Tell You

If you are preparing for the B1 Cittadinanza test, here is my honest advice:

Study for the standard B1. The B1 Cittadinanza is structured differently and the passing threshold is more achievable than the standard B1, so even if you feel like you are “barely” passing the harder test, you will be pleasantly surprised by the cittadinanza version.

Find a tutor who can help you with the mechanics and the language level, but don’t be afraid to reach for the (B1) stars. It is true though that the mechanics matter as much as the Italian. How the multiple choice bubbles work, how the writing section is structured, what the oral section expects from you. Know this before you walk in.

Practice with real-world Italian. News, everyday conversation, practical writing. Not textbook Italian — the Italian of actual life.

And if someone tells you that you are not ready — use it. Let it be the thing that makes you go to Sardinia instead.

Signora, è pronta adesso.

She is ready now.