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B2🔤 Letters M & N

Italian word

novella

short story, short prose fiction

Looks like

novel

a full-length work of prose fiction

⚠️ The trap

An Italian 'novella' is a short story, not a full novel. The Italian for a full-length novel is 'romanzo'. Confusing them when discussing literature is a common mistake.

To say "a full-length work of prose fiction" in Italian:

romanzo (for a full novel)

"novella" in English means:

short story, short prose fiction

Example

"Boccaccio scrisse cento novelle nel Decameron."

"Boccaccio wrote a hundred short stories in the Decameron."

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