In New Zealand, climbing routes are graded using the Australian rating system, but in Italy (and around Europe, except UK) we use the French grading system, that, as all grading system, is quite difficult to understand unless you have a large number of routes you can refer to for comparison.
A while ago a friend of mine sent me an email with a non technical reading of that grading system:
1 - Everybody can do it
2 - Everybody should be able to do it
3a - You do it without rope
3b - You start feeling the need of a rope
3c - Max grade on which you can find...