Learning to speak Italian
349000
I've always wanted to learn Italian, being one myself. Thank you for this. Now maybe I can talk to "my people" in the Italian bingo room.
1891073
if you are learning the Italian language, this is a good media to start. Pros-lots of repetition, each lesson builds on prior learning, opportunity to pause and repeat. Cons- booklet useless; doesn't give English meaning of vocab and doesn't relate to lesson. This version only includes to lesson 16 in Italian 1- if you want to complete Italian 1, you need to buy lessons 17-30 separately.
4362161
I have some knowledge of Italian and I love to learn more when I can.  This calendar enables me to learn a new phrase each day.
55632
Very useful for my beginning Italian college class.  Recommended.
Italian-English and English-Italian.  Verbs. Commonly used phrases.
2786751
these are great little stories for people learning Italian. It helps tremendously with language skills. Quite enjoyable with some vocabulary words, a summary of the story and questions to make sure you understood it.
3878782
Over the summer, I've been trying to learn Italian. I took four semesters of college Italian nearly 30 years ago, and I still remember a fair amount of vocabulary. So rather than dust off my old textbooks, I am using a reading-in-context approach to develop my proficiency. This little book of stories, presented both in Italian and in English, was a great choice for this purpose. Like the stories in Volume 1, those in Volume 2 are crafted to appeal to children, but I am a teacher, so the youthful themes actually appeals to me. I also like how each of the stories teaches me a little bit about Italian geography, culture, and history. The Italian texts and English texts are not direct translations of each other, however. This threw me off for awhile, but once I read each story several times in Italian and develop a more solid grasp of the vocabulary and grammar, I find that I no longer need to reference the English text, so it didn't matter any longer than the two texts weren't a perfect match.

I can see this would be a very useful volume for parents or teachers to use with bilingual children (or children who are learning one language or the other). Author Anastacia Hawkin's storylines and characters are interesting and the dialogue is actually great fun to read aloud.  Leo Latti's illustrations are colorful and attractive, and they provide some extra 'context' to aid in word recognition. Most of the vocabulary seems to be what native-born English-speaking children entering school would have in their mental lexicons, though there are a few low-frequency words sprinkled on every page, to stretch readers' meaning vocabulary knowledge. With regard to the Italian vocabulary used by translator Claudia Cerulli, that also seemed to me to be based on what is likely the oral language foundation of children in the early elementary grades, with a few harder words here and there. The reason I believe that to be the case is that I knew a fair percentage of the words, and I could infer most of the others from context--yet my own Italian proficiency is still somewhat limited at this point.

One very small criticism has to do with the layout of the parallel texts. I prefer it when the page is divided in half, vertically, so that as I read in my target language, I can reference the other language simply by sliding my eyes to the left or right column. Here, several paragraphs of Italian are followed by several paragraphs of Italian, and sometimes the reader has to turn a page to read the English version of what was just presented in Italian on the previous page. This is a graphic design issue that I think could be remedied easily in future editions.

Also, I do wish that the publisher offered an audio CD containing professional recordings of the stories in both English and Italian. That would be a very helpful tool for language learners, especially if the readers' rate could be manually controlled, as it can to some degree with Audible books.  If this was available, I would definitely buy it.
3606794
A simple fun learning book with colorful pictures, perfect start for our 6 and 7 year old to learn Italian.
527654
I'm traveling to Italy soon and want to learn a little of the language before going. I borrowed several language programs from the library, but they are all very involved and more than what I need. I just want to learn some basic words and phrases and how to pronounce them. This course is by far the simplest and quickest. It comes with a workbook to do the written lessons connected with the audio on the CD, which helps reinforce what you're learning. If you're looking to learn some Italian to use as a tourist, this is an excellent and inexpensive program. It's organized into sections geared to the tourist so it's very easy to follow. If you want a quickie course, this is a great one.
990194
Pronouns in Italian go far beyond simply memorizing words and phrases -- this is where I feel I have to begin to "think" in Italian. This book is a great way to supplement the "Living Language" course I'm using.

Does anyone know if the following are errors, in the Unit 4 answer key? 4-2.4, 4-2.5 and 4-8.1: should these be "la" instead of "lo"? And should 4-7.5 be "sta" instead of "sto"?
4121027
Clever little collection of flashcards in Italian! However, they are instantly intelligible only to those who already speak/read Spanish and/or French. The method works, however, once a speaker has mastered the meanings of the flashcards
4746015
I did a test trial of Rosetta Stone online and found that I was not comfortable learning a language without first knowing the basic grammatical structures. This book is helpful in getting me started. Since I have not surveyed other Italian grammar books, I cannot say how it compares but so far, so good. I am slowly picking up rudiments of the grammar and hope to be able to do some oral practice on my own with online help before going to Italy later this year.
1838581
This has proven to be a most helpful resource for mastering colloquial Italian.  I work as a priest in a parish with many elderly Italian parishiners, many of whom speak little or no English.  What a blessing to have a language package that I can listen to in the car and read and review at home.  It has helped me communicate with and understand Italians in a way no other audio course has.
4588502
This reader is well thought out for someone who has had an intro course in basic Italian. The short stories continually expand the vocabulary, grammar, and idioms. The little stories and jokes are very entertaining to read. They read like real italian conversation, instead of stilted standard phrases. Vocabulary definitions are added at the bottom of the pages as the new words are introduced, so flipping to the dictionary in the back is not needed very often.
1241343
Some time ago I bought the German grammar and found it quite good for a good and fast review. The Italian grammar is also excellent and has allowed me to understand the basics of this lovely language.
3363686
So I am planning a trip to Italy with my husband. He is Portuguese and I am Polish so we have a pretty good disposition to learning languages both of us being bilingual and also dabbling in other languages as well, but are not fluent in them. We wanted to learn a little bit of Italian so we wouldn't be like little wide eyed does. This book is awesome; we both have a copy in our kindle app so it can be accessed on our tablets or our phones. I think this will be very useful when we get there so I can just have it on my phone. It has a great layout with lots of conversational Italian - basic things like common phrases used in day to day conversation such as how to get from one place to another, numbers, days etc. etc. It also has an English/ Italian dictionary which is great because if I need something a little more advanced or something I don't remember I can just look it up. This guide contains the phonetic pronunciations of words too so you're not just left in the dark with an Italian word that you don't know how to say anyway. All in all I think this is a great guide, great price and I definitely recommend it for beginners to the beautiful Italian language.
3661629
I took Colloquial Italian with me to Italy last year, where I was to stay for one year as an exchange student.  This language course was fundamental in teaching me the basics ( not just touristy questions like a lot of other courses!).
It was so good that I lent it out to other students who were dispairing over the language, and all had similar success with it.
Un ottimo introduzione alla lingua italiana, per chi voule imparare facilmente.
902664
Actually, this would be a very good book for an Italian who wants to learn English.  It provides proper pronunciation information for all English words, but not for the Italian words.  It simply lists the Italian word and the English equivalent.