Ciao! (with Audio CD) (Book & CD) [Hardcover]

Carla Federici (Author), Carla Larese Riga (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0838451756 | ISBN-13: 978-0838451755 | Publication Date: November 27, 2002 | Edition: 5

Now, in the fifth edition, this highly successful program maintains its strong focus on spoken proficiency and cultural awareness, while adding new readings with targeted writing activities for additional practice. The text's thematically based chapters focus on everyday situations that walk students through contemporary Italian culture. The audio CD included with every new student copy of the book helps students improve their listening comprehension of structures and vocabulary as well as their pronunciation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I think the 6/e is an improvement on an already strong text. My students, with no prior knowledge of Italian, have been able to move quickly into spontaneous communication on the topics they become familiar with."

"Ciao! provides a balanced amount of cultural info, vocabulary and grammar exercises to help any teaching style."

"I enjoy this text. The improvements are good and it is modern and interactive, which is in my opinion the only way to effectively teach languages. My favorite part of Ciao! are the cultural pages and the dialogues, especially the funny ones that students can have fun with, which in turn motivates them."

"What I like best about Ciao! is the structure of the chapters, the fairly modern cut of the cultural sections. The exercises push the students to interactive dialogues." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English, Italian

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Heinle; 5 edition (November 27, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0838451756
• ISBN-13: 978-0838451755
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #63,925 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #18 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Italian
  • #63 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > Italian
  • #63 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > Instruction > Italian

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars E un libro ordinario..., November 18, 2008

By 

Lucy Cat "Mandy" (Charlottesville, VA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ciao! (with Audio CD) (Hardcover)

Ciao! is being used at my university for the first three semesters of Italian courses, so I have had an opportunity to thoroughly use the text. While I am a new student of the Italian language, I have studied the French language since for several years using some outstanding texts.

It seems there are few major Italian textbooks on the market, and unfortunately none of them seem particularly good pedagogically speaking. This book is "good" howevever, I would not recommend it for self-study for several reasons:

1. The organization of the text is not particularly logical. Grammar rules are scattered throughout the chapters. It is not until halfway through the text that the student learns the possessive pronouns (his, her, their, our, your, theirs, etc...) yet, they are used frequently in the dialogues and exercises leading up to their actual discussion in the text. My problem with this is that the student is goes too long without learning how to use the possessives and has too much of an opportunity to develop incorrect usage and sentence structure during the first half of the book.

2. The corresponding CD contains only the dialogues which are found at the opening of each chapter. While its nice to have these to listen to, the student would benefit much more from hearing the vocabulary words pronounced! This was probably one of the most frustrating challenges I faced when learning Italian-- lack of access to a quality audio lexicon.

3. The exercises are good- but there is no answer key. Again, for students, having a resource like an answer key is essential for developing proper sentence structure and avoiding the development of poor habits. The corresponding workbook (Ciao! Quaderno degli esercizi Workbook and Lab Manual will cost you another $70.00 and does have an answer key available (Audioscript (with Answer Key) for Ciao!, 6th for which you'll need to shell out an addition $10.00. However, the workbook with answers is by no means deserving of your $80.00, so hold off on purchasing those.

4. The cultural interludes which are found at the conclusion of each chapter are extremely complicated and completely written in Italian starting from the first chapter. Needless to say, the student doesn't learn much about the culture since its too difficult for a novice student to read!

There are some positives to the text however. There are a number of up-to-date idiomatic expressions and new technology (such as cell phones) are included in the vocabulary lists. It is a nicely illustrated book and the chapters are limited small, manageable selections so that the student doesn't feel overwhelmed. With the right instructor, one can learn quite nicely out of this book in a classroom setting.

For the self-learner, who does not have daily access to an Italian-speaking friend, I recommend the following alternative texts which may prove more effective for home-study:
1. Rosetta Stone Version 3: Italian Level 1 with Audio Companion
2. Italian Now!: A Level One Worktext
3. Ultimate Italian Beginner-Intermediate (Book) (LL(R) Ultimate Basic-Intermed)
4. Soluzioni! : A Practical Guide to Italian Grammar
5. Berlitz Self-Teacher: Italian (Berlitz Self-Teachers)
6. Italian for Dummies (With Audio CD)
7. Routledge Intensive Italian Workbook (Routledgeintensive Language Courses)

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Ciao, March 21, 2006

By 

J. Wren "salmonine" (Palo Alto, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ciao! (with Audio CD) (Book & CD) (Hardcover)

Unfortunately the CD does not seem to follow the text. Presentations on the CD are very limited and do not provide good practice for students. The Berlitz CDs are much better.
The book is very expensive for a language text. In updating the text through sequential editions, the authors have added very little to the topic, but have changed the pagination sufficiently to make it necessary for students to buy the latest edition. Thus increasing the cost for students without any significant improvements in the material.
In some places there are vignettes in Italian with no translation provided. Since some of the expressions are not in the vocabulary, this makes it difficult to understand, for example "Informazioni", page 86 in the 5th edition.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Italian 101, October 16, 2009

By 

Nela Karagach (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ciao! (with Audio CD) (Hardcover)

The grammar exercises in the book do not have an answer key, which does not allow for complete learning experience. The CD's are helpful, but do not announce from what page of the textbook the readings are and often I found myself frantically going through pages looking to match the reading in the book with the track on the CD. Not a good study guide for a completely novice Italian learner.