The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Italian On Your Own [Paperback]

Euvino (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 1 pages
• Publisher: Alpha (1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028621255
• ISBN-13: 978-0028621258
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #744,319 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A common sense approach, unlike most other Italian books, September 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Italian On Your Own (Paperback)

Features in this book that I really appreciated were the comprehensive lists of words within each topic, e.g., verbs in each conjugation, idioms, and function-oriented categories. While there are some errors (one wonders if an expert in Italian reviewed the book), most are easily corrected by the reader. The approach is logical, sometimes light-hearted, and easier to understand than many of the standard grammars. I don't, however, believe that you can learn Italian on your own just by using this book. The book itself tells the reader to go out and buy a dictionary and grammar. I would add some language tapes/CDs. Furthermore, the way to pronounce the words often cannot be determined from the phonetic spellings by an inexperienced learner. Even so, this is my favorite reference for learning Italian after one year of college course.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An ok book, September 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Italian On Your Own (Paperback)

This book is best used as a review by someone who has already studied Italian. It is not bad as a refresher, but it will be quite difficult for most people to learn Italian merely from reading this book. Language learning requires practice in listening and speaking as well as reading and writing. I had two main problems with this book. First, as others have noted, there are quite a few errors. Secondly, the pronunciation guide could be improved -it does not explain which syllable the stress falls on, and the accent in Italian is not always easily predictable. As far as teach-yourself-a-language books go, this one is not bad. It is motivational and easy to read. However, it is important that you do not expect to be fluent in Italian after finishing this book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I found it helpful, August 20, 2000

By 

m. espedilla (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Italian On Your Own (Paperback)

Being a student of both French and Spanish, I found this book satisfactory in terms of what it teaches. Because I'm also studying other romance languages, I didn't find it too difficult to follow the lessons, although I have found some typographical errors in the text. There is also the issue of the "As A Rule" and "What's What" informational inserts--even though they are informative, there were times when I found them somewhat disconcerting, because there are times when it would bring up a topic completely new from what was just discussed in the previous paragraph/page. The pronounciation guide was good, but I doubt that anyone who is starting out completely blank in the field of romance languages would be able to adjust so quickly. I also bought other books, and this book is the most appealing to me, perhaps because it is, for the most part, very clear and concise. All in all, the book can be helpful if you know what you're doing, but there's no substitute for good old fashioned language classes.