Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This is a proper book to make a quick, but adequate introduction to Italian, so that you can survive in Italy till you improve with more sofisticated language trainings. It includes all the basic grammar, it gives exercises so that you can practise, but they are not a lot, hence you may proceed fast.Besides grammar in each chapter it gives a different batch of words related to a useful subject( health, kitchen etc.). There is a sufficient vocabulary at the end.It uses an encouraging and motivating language. It is a good book for those who need to reach to a specific level in a short time.

Molto buono, eccellente, see reading this book has already made me learn a few workds in Italain. That is how good I think it is. I have never been that good at learning new languages before, but this book is so interesting and easy to understand I am learning new sentences and words every day. I can even converse with Italian speaking people now. I love my copy of this book, I am so happy that I finally found a book to help me to learn to speak Italian. You will like it if you get it.

I'm a freshman in high-shcool and I've prevously taken 4 yrs. of Spanish and I recently decited to learn Italian. This book is great! It was very, very understandable and it keeps on encouraging you to stick with it even if you may be having trouble. A super book to help learn Italian!

I was amazed at how much fun this book is...not your average dry (boring) language book. It is easy to use, complete, fast and actually made learning about Italy and the language enjoyable. 'Just the right peparation for my trip to Italy.

This is a great beginners book for learning Italian, I recently bought this book and I am already saying sentences, and learning new words, this is a must buy for anyone wanting to learn how to speak Italian.

I learned a lot for reading this book, very well written, I must buy for a person serious about learning to speak, read and write, Italian.

The book is very helpful and easy to understand. The transaction was easy and fast, and I receive the book in less time that I was expecting.

Good Job.