Customer Reviews

Easy Italian Reader (Book & CD-ROM)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Length:: 3:12 Mins

I am Antonio Libertino, author of The secrets of the Italian language - I segreti della lingua italiana per stranieri (Italian and English edition), Parla l'italiano magicamente! Speak Italian Magically! Relax! You Can Learn Italian Now! and Impariamo l'italiano a Tropea (Italian Edition). I teach Italian for a living and I can say that this is a great book for self study, provided that you decide to work a little a day, every day. Enjoy the video review.

I am a beginner/intermediate level italian learner and this was pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Something easier than online italian newspapers to help me get used to italian grammar and pick up some more vocabulary in context. I've only made it through the first 8 "stories" and supposedly it gets tougher as it goes, so I'm looking forward to a little more advanced learning. Oh, and it comes with a CD that has MP3s so I can listen in my car on the way to work, nice bonus for the price.

Definitely not for the absolute beginner, not sure why they would even suggest that in the item description. You have to have had at least some basic grammar and vocab otherwise this would be torture. But if you know how to conjugate present tense, agreement of subject and adjective, masc vs fem nouns, you should be ok (at least for the beginning).

Not a particularly amazing book, but does the job. One thing I found totally unacceptable was that the glossary at the end doesn't bother to tell you the gender of any nouns, such as those ending in -e.

I'm surprised by some of the reviewers who said that this book is not for the beginning student, that it is much too difficult and should be tackled only if the reader is at the intermediate level.

When I first obtained "Easy Italian Reader," I wasn't sure that it would serve my purpose. I had been pursuing a self-taught approach for about 6 months. I had worked through some fundamental Italian vocabulary and grammar, and now I needed something that would place the words in a larger context, so that one sentence would connect with another in a conversational or essay form. In short, I was ready for a reading text, but one which would not be overwhelming or too advanced for my understanding.

To my delight, I discovered that this book was exactly what I had hoped it would be. It presents a reading format through a progressive approach, starting with selections which are relatively simple, then moving to those which add more sophisticated vocabulary and become gradually more complex in grammatical structure. The selections are grouped by theme into three sections: the experiences of two school friends, Italian history and Italian literature. Each selection has a small glossary for particular words or phrases that are pertinent to the topic but may require a definition or further explanation- a larger Italian-English glossary at the back of the book- and exercises, such as true-false questions and fill-in-the-blank sentences, to test reading comprehension. In the literature section, there are also short profiles in English about the authors of the pieces that have been included.

I have found "Easy Italian Reader" not only very useful, but interesting and informative as well. I would recommend it to students who have started to understand the basics of the Italian language and want either to begin or to expand the practical application of their knowledge. I therefore think it is appropriate for both the active beginner and intermediate student alike. It is simply one of the best books of its kind.

Designed for a second year student, the accompanying CD-rom enhances the learning with a multi-sensory approach.

There are two main parts. In part one the speaker(male)talks at a clear and comfortable pace. The second part uses a female speaker, who is a bit quicker, but hey, it has all the necessary controls to pause, stop, or go back.

You can listen to the text while reading it to work on pronunciation, and you can also download the entire text to listen on your Ipod when on the go.

Another option is to listen to the text, then listen to the questions and answer them orally to improve your listening and speaking skills. There is a link to check the answers (which are also in the back of the book) for instant feedback.

SO much better than just the book alone, and well worth the couple of extra dollars. Mi piace molto questo libro. Compralo subito!

This is a good beginner to early intermediate reader. You follow the same characters around and learn about them, which is nice because you don't have to keep re-learning the logistics about the characters you encounter. It starts you from the very early stages of reading and becomes progressively harder, which is great if you need to review a little bit before getting full-swing into more advanced territory.

There are reading comprehension exercises that encourage full sentences, and word puzzles throughout. Answers are in the back, another plus. There is also a word/vocabulary list at the end of each reading snippet, which usually leaves enough space for you to add your own.

Only con is that the CD is essentially worthless. I put it in my computer once, said "oh, that's all..." and haven't seen it since.

The CDrom includes Parts 1 and 3, but not Part 2 from the book -- was Part 2 supposed to be included??

Also, Amazon states in the description that the CDrom can be played in a CD player -- but it does NOT play in a CD player. Also, there is no option for viewing text on the CDrom, as was also incorrectly advertised.

Did anyone else have this experience or did I just receive a defective copy?

I strongly recommend this book. The format is excellent: hard words are marked and translated at the end of the reading, so they are easliy accessable, unlike some texts where you have to flip back to the end of the book. There is a good, short dictionary in the back; this has most, but not all of the words you'd want to know. The topics of the readings are pertinent and interesting. The only reason I give this book four rather than five stars is that the dictionary could include a few more words.

I had been teaching myself through the Living Language Conversational Italian for about 6 months when I got bored of just studying words. I wanted a See Dick and Jane type book. Thankfully, this book isn't that simple but when it describes the father of Antonio as Parla bene l'inglese, il francese e lo spagnolo, I finally understood the relavance of learning masculine pronouns and I was able to go back to my original book and reread the explaination of which pronoun to use before a consonant, vowel and x or s followed by a consonant. There are many other examples of places where I found my original basic study turning into real conversation and I was able to go back to review and really learn.

Yes, there are some words not in my small dictionaries, but very few and those I Goggled.

I really enjoy replaying these cd's. It's a wonderful supplemental learning tool.

The best way to properly learn foreign language is actually listen to what one is reading! There is well-known rules in learning and memorizing: the more senses one can engage the better result will come. I cannot even imagine this book (or any other study guides) without a CD-ROM, even if I have a privilege of a constant presence of a native speaker.

The Easy Italian Reader consists of three parts (3-5 texts each), Answer Key, and Italian-English Vocabulary. The book takes reader on a voyage of mastering the language by gradually increasing its structure in volume and difficulty. For example:

Units 1-4:

Text

A. Questions (to reply)

B. Questions (to write answers)

Unit 5: same as above, plus extra text, extra questions, and crossword added.

Further units enriched with dialogues, True-False questions, historical references, short novels etc. The CD offers not only audio but actual text in Italian and its translation in English. Simple and helpful - I love it!