Customer Reviews

English Grammar for Students of Italian.

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
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This is an excellent book for English speaking students learning the Italian language.
Please note that it does not help you in pronunciation of the Italian language.
Its aim is to explain the grammatical structure of the English language and the correct Italian equivalent.
It approaches the technical subject of English grammar in a clear, simple and well structured manner. Each section or chapter builds on the previous or makes clear reference to other relevant pages.

The book also contains some hints or suggestions to assist in learning a language - useful for anyone not accustomed to studying or learning a language formally.

If you want to learn a basic 'tourist' level of Italian, this is not the book for you.
If you want a clear insight into the formal structure and grammar of the English language and how it applies to Italian, considering buying this book.

Explaining those technical terms such as 'infinitive', 'participle', 'gerund' etc. this book is well worth considering as an useful addition to your collection.

If I had to pick three books to help me learn the Italian language, I would have this book, an Italian/English dictionary plus one other multi-media book (i.e. text, cassette) covering learning Italian in a simple straight forward manner.

To quote, the book "explains the grammatical terms and concepts that you will encounter in your Italian textbook and relates them to English grammar. ......Once you have understood the terms and concepts in you own language, it will be easier for you to understand your (Italian) textbook".

I couldnt agree more!

This book makes the grammar of both English and Italian stand out in high relief. You'll emerge from it with a firmer grasp of both languages.

If you want to learn Italian, it should be one of the first five things that you buy. The other four should be a good dictionary, How To Pronounce Italian Correctly (the booklet and tape cassette), Ultimate Italian (the book and audio CD or cassettes) and Pimsleur Italian, if you can afford it.

This book is a wonderful read if you were only interested in English grammar, What a wonderful concept to show the concepts of Italian and English grammar side by side. Each section is very readable and I particularly like the fact that each section includes references to other relevant sections. I thought I'd be reading it cover to cover, but I find it's more informative to hop around as my cuiousity is piqued.

Update:
That paragraph above was written in October 2001. It's now May 2011, and I just want to reiterate this is a great book. I have already read it cover to cover, then used it with my Italian lessons hopping around the book as needed. Now as a review I've started reading it cover to cover again.

It is important to note that this book alone won't teach you enough Italian to be useful. It is a supplement to any good (or great) textbook. Your Italian textbook assumes you know English grammar. Paraphrasing NP's comment: this book taught me more about English grammar than I'd ever learned (and retained) in school.

This book is an excellent book for those students of Italian who have been out of school for some time and are a little rusty on English grammer as well. I find it very helpful for both English and Italian.

Although I'm an attorney and have nearly perfect grasp of spoken and written English, my understanding has always been on an instinctive level. This book is fascinating more for what it teaches us about our own language than for what it shows us about Italian.

I highly recommend it.

I love languages and have studied French and German. I have both books, the "English Grammar for Students of French (and German). The biggest hurdle I had was not understanding English grammar well enough to understand how other languages applied their rules. Without understanding English grammar, learning a foreign can be tough. I learned more English grammar from this book than all the years of junior high, high school, and college combined.

The simply method that the English Grammar for Students of (any language in the series) uses allows the student to make the breakthrough into the foreign language lessons. I've attended schools that are full emersion classes in French and German, and the teachers LOVED this book. Now that I'm moving on to Italian, English Grammar for Students of Italian will be joining me in class as well. This book should be a mandatory addition to any language class.

Now, if the authors could just make one more in the series.....I'm also studying Polish and would love to get a better understanding of Polish grammar.

Great tool for those studying the Italian Language and need assistance in connecting our English grammar to the verbs and tenses of the Italian Language. Easy to understand .

This book is extremely helpful to anyone interested in studying Italian and learning Italian grammar. It explains the English grammar first and then goes into a simple explanation of Italian grammar. I find it to be an essential resource. My Italian teacher uses it too.

I purchased this book used at the University of Houston bookstore. I like it primarily because it is concise and easy to carry. I can pack it in my travel bags when I head out to Italy. It is easy for me to look in the table of contents and navigate to the appropriate section.
In a nutshell: compact, to the point, easy to find the info.

So this breaks most things you want to know quite well, and breaks it down so that anyone can understand it, which is good. I had a few questions my teacher didn't explain well enough but this helped me resolve those issues. My main problem is that one thing we don't have in English is not there, or at least not when I was looking for it, and that is the Indirect pronoun, it is never truly explained, although I know it is similar to a Dative in Latin. And it can be easily confused with the Direct Object Pronoun, I still am not sure what is the difference in the usage, but it doesn't not explain. This the only issue I have had with it yet, but it is helpful.