Customer Reviews

Frommer's Italian PhraseFinder & Dictionary (Frommer's Phrase Books)

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

 

 

My husband and I just spent 17 days in Italy, in both cities and less-touristy areas. We interacted with speakers of fluent English and those with no English at all. I had faithfully practiced the three-month Pimsleur Speak and Read CD course before we left, so my husband relied on my for almost all our interactions. This book never got used during the trip.

It's not that my Italian was so good -- far from it. We were constantly looking up words in our Petite Larousse, or coming up with creative ways to say what we meant when I couldn't remember a word. I found this book's organization completely useless, though, and the process of searching for the right phrase quickly was a nuisance. It was much faster to just look up a specific word in the dictionary, and work with that, rather than thumb through for the right phrase while the kind (or impatient!) Italian waited.

The only (slight) saving grace of this book was the section on dating and picking people up at bars. We never tried out any of the phrases ("you smell nice" or "do you have a condom?"), but we had a hoot back at the hotel room reading through that section. But if you need those phrases, maybe you'd be better off looking them up online and memorizing them, rather than interrupting your, ah, hunting to flip through a book.

A handy little reference. . . . This book is truly pocket-sized, able to fit into one's shirt pocket. It provides sets of handy dandy phrases for a veriety of settings. The introductory section, in fact, is entitled "Survival Italian." How do you greet people? Hello=salve; How are you?=Come sta; Please=por favore; and so on. . .

A second section focuses on getting there and getting around, such as how to navigate taxis. "I need to get to ---" would be "Devo andare a ---." Or, "How much will that cost?" = "Quanto mi costa?" Other sections are on Lodging, Dining, Socializing, Money & Communication, Culture, Shopping, Sports & Fitness, Nightlife, and Health & Safety.

The book concludes with a brief English-Italian dictionary as well as an Italian-English dictionary.

It's a compact volume (it has to be to fit into a shirt picket!), but there are quite a few useful tidbits in it.

This book has a section on curse words, however, no where in the book does it list common, important words such as fork, knife, spoon.... Also, most of the menu items I looked up in the book were not included either!!!!!

Lots of good info especially if you are in the 20-40 range and single. A fine choice for a pocket size phrase finder.

very helpful intro book carry this with me every trip here.
you can count it for quick words and simple quotes.

I just came back from 2 weeks in Italy and this book was very useful. It was easy to find a quick saying and it was small enough to fit in my purse.

Awesome book!!! Going to Italy next year and this book will indeed be very helpful!!