Customer Reviews

Global Access Special Edition Italian: Deluxe Language Course [With CDROMWith International Alarm ClockWith Flash CardsWith Travelogue DVDWith Carryin (Italian Edition)

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These CDs are not a good way to learn Italian. Many of the CDs are just Italian words translated, with no grouping at all. You don't learn colors, or animals, or directions for instance. It's just random words in random orders and it's hard to learn that way. Imagine trying to teach someone english, and one lesson was: Paper, floor, hotel room, breakfast, present, sister, close. That's how random these lessons are. But the killer are the final CDs with Italian conversations. You listen to an Italian conversation four times, and they never tell you the translation! There is no way to test whether your translation is correct or not. Also, you learn various types of verbs, such as past and future tenses, but they never explain the rules of conjugation. You are left to guess. For instance, why use essere in some past-tense verb conjugations and avere in others? Why does the verb match the subject gender in some cases and not others? I had to go through another course to answer all these questions. It was frustrating to spend so many hours with these CDs and be left wondering so many questions, especially what the conversations actually said. The only positive for this is you hear a lot of Italian spoken, so you know HOW words are said, even if you don't know what they mean.

This isn't a bad tool for a beginner but it lacks a dictionary to actually show you the words and pronunciation. The woman speaks with an accent so you have to listen carefully and it gets a little confusing on certian words when one English word is followed by what sounds like four Italian words. Do you actually have to say the four words for one, or are they giving you four examples? I think you will still have to refer to someone who speaks the language to clarify some of the lessons.