Customer Reviews

Italian on the Go (Barron's Languages on the Go) (Italian Edition)

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About a year ago, I had the honor of going to Italy with my high school band. I live in Minnesota, and it was to be my first experience in a country where English is the second language. So being the type of person I am with language (I could speak Spanish, English, German and Esperanto fluently already), I thought I should pick up a little Italian before I left. So I went to a local bookstore and was directed to the 'Italian on the Go' cassette set by the old woman behind the counter. The price was right, so I purchased it and popped it in on the car ride home. From the moment I heard the Italian banjo-thingy start to play and the authentic language pursue, I was hooked. The amount of vocabulary I retained from just a few listenings was incredible. Literally everything stuck! When I got to Italy, I was by far the best Italian speaker in our group. And I could speak what I knew confidently and without thinking! With the help of a basic phrase book and the cassettes, I could shop without using any English. It was amazing. Since I came home, I have kept Italian close to me. It is my most proficient language next to English and a lot of it is because of 'Italian on the Go'. Though I've moved to much more advanced courses now, I still run through the 'IOTG' cassettes once a week to keep my pronounciation sharp. I just love the dialouges! Anyone who wants to start learning Italian shound start here. It's prob'ly the most beutiful language in the world and now there's a NO EFFORT way to fluency.

ability to interact w/voices on the DVD is extremely well paced and then the accompanying booklet allows the listener to check for any small portion that might not be understood

Although there are some phrases about travel, hotels, and restaurants, much time is wasted on things that are not helpful to the beginner, and especially not to the tourist. Siblings arguing over borrowing money from their grandparents? People gossiping about their friends and describing their living room furniture? Whose idea was this? In any case, there is no systematic approach to the language, nor any serious attempt to help a beginning student learn the basics of vocabulary and sentence building. There are much better choices available, such as "Learn in Your Car Italian".