Customer Reviews

Italian

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am going to Italy in 3 weeks, and was totally stressed about not knowing the language. I bought this Pimsleur course in desperation, knowing that a lot of the ambassadors use this method. I was prepared to be disappointed, but I was totally amazed at how effortless and natural this method is.

Basically, the Pimsleur method immerses you in a very small subset of the language at first, and runs you through EVERY permutation: "I don't understand english", "I understand english a little", "I understand italian a little", "do you understand english?"...etc. Once you've done this for a little while, it ramps up the vocabulary and the different verbs and usages. The progression is so natural, you'll be amazed at the sophistication of the conversations you will understand on the CD.

I can now ask my wife: "Vorrebbe mangiare qualcosa con me?" and to ask the waiter (il camierere) "Vorrei una birra nazionale, molto grande e molto freddo!" The first sentence is a standard Pimsleur construct, the second one I naturally constructed on my own with the knowledge I gained during the course.

Anyway, I can't wait to buy the rest of the series. Io parlo un po' l'italiano adesso!

Buona Fortuna!

Before travelling to Italy last year, I used this program to learn a little bit of Italian. I had no previous experience with Italian. I found the CD's very well organized and easy to follow, and I thought the Pimsleur method made it easy to learn the material. While I was in Italy, my confidence was improved markedly because I had done this course before I left.

However, I wish it had focused more on topics I was likely to encounter as a tourist. I did supplement this program with a very simple Berlitz program for travellers that taught me more of the vocabulary I was likely to need.

Also, while I liked the Pimsleur method and found it to be a useful way to learn Italian, I think the prices they charge for the full version of their courses is too high. Cynically, I suspect that this product is part of a marketing strategy to get you enthusiastic about their program so you'll buy the full system. After getting my feet wet with this product, I would have enthusiastically purchased Pimsleur Comprehensive Level 1 for $75, but not for $300. However, I would probably purchase a full Pimsleur system, even at the prices they're asking, if I were going to be moving to a country where I didn't speak the language.

I think the course is great for audio learners. I realized about halfway through the course when I was becoming frustrated with the speed of the conversations, it is because as an artist, I'm a very visual learner. After I do some visual homework, this course will be more useful to me. Ask yourself before buying it, am I an audio or visual learner.

I went to Italy on a study abroad program and I am a firm believer in learning some of the language before visiting. Therefore I purchased this CD program to listen to in my car. It was extremely helpful in some areas, others not so much. I felt this program was more towards those who plan on having long, pronouned contact with others. It tells you how to ask people if they want to go eat something with you and where. I was hoping for more of airport language, what to say in a resturant or hotel. Still, this helped greatly because even though I was not going to ask someone "do you want to eat dinner at my place", I picked up on some of the words.

The best part of this CD is it helped me a TON with my dialect and my accent. The things I did know how to say, I said well and many times people thought I spoke fluent Italian (until I got a blank look on my face as they spoke to me).

I highly reccomend this CD to anyone but also, I would buy a Italian dictionary as well! It is wonderful hearing the language but seeing the words are very important too!!
A definite bargain for the knowledge you will gain!

This series of tapes is a great concept - learn by hearing, break language down into its simplest part(the syllable), and lots of repetition from the syllable to the sentence level.

It must be a great method for English speakers who have never tried to learn any foreign language before. However, I found it so simple that it was frustrating and annoying. If you have any background in romance languages this method will probably be too simple for you too.

For instance, the entire 1st tape (both sides) is devoted exclusively to learning how to say, "I understand Italian." "I don't understand Italian." "Do you understand English?" "I'm American." Tape 2 begins, of course by repeating what you've already learned. In a half hour I expected to learn more.

Part of the problem is that I had already bought other tapes first and then moved on to these because I had heard they were so good.

While I would hihgly recommend this if it's your first time learning a foreign language, if you've had high school Latin, Spanish or French, move on to something a little more advanced like The "Listen & Learn" or "Berlitz" methods.

The Pimsleur method is really terrific! On 8 CDs, there are 16 lessons which are 30 minutes each. There is enough repetition in later lessons to help you retain what you've learned in earlier lessons. You'll learn the differences between masculine and feminine nouns, adjectives and responses. Questions asked require thought and response, and there are even explanations for the little piccadiloes found in the language. You'll learn the pronunciation because the speaking is both very clear and concise. I've visited Italy many times, have even written a book about Italy, and am moving there next year. In the mornings as I drive to work, I listen to the CDs and do the lessons. All in all, a very excellent way to learn conversational Italian. However, if you really want to learn Italian beyond just conversational Italian, I recommend "Italian Verb Drills" by Paola Nanni Tate and a good grammar book. Do these in conjunction with the CDs and you'll master the language before you know it!

PIMSLEUR products seem very highly regarded and it's sales pitch is that you will remember everything that you learn. Well... that's not saying much given the amount of material. There are 8 lessons of 30 minutes each, and the first lesson teaches you how to say "I understand Italian", "I understand English", "Do you understand English?", "Are you American?". The material you learn in each lesson is nowhere near enough you need to know for even basic "tourist" conversation.

The method of repetition and building sentences word by word is a good way to learn pronounciation and learn basic phrases. But these tapes are only good for someone with money to burn. You will need other material (Living Language series is excellent) to really learn the language.

These are the exact same CD's found in "Pimsleur Quick & Simple Italian" IBSN#0743517679 but with a different box and almost double the price. Though the content is fine, no one should spend the extra money when they can get the exact same CD's for less!

Pimsleur has a nice method here. Much better than Berlitz. I just can't get through how quickly the Italian is presented on the CDs. Because of this major drawback, I prefer
Behind the Wheel Italian which has slower pronunciation by the Italian speaker and is much easier to learn from. Learn in Your Car is also good, but again, too fast for me.
Still, Italian Instant Conversation is decent if you supplement with a good Italian course like Behind the Wheel.

I actually bought ... version of these tapes. I found them easy to follow, and generally enjoyable. I was a Russian major in college and never tried to learn a language in this fashion, but found this audio program to be very well done. Unfortunately, you can't get a huge breadth of knowledge from four hours of instruction, but it does give you some foundation to go out and learn more if you are interested. The lessons themselves add onto the previous one, but usually only with the introduction of about 10-20% new material, the rest is old material so you are constantly reviewing. This is good because it really reinforces the lessons' content, but it also makes for a somewhat slow pace and of course four hours is only enough at this base to get a fairly basic understanding of the language. Although a few grammatical concepts are explained, I would have wished they had given full verb conjugations instead of just the first person and second person singular. Likewise neither plural nouns nor verb tenses were explained or given as examples. Despite this, it was definitely enjoyable and really gives you practice in saying a lot of Italian words and phrases. It repeats a lot, yes, and some people might get tired of this, but this is a big reason for it being so effective in teaching pronunciation. As far as teaching by syllable, this is generally only done when introducing new words. They do sometimes step through a sentence if it is fairly long first doing one word, then a couple, then a couple more, then the whole thing. But this especially important when dealing with a long sentence in a language you are not familiar with and which you don't have anything in writing to follow along with.