Most Helpful Customer Reviews
33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
awesome... totally awesome, December 23, 2001
This book is absolutely packed with almost everything a language student could need. As it lists, there are five hundred one verbs, all arranged alphabetically throughout the book. It lists each verb in its seven simple tenses (present indicative, imperfect, past absolute, future, present conditional, present subjunctive, and imperfect subjunctive) and its seven compound tenses (present perfect, past perfect, past anterior, future perfect, past conditional, past subjunctive, and past perfect subjunctive). It has a page on pronunciation of Italian vowels and consonants, and then it goes into talking about how to conjugate the verbs. It begins with showing how to conjugate regular verbs, following this with the Italian translations of each tense's and mood's name. An example conjugation of an English verb is then shown to help illustrate what each tense means. After this comes further explanation of the verbs' tenses and moods, in which it deals with each of the fourteen given tenses. It simplifies the regular conjugation endings after this by showing what is taken away and added to each infinitive for each tense. Then finally come the five hundred one verbs, each one with at least two example sentences to help the reader understand its usage. Afterward comes a section on verbs which take a preposition, a list of phrases in Italian for dealing with everyday situation, days, months, how to count to 100, currency, weights, measures, temperatures, and clothing measurements. Lastly come two indices dealing with the verbs: first the index about irregular forms commonly found in the language, matching them with the verb from which they are inflected; then comes the index of English-Italian verbs as a cross-reference. This is an awesome choice to not be overlooked. Glancing through the book every so often will help to increase your vocabulary, and if you stick to a plan of learning so many verbs a day/week, you'll be learning them even more quickly. It's a simple and awesome book that any student or teacher would enjoy and appreciate.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
501 Italian Verbs:Fully Conjugated, March 22, 2000
This review is from: 501 Italian Verbs: Fully Conjugated in All Tenses in a New Easy-To-Learn Format Alphabetically Arranged (Barrons) (Paperback)
This book was very helpful for the Beginner to Intermediate. A constant source for reference as well as for "pulling together" the thousands of idioms and related vocabulary which is helpful only if you can use the verb correctly. A basic and a must for Italian studenti! I lost my copy to my professor and had to buy another one. A great value.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Stress and vowel quality are not indicated, July 4, 2006
I agree with the reviews below: this is a fabulous collection of verb paradigms for both learning and reference. But a significant flaw is that neither the word stress nor the quality of the stressed vowels are indicated. The stress on the present tense of italian verbs (and some infinitives) is not predictable from its orthorgraphy and it may appear on either the penult or the antepenult of a verb. Such information is necessary in order for a learner to acquire a correct pronunciation, and it is missing in this book. Moreover, a stressed "e" or "o" may be pronounced either open or close in Italian verbs in the present tense and in some irregular past-tense and past-participle forms; but in this book, there is no indication of a preferred pronunciation. Such information would be of great intrest to a learner who wanted to develop a native-like accent. In order to find information regarding verb stress and vowel quality, a learner would need to consult a second dictionary. As an alternative, I would recommend, at least for starters, the trade paperback called "200 Italian Verbs" by Barnes and Noble. Although it is limited to 200 verbs, the stress is conveniently indicated by an acute accent on verbs with close "e" and "o" and by a grave accent on verbs with open "e" and "o". This publication is out of print but still available on line for under five dollars from used-book sellers.
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