Customer Reviews

Learn in Your Car Italian: The Complete Language Course [With Guidebook] (Italian Edition)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This course is better than Berlitz Rush Hour Italian but .... the Italian spoken in the course is too fast for me. I tried and returned Pimsleur for the same reason.

I personally am going to stick with Behind the Wheel Italian because it is the only course I have found that goes slowly enough for me to understand.

I do think this course would work very well in conjunction with Behind the Wheel Italian because you would at least have practiced the Italian pronunciation a bit slower first before using this course.

I also have a problem with the loud sound that is used in Learn in Your Car Italian to separate the lessons. I do think the lessons are useful, so I am giving the course 4 stars.

This program--9 CD's, 3 each for levels 1-3 of basic Italian--is the best I've tried so far for learn-it-yourself language programs. (I've tried several, both audio and CD-rom.) I keep the CD's in my car, and, listening to them as I commute each day, have managed not only to refresh the Italian I studied in college, but also to add to my vocabulary.

The focus is a bit travel-intensive for my particular tastes, but would be perfect for someone wanting to prepare for a trip. The lessons are sensibly laid out in a way that allows you to build confidence as you go (*and* they come with a travel case so you can brush up easily on the plane!).

I recommend listening to one level all the way through a couple of times before moving on to the next one, as the dialogue tends to pick up speed substantially as you progress.

ALSO, the manufacturing company's customer service is outstanding: I ended up with the same CD twice in my set, and they sent me the correct replacement CD with no problem or charges. Big cheer for Penton, Inc!

This is a great way to learn Italian! After the first CD, I knew lots of useful phrases. I went to Italy after working with all of the CD's, and felt very confident. Each CD builds on the previous one, making learning very easy. I would highly recommend this course, especially for anyone who spends a lot of time in their car.

This three level set has numerous outstanding strengths and a few weaknesses. Both the English speaker and the Italian speakers' voices are very clear and professional. The female Italian speaker's voice is simply superb and exudes a clarity that is definitely above average in my estimation.

The Italian speaker repeats twice after the English speaker, which is nice. What could be

problematic is the fact that both repetitions are spoken quickly and at a native pace. This has its own advantages and disadvantages. The positive aspect to having both repetitions fast and at native speed means that you are not surprised at what you hear when you actually find yourself in face to face conversation with a native-speaking Italian. This is preferable to being coddled and having both repetitions pronounced slowly at non-native speed. The downside is that the learner is never allowed to hear how the word or sentence is pronounced slowly first and then allowed to hear the same word or sentence pronounced at regular speed at a native pace at least once during the Italian repetitions. It can be difficult at times to distinguish sounds in a foreign language and imitate them accurately when it all sounds like a speeding blur to the ears.

Another outstanding strength of this set is the high frequency vocabulary that is used throughout. You learn real and authentic Italian sentences and vocabulary. This is a big plus. The 3 full text listening and grammar guides are also very effective in providing the learner with visual reinforcement after the drive.

Another plus is the sequence of the course. Learn in Your Car Italian goes from simple to more complex structures and sets an appropriate learning pace for the listener.

Perhaps the most unnecessary and annoying aspect of this course are the loud electronic blasts at the beginning of each lesson followed by the lesson number which is stated both in Italian and English. While it is nice to know which lesson is being covered, we must keep in mind that this is a `car' Italian course and for that reason the listener is hopefully not looking at one of the three

accompanying booklets while driving. This particular characteristic of the course reminds me of the foreign language classes of old when students used to sit in the language laboratory in junior high and listen to the old ALM or Audio Lingual Method tapes in a language laboratory. It feels archaic and rigid and distracts the learner from his or her task. Another more minor flaw is in the obvious lack of discernable sentence formation patterns which would assist the learner in being more creative and spontaneous in forming his or her own original sentences rather than simply `parroting' seemingly unrelated sentences one after the other.

The actual quantity of high quality vocabulary, short sentences and verbs that is included in this course is excellent. The different verb tenses are presented in an extremely clear and easy to understand format that will likely be understood by most English speakers. It is rare to find all of these qualities in one course and so I am pleased to conditionally recommend Learn in Your Car Italian to you. I am sure that you will agree that it is an overall excellent value for the money and if it is used in conjunction with another high quality Italian course, will assist you in learning to speak and understand spoken and written Italian. I strongly suggest that you supplement this course with one that includes some level of creativity, periodic retrieval techniques, conversations, sentence formation techniques and the like. Used together with a course like this, you are more likely to be successful.

Buona fortuna.

MARK FROBOSE/ AUTHOR OF BEHIND THE WHEEL ITALIAN AND BEHIND THE WHEEL SPANISH

I have tried and enjoyed several language learning programs, but I've never found one as easy to use as the "Learn In Your Car" series. I liked it so much that I got it in French, Italian, and German. Since you don't have to follow along in a book, it makes it easy to study while you are driving, cooking, working, etc. And, because it is easy to use, it doesn't get put aside and neglected like other programs. Repetition and clear pronunciation of the key words and phrases every traveller will need make this set ideal. I much prefer the cd versions.

This was exactly what I was looking for. None of that cutesy, irrelevant stuff found in some of the other audio courses. They say it in English, give you a chance to say it, then say it in Italian and give you a chance to repeat it, twice. The words and phrases are things you might actually want to say, with an emphasis on travel-related vocabulary. The only drawback is that the English is spoken by a man whose voice is more clear than the woman who speaks the Italian. There are times when she speaks too quickly or too softly. They should have traded places. Overall, though, this is very helpful. I have it running in my car everywhere I go.

Well, it definitely isn't as good as the Pimsleur language programs. I was amused to see the advertisement on some of the packages that showed Pimsleur more expensive when cost per word was compared. Yep, Pimsleur costs maybe nine times more and is worth every penny.

The differences are many. The design of the Pimsleur series is superior to this one. It does take longer to learn the same amount of material because Pimsleur repeats it over and over. They use conversations and the concepts of "Graduated Interval Recall" and the "Principle of Anticipation". The first concept just means that the time between repetitions is increased as you learn. If the item is repeated before the memory decays, the length of time you remember increases. Then, before it is forgotten, the item is repeated again, thus shifting the word or phrase from short term into long term memory. They've timed the average memory decay time to ensure the repetition occurs prior to the loss of the target word or phrase. In contrast, each phrase in "Learn in your car" is repeated twice, then you go on to the next word or phrase. In Pimsleur, the repetitions are more frequent, and are found in the context of various conversations.

The quality of Pimsleurs recordings are superior. The recording equipment was better. Furthermore, I dislike having the speakers on "Learn in your car" in only one ear or the other. This seems to be an odd use of stereo recording, and not conducive to clarity. Also, the Italian speakers in "Learn in your car" don't speak as clearly as they should.

Can you learn some Italian from these recordings? Certainly. I guess you'd just have to make up your own conversations and turn the non sequiturs into something meaningful. You'd also need to play them over and over and over...

I would not have minded seeing the transcript of the Pimsleur lessons in a book. But, as Pimsleur reminds us, their method was especially designed to learn to speak without the necessity for a book. They succeed at their goal completely. I can't say the same for "Learn in your car".

This instruction set was exactly what I needed to prepare for my trip to Italy, it was very effective in teaching me the language. It took about 1-2 weeks to master each of the 9 CD's, but after that you can confidently speak the language. I highly recommend it!

I never had any talent for learning foreign languages. Since I started using these tapes in the car during my commute to and from work, I've been surprised at how much Italian I've been able to learn and how much fun I've had doing it. I certainly never enjoyed studying language in school but these tapes make learning easy, fun and effective. I highly recommend it for beginners.

I took this out of the library to try to learn some Italian before I went to Italy on vacation. What a great set! It is very much geared for travel use, beginning with basic one word items like 'hello', thank you' and moving on to the words for 'train', 'bus', 'ticket' in blocks of one or two words, each building on a previous word or phrase. I have a one hour commute each way, but was able to go back and forth between the news, traffic and my Italian lessons very easily. After two months of learning and on my first day in Italy, I was able to ask for "Eight tickets for the bus please", be understood and understand his reply! Now, I'm going to purchase the set so I can continue.