Complete Italian Step-by-Step 1st Edition

I have this format for several languages and I use them all, not just Italian. Unfortunately my daughter returned from a summer excursion to Italy and wanted to learn the language so I gifted her my copies.

There is nothing I can write about this book that will do it justice. This is the one book everyone attempting to learn Italian absolutely needs to own.Italian isn't as easy to learn as Spanish, but it's not as difficult as French. Anyone who really wants to master it can, as long as they have the proper tools. (Italian children speak the language pretty well by the time they are two!) The best tool you can give yourself is this book.This book is for the beginner, intermediate, or advanced student. It tackles the full spectrum of Italian grammar, and it does so in a way that makes each lesson easy to grasp. You begin learning Italian right away, and, as you complete each lesson, you learn more and more. Each lesson builds on the one before it, so don't skip around.Don't make the mistake of thinking this is just another Italian phrase book that tourists love to buy. It's not. If you master everything in this book, you'll certainly be able converse as a tourist in Italy, and you'll be able to do so much more as well. You'll be able to hold full-fledged conversations with any Italian person, in Italy or anywhere else. The only thing missing is hearing Italian spoken by actual Italian people who have Italian as their mother tongue. (There are many Italian language discs you can pick up for this purpose. I have the "Living Language" series, and I can recommend it highly.)One caveat: Make sure you complete every exercise in the book and commit each lesson to memory. You don't learn Italian simply by reading about it. Try thinking in Italian. When you see a bottle of wine, don't think of it as "wine." think of it as "vino." And on and on. It won't be too long before thinking in Italian becomes automatic.I love Italy so much and have made more than fifty trips there. (I used to live there, in a town in Tuscany.) As an opera coloratura, I've had to learn to sing in Italian, French, and German, and all opera singers are encouraged to learn to speak at least one of those languages fluently. My choice has always been Italian. As such, I've seen more than my share of books promising to teach me to speak fluent Italian; however, none of them could even come close to this book. This book is head and shoulders above any other out there, no matter how advanced your studies are.Love Italian and want to learn to speak it? Are you willing to spend about an hour each day doing so? If you answered yes to the above, then this is definitely the book for you. Good luck!

I’mFinding this book very useful as a companion to online language learning, which often doesn’t cover that much grammar. It fills in those gaps nicely. However, (1) it moves very fast and assumes quite a bit of vocabulary pretty quickly so it’s maybe best as a review or a supplement rather than a stand alone course (2) the readings are ridiculously old fashioned (discussing all wives as stay at home mothers for example) (3) there are a few mistakes in the answer key. Not many but as of lesson six I’ve found a couple. I am enjoying using the book despite these things and learning a lot!

This has been a really good book for helping me consolidate different categories within the Italian language. I need to understand why something is being used at a certain time or place, and this book helps me a lot with that. It doesn't completely cover it, but it certainly helps. The practice sections with correct answers in the back put the chapter emphasis in reality. This has been a great extra book in my efforts to learn Italian.

I completed the first chapter of this book, and I really enjoyed my time with it. I'm looking forward to reading and practicing with the remaining chapters. However, I do have to point out a big caveat, something I saw at least another reviewer mentioning.This book is for you if...If you have taken a bit of Italian, maybe from online courses that emphasize speaking and listening more than reading and writing, this book is the perfect complement to take your skills to the next level. This is precisely where I stand. You can even use this book as a replacement for other courses if you feel comfortable enough with your pronunciation and listening skills.This book is NOT for you if...You know absolutely zero Italian and are starting from scratch. The exercises expect you to use vocabulary that wasn't covered in the actual lessons. You'll either feel lost or will spend too much time checking out dictionaries to try to come up with the missing words the book expects you to know.

Great book to learn a new language.

I wanted to learn Italian. Figured I'd roll the dice on this book. It doesn't feel super beginner friendly. Glad to see others having similar complaints. I got through the first chapter but I found myself confirming some of the things with AI and Google due to weird wording or explanations. It is as if someone needs to teach this book to you as apposed to just learning on your own. Then there seems to be some vocab that simply is not covered and it will ask you to translate things in lessons that were never mentioned. That said, I did learn some very useful things. I might check out some other books and just read through this one and avoid the lessons.

I’m currently using this wonderful book as an accompaniment to an in person Italian class.Practical exercises and cues that make learning Italian an enjoyable experience.