Italian Language Learning Reviews

Score: 6/10

pros:
themed lists of thousands upon thousands of Italian words & phrases; good variety of topics; solid organization; can help students beef up vocab & tourists complement their travel phrasebooks; vocabulary lists included are up-to-date and pertinent

cons:
no index, no way to look up specific words!; must-know tips offer stingy and random advice about Italian grammar and culture; not basic enough for a phrase book, yet not organized like a dictionary; some more detail or info about certain entries is needed (such as the way dictionaries use key terms); no pronunciation help & no indication of how to pronounce any of these words

Daniella Gobetti’s Must-Know Italian: 4,000 Words that Give You the Power to Communicate is a compendium of words and phrases sorted by topic. This book’s format almost makes it a large Italian phrasebook, or an extensive themed vocabulary list. With that in mind, let’s see how it might help you learn the language.

The introduction explains how the book functions, and how to read each vocabulary entry. In each list of words, the author marks false friends with FF, includes definite articles with nouns, and gives verbal prepositions in brackets (like “occuparsi [di]“).

The book is divided into twelve chapters. Each chapter has an overarching theme, like “A Place to Live”, “Education” or “People and Relationships”. Within each chapter, sections tackle more specific topics, and these sections are dominated by word/phrase lists. “People and Relationships” has sections like “Physical Descriptions” (listing parts of the body) and “Family Relations” (I’ll let you guess what kind of words you’ll learn there…).

The word lists themselves take up the majority of the book. This is a reference guide with translations of Italian and English vocabulary, and no explanations or handholding.

These lists have two columns – English text on the left, Italian translation on the right. All the Italian words are bold, making them easy to spot. Here’s a sample pulled from page 82:

As you can see, words are the main focus, while phrases using certain words are secondary and given in italics beneath the word used.

Short, gray “Must Know Tip” boxes add some language and even culture advice, but they’re scattered and limited in appearance and scope.

The end of the book has a nice bonus: over 40 pages of exercises. While they’re mostly fill-in-the blank and multiple choice questions, these practice activities are numbered to correspond to the twelve chapters in the book. After that, you’ll find answers to the exercises.

Although the six-page table of contents lists every topic and subtopic in the book, it’s frustrating that this volume lacks any sort of index or cross-referencing of any kind. The back cover proclaims that “your search for the right word in Italian is over”. That’s only true if you can guess which words are organized into which categories/topics. There’s no way to search for specific words here.

If you’re a later beginner or intermediate student looking to expand your base in Italian vocabulary, Must-Know Italian has some word smarts for you. It’s well organized and covers a variety of topics, but it’s not without its faults. You’ll be better off if you come to this book looking to expand your ability to talk about certain topics, rather than searching for specific words and phrases.

A second group to benefit from this book, perhaps unintentionally, is the semi-informed business traveler or leisure tourist. If you’re planning a trip to Italy, and have some basic knowledge of Italian (or plan to buy simpler phrase books to back you up), this vocab builder could act as a great, robust conversation enhancer. It’s organized by theme, just like your average phrasebook, so it’s a worthy recommendation for your travels to Italy as well.