Italian Language Learning Reviews

Score: 7/10

Pros:
audio exposure to spoken Italian with good number of dialogues & activities; grammar focuses on specific conversational structures & phrases relevant to lesson’s topic; involves you in conversation by asking you to think & participate; plenty of Italian to read without wordy explanations; pronunciation taught in an integrated way (as you listen to speakers); cultural notes; low price

Cons:
limited focus on pronunciation (for example, in the form of a pronunciation guide); pacing & organization of grammar topics is uneven; only rarely teaches general backbones of grammar, but when it does, expects you to memorize charts without much explanation; missing some beginning grammar (like the subjunctive)

For self-taught students learning to speak Italian on your own, Teach Yourself offers some of the least expensive book-audio “complete courses” you can buy. Teach Yourself Italian book and 2 CD set divides beginner’s Italian conversation and grammar into 25 themed lessons.

The lessons follow a standard format and organization for Teach Yourself courses (or, for that matter, most any book+audio conversational language course). Courses open with a dialogue (or three), usually accompanied by simple observation questions or certain remarks to help you understand each dialogue. Short-to-medium vocabulary lists also give English translations for new Italian vocabulary introduced in the dialogue.

After the dialogues, you’ll find explanations of grammar, which take up multiple pages and typically explain a specific conversational phrase or structure in Italian. Sometimes, the author takes on less specific topics such as verb conjugation in Italian (including verb tables). These explanations stay on topic and give a few examples, but there’s rarely a sense of flow, continuity, or building a linguistic skill set from one explanation to the next.

Practice exercises and a cultural note peppered with Italian words end each lesson. The exercises stay simple throughout the course: matching, fill in the blanks, answer observation questions.

The end of the book includes an appendix with answers to the activities, a short Italian-English and English-Italian glossary and a brief index.

The book lacks the typical Italian pronunciation guide in its opening pages. Also, although the themes of each lesson are well represented in the conversations, vocabulary and even grammar topics, some themes come across as generic for Italy, while other potentially viable ones are left out.

It’s hard to find a decent conversational Italian course at this price, and, for many, Teach Yourself Italian will get the job done for a low cost. I recommend that you spend some time considering more thorough courses, but this lesson book represents a strong (but imperfect) intersection of quality and price.

Score: 8/10

Pros:
plenty of exposure to Italian in the form of dialogues & conversational sentences; audio CD contains sounds for ALL Italian words & phrases in the course; teaches you to speak and write a good amount of beginner’s Italian; structure of the lessons keeps them short & focused; good pacing of increasingly difficult material; introduces grammar & pronunciation in context of conversation; audio made paramount with book following & accompanying the CD

Cons:
often learn phrases that aren’t part of basic daily conversation, especially in the beginning; have to stick with the program to see serious results; not a thorough approach to grammar & language structure; assimilating requires listen & repeat approach

Assimil Language Course: Italian With Ease introduces the Italian language to beginners in an audio-intensive course full of short lessons. Assimil is already well known in France for their language materials, and these lessons stand as an English adaptation of their earlier efforts. With this product, you purchase a book & 4 CDs intended to be used together throughout the course.

The course begins with a short introduction to pronunciation, with sections focusing on specific sounds and listing Italian words with that sound (words are always translated). All of these words are read aloud on the first CD.

After learning to pronounce basic Italian, you quickly move on to a series of lessons. Their structure is brief and consistent. The pages offer parallel text the whole way through, with Italian on the left page and translations on the right. The audio CD reads all of the Italian (everything on the left pages).

Each lesson focuses on a dialogue (or some sort of conversational text), which doesn’t always mimic the basic conversational language you expect to learn. Rather, you begin as a “passive” learner, listening to a half dozen or so simple sentences and reading very short notes. After this dialogue, you’ll complete very simple exercises (fill in the missing word, translate, or change the form of one word). Over time, the dialogues grow longer, and you’ll be exposed to more specifics, particularly with respect to grammar. Still, the focus always remains on the dialogues.

Hand-drawn cartoons with smart remarks in Italian appear every so often, adding a little spice to your study of the language. Appendix includes a bit of extra information, not much of interest (not answers to the exercises, which are found within the lessons). A short index of language topics helps you navigate the course, but there’s little to help you go back through the book and look up more specific information.

As a way to start speaking Italian, Assimil Italian with Ease builds a good base without letting explanations, cultural notes or grammar charts get in the way. The course maps out a series of dialogue-driven lessons that exposes you to the spoken language and maintains a consistent learning curve. You’ll need other books to study the nuts and bolts of grammar, and you’ll need something else if you’re looking to simulate real-life conversation.

Score: 8/10

Pros:
lots of time with a teacher who explains the Italian language in English; plenty of audio snippets from various native Italian speakers help you pronounce phrases; solid pacing & organization of material in each lesson, as well as across lessons; spoken dialogues highlight phrases used in practical situations in Italy; focuses on the kind of language spoken in daily conversation; in grammar & structure presented in context; exercises refresh the phrases you learn in each lesson; cultural info integrated into lessons; extra audio exposure with CDs & MP3 files

Cons:
fairly passive apart from the simplistic fill-in-the-blank exercises & short speaking activities; too much face time with the onscreen tutor if you’re looking for an immersion program; lengthy English explanations of words, phrases & language use won’t work for all students; demands a good amount of memorization; price tag

Dissatisfied with other available language courses, the creators of Fluenz Italian offer a software product with on-screen instructor led video lessons, conversational phrases & dialogues, and typing & speaking activities.

The main feature of this Italian lesson course is its focus on one-on-one instruction. You’ll spend time wearing a headset or turning up your speakers as you first listen to everyday, believable Italian dialogues/street conversations. Then, you’ll watch a woman talk you through Italian words, phrases and language functions. These tutoring sessions focus on the sentences you hear in each dialogue, but do a solid job of integrating that material into a broader understanding of the language.

The lessons present Italian grammar in conversational context without shirking the structural foundation of the language. You’ll learn to ask useful questions, give meaningful answers and use real-life phrases from the outset. The course stays determinedly focused on its goal of teaching you the kind of Italian you’ll need for participating in everyday conversations. You’ll also learn relevant facts about life, culture and society in Italy, which, in the best cases, manages to parallel and even integrate the linguistic elements you’re learning.

Practice exercises involve various types of type-in-the-blank activities. You’ll do things like match English words and phrases with Italian vocabulary or type the Italian translation of an English phrase or listen to an audio file and type what it says in Italian. These work as well as they ever do, but they certainly can’t be called innovative or, I would argue, highly effective. Sometimes, you’ll have the opportunity to use your microphone as you record lines from a dialogue in your own voice, allowing you to compare your pronunciation to a fluent speakers’.

The entire package, in how it looks and how it works, shows a degree of polish. The smooth interface, stand-out videos and images, and even interaction between your tutor and the Italian words on the screen all testify to a tight performance. The modular organization of the lessons sets the learner’s expectations from the beginning, and the software adheres to this organization, keeping the course evenly paced.

Although some of my comments above sound like a mixed review, my experience of Fluenz Italian was mainly positive. Students who learn well with audio lessons like Pimsleur Italian or even the less thorough Michel Thomas Method Italian might benefit from the Fluenz way of learning to speak Italian.

Score: 8/10

Pros:
good coverage of basic phrases & conversational language; image-rich and multimedia-rich presentation; hear words and phrases spoken aloud, with a sense of how far you are from a native accent with speech recognition; helpful exercises connect ideas with words well, particularly for visual learners

Cons:
not quite the be-all-end-all of language learning; vocabulary-heavy; Italian grammar still left unclear; price

As I noticed when I reviewed this course for other languages, it’s hard to evaluate this product without reviewing the entire Rosetta Stone program, since Rosetta Stone: Italian is in some ways a copy of the same product for other languages.

Unlike audio-only methods, this course introduces writing (or reading) and speaking (or listening) simultaneously. It does this by associating written vocabulary words with their sound and with a variety of images. Exercises push Italian learners to complete those associations by choosing the picture that best answers a question in Italian, for instance. The program then attempts to seamlessly transition learners to grammar and sentence structure by incorporating vocabulary items into a larger framework without too much extra explanation that bogs down traditional grammar books.

The heavy reliance on vocabulary learning and secondary treatment of grammar leaves some tricky concepts unexplained. Image and phrase association/repetition works great for some types of visual learners, but auditory learners might prefer CD/cassette courses with less distractions. On the other hand, the speech recognition allows for better mimicking of repeated words and phrases, even though it fails to simulate interaction with a native Italian speaker.

Rosetta Stone has its share of followers and detractors. The method is heavily marketed and touted as highly acclaimed, which draws plenty of feedback and criticism. Many users and reviewers, myself included, don’t feel that the course is as perfect as it advertises. I have spent most of my life using language learning courses of all stripes, and this one isn’t the magic bullet.

Does this mean that the course isn’t worth the money? It certainly has a high price tag, but no higher than other immersion courses like Pimsleur Comprehensive Italian I, also rated and reviewed on this site. If you benefit from a colorful, multimedia-rich software package that teaches vocabulary and basic conversational skills, especially for learners with solid visual memory, you’ll find that the course offers a great language learning experience.

This course ultimately can’t do justice to the kind of realistic interaction and linguistic problem solving that best activate those language centers in your brain. But, in the end, it can do better than most at advancing beginning learners dedicated to progressing through the course to a solid understanding of Italian.

Score: 8/10

Pros:
this shortened version of the all-audio Pimsleur Italian lessons introduces the basics of spoken Italian directly; the strengths of the complete Pimsleur course are still relevant to this version

Cons:
audio only; in many ways starts you off & leaves you at the beginner level; drawbacks of full Pimsleur course apply here

Pimsleur Conversational Italian: Learn to Speak and Understand Italian repackages the first 16 lessons of their full course, Comprehensive Italian I. Over the course of several hours, you’ll immerse your ear in Italian with this program spanning 8 CDs worth of audio files.

The bulk of what I can say here about the audio explanations, examples and practice exercises you’ll be exposed to simply repeats my review of the full course. Read that review for a better sense of how the Pimsleur method works, as well as what kind of Italian language learning experience you can expect to get out of these “sessions” (lessons).

For students looking to speak a bit of Italian and get a sense of how words, phrases and basic sentences work, Conversational Italian offers a great audio introduction to the language. If you learn well with this highly acclaimed method, move on to the much more robust full version. I still recommend this shorter course for travelers, language enthusiasts and curious learners, as well as those not convinced that “the Pimsleur way” is the preferred way to learn Italian.

Score: 7/10

Pros:
the positive points about Pimsleur are relevant to this course; you get a sample of the Pimsleur method in eight lessons; you’ll learn some basic words and phrases for everyday use; the package comes MP3 files to play as you go as well as the standard audio CDs; a booklet helps you keep track of vocabulary and phrases as you learn

Cons:
any cons about Pimsluer apply here; these eight audio lessons are fairly basic; if you really want to learn to speak Italian through audio CDs, move up to the more complete Pimsleur courses

Pimsleur’s goItalian borrows the first 8 lessons from its comprehensive set, allowing beginning learners to get a taste of this audio-only program. Pimsleur has a history of paring down its full course into less expensive packages. The full course, Comprehensive Italian I, contains 32 lessons, and some of its lessons have been repackaged as the 16-lesson Conversational Italian and the 10-lesson Basic Italian. All of these courses start with the same lessons, the difference is how many lessons you get with your purchase.

Clearly, this eight-lesson program is the skimpiest offering yet – but a simple taste of Italian could be exactly what you’re after. If you’re new to the much-touted Pimsleur method, you’ll have a chance to see what it’s like. If you’re traveling and looking to learn just a bit of Italian, you can do that here. The MP3 files make on-the-go study a bit easier. Keep in mind that you’ll be pushed to speak and listen to Italian rather than read or write the language – it’s worth visiting my review of Pimsleur Comprehensive Italian I to learn more.

Score: 9/10

Pros:
solid way to get immersion-style exposure to the Italian language from native Italian speakers; the conversations are presented in short chunks for you to digest and make associations between words; lots of cues allow you to respond to questions directed at you; plenty of audio practice activities interspersed throughout each lesson; entirely devoted to teaching you how to speak and understand spoken Italian; lessons are really more like long audio exercises, consistently prompting you to think and participate in the language

Cons:
leaves a set amount of time for you to answer questions, which is crucial for the exercises, but those pauses won’t be long enough for some students; you won’t learn to read or write the language; if you’ve already had exposure to beginner Italian, best move up to Italian level II

Over the course of 30 lessons, Pimsleur’s Comprehensive Italian covers a lot of ground – from the meaning of words to the structure and grammar of the language – all in context of everyday Italian conversations. If you’re new to Pimsleur, you’ll notice that the method is entirely audio. I’ll explain what that means for you as a language learner.

Pimsleur provides a highly regarded method that’s somewhat different from the other language guides sitting on bookstore shelves. The biggest difference is the audio-only format of these Italian. The course includes a number of CDs, but no course book to complement them.

Books and writings aren’t something the Pimsleur method lacks, since its main goal is to teach you to speak and understand spoken Italian. Writing, both historically and linguistically, is secondary to spoken language. On those grounds, Pimsleur argues that their auditory course isn’t missing written text – if anything, it’s a more natural way to learn Italian.

The lessons engage Italian students directly. In many ways, they’re like one long audio exercise, and the narrator advises you to finish one each day. Every new lesson presents you with new words and phrases, while building on older ones. The lessons don’t go quickly, but spend time dealing with elements of the language. You’ll be consistently prompted with “How do you say …?” or “How do you ask…?”, instead of simply reading through dialogues and expecting you to follow along.

The speakers on the audio CD take the time to repeat new words and phrases. The speakers even break down tougher words and pronunciation points until you can pronounce words together to form longer sentences. You’ll find many pauses that give you time to repeat along and answer questions. Still, if you need time to think, you’ll have to backtrack by rewinding the CDs or tapes. That need is especially acute if you’re a slower auditory learner, or plan to multitask by listening to the course while driving or exercising.

By the end of Pimsleur Comprehensive Italian I, you’ll listen to longer conversations and participate in more complicated exercise drills. If you would like even more practice, Pimsleur offers you the opportunity to move up to Italian level 2 and level 3 courses.

Pimsleur also cuts these thirty lessons down to the first ten in Basic Italian and the first sixteen in Conversational Italian. Comprehensive Italian (don’t get confused – it’s the one reviewed on this page) allows you to progress more smoothly throughout all thirty lessons, and to build progressively and evenly on earlier material. You’ll tackle a wide range of conversations on dozens of everyday topics. More importantly, you’ll have many hours of exposure to spoken Italian under your belt – a huge head start wherever you plan to go from here.

It’s not easy to find such an immersive Italian course, especially if you’re an auditory learner, and you want to learn to speak Italian. At first, the price might seem too high. But know that this program is among the most effective approaches to speaking Italian available. If you’re looking to read and write the language, you can supplement this course with books about grammar, writing and pronunciation.

Score: 7/10

pros:
rather natural presentation of vocabulary, conversation and grammar; warm, inviting style & tone; covers a lot of beginning grammar; can hear dialogues read out loud on the compact disc; exercises complement the dialogues & explanations; space to write answers to exercises in the book, allowing it to double as a workbook; good pacing & sense of progression; price

cons:
some students will find the constant presence of author’s explanations too long and distracting; dialogs & sentences aren’t always translated, making it hard to follow at times; grammar buffs will complain that this course doesn’t touch on some intermediate grammar points (like subjunctive verbs); audio just good for dialogues

Living Language’s 30 Days to Great Italian is one of many crash courses in beginner’s Italian conversation, vocabulary and grammar sitting on the reference shelf of your local bookstore. It takes a warm, quirky tone as it talks you through beginning and early intermediate points of the language. So, if you have thirty days or more to learn Italian, what will this course do for you?

The introduction clearly explains how to use the course, and what to expect from each lesson. It helps you pace yourself, and then moves on to pronunciation.

The pronunciation guide presents Italian vowels and consonants in the context of Italian words. You’re given English “sound-alikes” for each word (so you’re asked to pronounce calzolaio as “kahl-tsoh-LAH-yoh”), but, fortunately, this typical – yet cumbersome – transcription system doesn’t leak into the main lessons.

Lessons have bullet points that list what you’ll learn in the chapter, warm-up activities, “HEAR…SAY” dialogues, and a back-and-forth interplay between 1) explanations of grammar and language functions (including many examples) and 2) practice activities. The practice exercises match the material you find in the dialogues and explanations, and are typically of the ‘question & answer’ or ‘fill in the blank’ variety.

Explanations may be too long-winded or intentionally cheeky for some learners. The attempted (or, at times, genuine) wittiness is reminiscent of the Idiot’s Guides or For Dummies series in its lighthearted informality. Explanations are plentiful – in stark contrast to a course I just reviewed & recommended the other day. Notes about Italy, Italians or Italian culture, about grammar, dialect differences, or everyday lingo take up as much space as Italian language material – verb charts, words and sample sentences.

The formatting is clear and comes off as polished and organized. Chapter and section titles stand out bold and clear. Tables with grammatical info read easily. Italian examples are given in bold italic text with English translations below or beside them (but not all words & phrases are translated!). The order of presentation of themes and topics could be called into question, but they at least struck me as relevant to Italy.

The end of each lesson lists answers to exercises in “crib notes”. The lively chapter and section titles don’t always clarify what you’ll find in a given lesson, but a nice index of grammar and conversation topics at the back of the book makes up for it.

The book ends with an appendix of Italian grammar and verb charts, which are quick and handy refreshers or shortcuts when you need them. You’ll also see a few pages with useful phrases and genuine “sound like an Italian” filler words.

30 Days to Great Italian fails to offer much that’s not found in other conversational language course books. Still, its thorough coverage, good organization, light tone and overall balance should appeal to self-taught learners looking for a good Italian lesson book at a low price. However, I do NOT recommend this book and CD package if you can’t handle lengthy, casual explanations that talk you through the language (as if your own informal tutor or teacher wrote the book).

Score: 8/10

pros:
thematic, organized approach to conversation topics; the topics cover everyday life and travel; grammar presented in conversational context; plenty of exercises; formatting & style makes relevant text stand out; audio CDs (assuming you can find them!) offer chance to hear native speakers; explanations kept short, with focus on Italian words, dialogues & activities

cons:
spotty coverage of grammar, which only covers basics (especially of verbs); conversational approach requires you to listen & repeat what’s on the audio CDs – only written activities are at all interactive

Barron’s Learn Italian the Fast and Fun Way is a lesson course and workbook with eight themed units. All along the way, this book tries to engage you with writing activities, colorful drawings, learner-friendly highlighting and pronunciation help. You’ll tackle conversations, readings, explanations of grammar and exercises, you’ll listen to native Italian speakers on the audio CDs (or cassettes) that accompany the course, and you’ll even get a few extras.

This course describes itself as an activity kit, and each of the 29 lessons, spread across eight units, lives up to that description. Explanations are kept to a minimum. Italian words are clearly written in bold text, with boxes, lines and yellow highlights drawing your attention to key words and phrases.

Most of your new learning is done in dialogues (with new words highlighted yellow) or vocabulary lists (where words are accompanied by color cartoon illustrations). You’ll also find blue-tinted tables with grammar summaries, but these don’t get bogged down or lengthy. Every new Italian word has English-friendly pronunciation key written near it, like dieci DYEH-chee “ten”.

Apart from the vocabulary, dialogs and grammar, you’ll be completing activities. These will have you filling in blanks, matching words and even completing a few crossword puzzles. The nearly constant flow of exercises keeps the course fresh and engaging, even if it’s never innovative or immersive.

Now, how much Italian can you expect to learn? You’ll definitely cover a fair share of vocabulary – numbers, greetings, weather, time, as well as loads of phrases related to people, places and events. You’ll learn to talk about everyday activities like going to the store, the bank, ordering food, finding your way around town, and hotels and lodging. The situations are generic, and not overtly specific to Italy (apart from the inclusion of some city maps).

You’ll also learn a good deal of beginner grammar – nouns, articles, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs, and sentence structure. You’ll learn the present tense (‘does’) of regular and irregular Italian verbs, and the future (‘will do’) and conditional (‘would do’) of a few verbs. It’s a good foundation for further studies, but, since all of these are brought up at random moments in a conversational context, you won’t find the treatment of grammar routine or too methodical.

A final multiple choice review exam tests your knowledge of the language before you leave, and a set of yellow index cards with Italian vocab words on one side and translations on the other serve as a decent memory aide.

To top it off, you’ll get a short “dictionary” with the book, which is really just an Italian-English and English-Italian vocabulary glossary. You’ll also find the perforated yellow index cards I mentioned above as extras in the back of the book. It’s a shame there’s no vocabulary, phrase, or grammar index by topic, which would make it easier to come back to these lessons later. Still, the table of contents and your memory should help you reference what you need to here.

Make sure to look for a copy with the CD, and not the book alone, especially if you’re learning on your own. It helps you practice as you pronounce Italian out loud along with native speakers.

Learn Italian the Fast and Fun Way provides an active romp through beginning Italian. If you enjoy a conversational approach with a cartoony style and plenty of simple written activities along the way, this may be the Italian course for you.