Think & Talk Italian '98

Rating:
Summary: Berlitz needs more practice
Review: After completing Berlitz Italian Think & Talk I certainly feel my several months of work with the CD's and book should have netted better language skills. There is no transcript (in English OR Italian) for the dialogues on the CD's. In the first 6 lessons, the general meaning is stated in English before Italian, but in the last 6 lessons, the Italian speakers chat away, leaving you absolutely no option to learn what is said. There are several points where the book and CD do not appear to match so the exercises are hard to follow. Some of the lessons had useless topics, for example why would anyone want to have a conversation about their ex-wife (lesson 3)? I was especially disappointed that Berliz is running so behind in technology. This is the ONLY Italian language set of the many they sell that is in CD format and I had to purchase the (useless for me) cassettes with the set!! Hope they clean up their act, I have had great luck with some of their other sets.