Rating: 
Summary: A great way to go
Review: I've been using Behind The Wheel Italian for 3 weeks and it's amazing how effective it is. The course starts with a handful of basic verbs that can be combined to form a wide array of sentences (e.g. "I want to sleep" and "She can't talk on the phone") and then expands to include useful phrases, numbers, days of the week, etc. By the end of the course you'll own more complex phrases such as "I brought three big suitcases full of clothes just for this vacation."
The narrator and Italian speaker are very clear and the lessons progress at the perfect pace, including moderate introduction of new material as well as periodic repitition of words and phrases previously learned. The method requires very little effort -- simply repeat along with the CD and before you know it you're rattling off Italian sentences naturally.
Unfortunately the CDs are not broken into separate tracks, which makes it more difficult to return to where you left off. Also, you'll want to obtain a book on Italian to develop at least a basic foundation for reading and writing the words you learn. That said, Behind The Wheel Italian is a great way to go -- time and money well spent.
Rating: 
Summary: Do not buy this product
Review: The theory behind it is excellent. HOWEVER, when you see the packaging, you know it is someone doing business from their home. The CD tracks do not go forward or back... so you might have advanced to the next track, but when you stop the CD it goes back to the beginning of track 1. This is a course meant to be used "behind the wheel" of a car... how can you you safely drive a car as you are fast forwarding, which takes forever if you want to advance much beyond the first track. So really, you never get beyond the letters, or the first few words. Believe me, I ordered Berlitz and that is the way to go. Also, try a company called World of Reading Ltd.
Rating:
Summary: [...]
Review: The theory behind it is excellent. However, [the quality is bad]. The CD tracks do not go forward or back... so you might have advanced to the next track, but when you stop the CD it goes back to the beginning of track 1. This is a course meant to be used "behind the wheel" of a car... how can you you safely drive a car as you are fast forwarding, which takes forever if you want to advance much beyond the first track. So really, you never get beyond the letters, or the first few words. Believe me, I ordered Berlitz and that is the way to go. Also, try a company called World of Reading Ltd.
Rating:
Summary: It's scary how well this works...
Review: This 6 CD set will undoubtedly funnel the italian language into your head. Even when you've got your eyes on the road and you are only half-listening to the discs, you can't help but pick up some of the language. Best results are achieved through repetition. It really helps to repeat out loud with the native Italian speaker on the discs. I feel very confident about my ability to speak very basic Italian. The reason I gave this product 4-stars as opposed to five is that you don't have the ability to skip from track to track. An entire CD is one track - all 60 minutes of it. So, if you want to skip to a particular section of the disc, you've got to fast forward. It's very inconvenient. In addition, many of the CD's have redundancies. For example, the narrator will teach you to count on disc one. Then, he'll do it again midway through disc two. If I want to re-learn numbers, I'll just re-listen to disc one! Again, a minor annoyance. Overall, this is a great product for learning the italian language. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Avoid Like the Plaque
Review: This course arrived with a xeroxed cover. The CD's looked like they were made by someone on their computer at home. The sound was scratchy and clicked often. A very sub-standard product.
Rating: 
Summary: Really Excellent Method
Review: Two weeks ago, at the behest of my friend Robert who travels frequently to Italy, I reluctantly purchased Behind the Wheel Italian.
What a surprise. A small name in the foreign language business comes up with the best method and course. From beginning to end, this course, in an interested way, takes you from zip to conversational in Italian without having to guess. Everything is included on the CDs which makes this perfect for the car or gym. The English speaker gives you the English once, and Anna (the native Italian speaker) gives you the Italian twice. Most important of all, this unique approach to language learning gets you speaking your own original sentences so that you can really speak the language, not just parrot a bunch of incomprehensible jibberish.
Congratulations to Language Dynamics, the small company, for having the creativity and innovation to make the best basic Italian language course on the market.
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