Berlitz Italian

Rating:
Summary: Talk about a crash course - get ready to flip those pages!!!
Review:
I bought the audio cassette version of this guide that comes with a phrasebook. The nice feature is that the phrasebook has sections that are organized by color. So you can look to blue (example) to find vocabulary while you're at a restauarant, red when you're at a shop, etc. Hang onto the phrasebook while on your trip - the only thing that you will definitely need it for is the restaurants. Many of the best restaurants have authentic dishes that often have no English description.

The problem is that the audio guide goes so fast that I found myself flipping pages to see where the speakers words were. You will not hear all of the vocabulary (even the most important basic words) spoken on the cassette or cd. So you may not understand the basics of pronunciation and accent. This is a definite crash course.

If you have less than a month until your trip, and if you would like to buy a phrasebook with a bit of proununciation guidance, this is for you. After you've finished the audio guide, you will be relatively familiar with the color-coded sections. This makes the phrasebook easier to use. However, I didn't have the patience to finish the audioguide, because it was fast and hard to follow. I tossed the phrasebook after three days on the trip, because most Italians know some English, and I had learned some Italian from a different tape set. See my other review for a better shot at learning some Italian!

Rating:
Summary: It's great
Review: I found this book and all it contained was good for the beginner who want to study Italian. It is easy to learn, no doubt!

Rating:
Summary: CD/phase book are good, well organized combination
Review: These Berlitz CD/phrase book combinations are excellent. The CD is good for listening to in the car. Both the CD and the book are well organized and have good basic information. I have used several, and this new Italian one seems up to par.