Rating: 
Summary: Great intro
Review: This is an excellent intro to Italian for the person who wants the basics for a vacation to Italy, or perhaps as a starting point for someone who wants to go on to study Italian more seriously. The idea that you are only to spend 10 minutes a day is reassuring for those of us with busy schedules...as someone else said, you actually end up spending more time with the book every day because it is fun...but knowing that my "commitment" is for ten minutes makes it easier for me to pick the book up at the end of a long day at work. The brevity of the exercises makes it perfect for those times when you have a few minutes to spare (e.g., waiting for a friend to show up). I also liked the sticky labels and the pocket guides. In general, this book is very strong in teaching a lot of good vocabulary, but I found it a bit weak in teaching structure. (Keep in mind that I am only about half way through it, though!) I am discovering that I have learned a lot of great vocabulary, but except for some basic phrases (Where is the...? Here is the...), I am not able to produce a lot of complete sentences. Again, the phrases the book DOES teach are useful for travelers, but not necessarily helpful for someone wanting to make casual conversation with an Italian speaker. Also, though they do a great job teaching how to pronounce the different consonants and vowels, they don't talk much about where to place the stress in multisyllabic words. My Italian friends frequently corrected me because I've placed the stress on the wrong syllable (interference from Spanish, probably).
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