The Berlitz Self-Teacher: Italian (Berlitz Self-Teachers)

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic and Charming!
Review: An interesting thing about this book is it is just fun to pick and look at the inside of the book. It was first published in the late 40s and has kept the same format. This style of learning, which is 50 years old is better than any style to date. I recommend it over software, tapes, anything! It is unfortunate although, that some of the older languages such as Hebrew, Russian, and Portuguese are no longer published. If you want to learn a language a very charming way this is it! Thank you Berlitz!

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic and Charming!
Review: An interesting thing about this book is it is just fun to pick and look at the inside of the book. It was first published in the late 40s and has kept the same format. This style of learning, which is 50 years old is better than any style to date. I recommend it over software, tapes, anything! It is unfortunate although, that some of the older languages such as Hebrew, Russian, and Portuguese are no longer published. If you want to learn a language a very charming way this is it! Thank you Berlitz!

Rating:
Summary: Best Self Study Book For The Italian Language !!
Review: I cannot say enough about this book! I have tried so many tapes, books, techniques, you name it! I became overwhelmed by numerous rules to learn, conjugations to memorize, and the like until I grew discouraged! This book is simple. Each lesson builds on the previous one. There are minor notes to guide you, to remind you- and you will practice real conversation in the exercises. Each and every word has an English phonetic guide so that you instantly pronounce Italian words correctly. Not only is the technique used (almost no grammer rules to memorize, which is how you learned your 1st language) incredible, but it is extremely fun! The format is friendly, youthful, energetic, charming in style, and extremely user friendly. I could go on and on! This book is the best thing to happen to Italian language aquisition, ever!

Rating:
Summary: Great Adjunct to Berlitz Courses
Review: I speak German fluently, thanks to getting my start from the Berlitz Self-Teacher in German, but I've always had trouble learning Italian, even though I studied it for two semesters in the late 1980s in college.

Nonetheless, I took Italian courses at the Berlitz school in Princeton, NJ, last year to refresh my knowledge of the language. Although the course had a companion book (written in the 1970s), I found this older volume to be more helpful with keeping up with my teacher, who was quite a taskmaster.

Now that I am back in Texas, and no longer taking Italian at Berlitz, I am still working my way through the book. It keeps you entertained, and I like the "little professor" illustrations, particulaly those of Italian celebrities of the day, such as Arturo Toscanini and Joe DiMaggio. Fun book!

Rating:
Summary: Bravissimo, Berlitz!
Review: Learning a foreign language can be a nightmare, but the Berlitz book takes you slowly, step by step, through the Italian language. It made a very complex language simple to learn.
I'll never speak as fluently as Marcello Mastroianni but if and when I go to Italy it will make my stay there a lot more fun.