Teach Yourself Instant Italian (Book Only)

by Elisabeth Smith

Book Overview

These ultra-fast language courses are ideal for those who have little patience and little time to study. Without intimidating rules and big vocabulary lists, these books and audio courses include the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0071421157
• ISBN13: 9780071421157
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 3.6" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

This Actually Works

I got this book 5 weeks before I left for a 2 week trip to Italy. I crammed through it and finished the last lesson on the outbound flight. The lessons were paced well and by the end of the book I felt I had the hang of basic Italian. I got to put it to the test when my husband and I needed directions as we began touring the Chianti region. We stopped at a gas station on a Sunday. The only other person there was a woman filling her tank. My first question in Italian was whether she spoke English. When she answered "no", I asked her for directions in Italian. She of course answered in Italian. We had no map or drawing or visuals to reference; all our communication was verbal. Here is the amazing part - we followed her directions and drove directly to our destination. I highly recommend this book and CD.

You can really learn a LOT of Italian in 5-6 weeks.

The first time I visited Italy I could not even say Thank You in Italain. Then I bought this inexpensive little book and cassette. I admit I studied much harder than the requisite 30 minutes a day. But after 5 weeks I was able to communicate in Italian, with lots of grammer mistakes etc. But I was able to communicate. My Italian friends were quite impressed.The book tries to give you a vocabulary of around 300 words--chosen strategically. And you are taught how to form basic sentences, and ask questions in present and past tenses. After finishing the book I was able to ask directions, buy something in a store, give directions to taxi drivers, find out basic information at hotels as well as make small talk to Italians who could not speak English.The book contains unfortunately very little grammar, thus alot of questions you will naturally have remain unanswered. So a reasonable italian grammar is also good to have at about the half way point through "Instant Italian".