Teach Yourself Beginner's Italian

The publishers of Teach Yourself finally fixed - in this course at least - one of the consistent glaring problems with their format, namely delving into dialogs without even a slight introduction to the vocabulary or grammar concepts employed in the dialog. THANK YOU! And what a difference, in TY Beginner's Italian the chapters begin with very manageable vocab lists and some insight into useage and THEN offer the dialog. This just works so much better than having 10 lines of a dialog with absolutely no context or preparation for what is being said. The other thing that's great about this course is the structure. The first 10 units are foundational in the Italian language and cover the most important basics of communication. Then there are 10 more chapters that can be covered in any order you wish, that build upon the foundation of the 1st 10. Again, very logical, and very useful. The chapters are bite-sized and move you through the program easily. The amount of material offered in each chapter and the pacing feel just right to me; not too much, nor is the program dumbed-down. Overall this is an excellent intro to Italian, and in my view this is the perfect choice if you are preparing for a trip and want to make small talk, or you are planning on studying Italian seriously. Very cleanly and attractively presented, you can get a lot out of this program.

Having never studied Italian before, I am finding the Beginner's Italian audiopackage to be a nicely paced introduction to the language. Each chapter introduces a manageable amount of new vocabulary and builds upon the lessons of the preceding chapter. Although I haven't looked into the Pimsleur Italian series, it would probably complement the Teach Yourself Italian well. My primary criticism (and reason for giving 4 rather than 5 stars) is of the rather slim dictionary at the back of the book. At the very least, this should contain all of the vocabulary introduced in the text. As it stands, I have to hunt through past chapters when I invariably forget some of the vocabulary.