Ultimate Italian Beginner-Intermediate

by Living Language

Book Overview

Provides forty lessons that include dialogues, information on grammar and usage, pronunciation, vocabulary, review sections, and quizzes. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400021103
• ISBN13: 9781400021109
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Living Language
• Length: 431 Pages
• Weight: 1.11 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great for Independent Learners

This is a great course if you are seriously studying Italian on your own. It is very thorough and has all the grammar of a first year college level progam. The CD's and conversational Italian are intelligent and useful for travel, shopping and everyday situations. There are only 5 questions for each grammar principle. If you are a serious learner, you may need a grammar and verb workbook to complement this book for serious study. If you are just traveling to Italy or pick up principles fast you don't need anything else.

Best on the market

This set will take you from a complete beginner to someone who can read, write and speak basic Italian. Well done and easy to follow. The cd set version has a lesson program that goes with the book and is very good, but short. I would recommend Living Language All Audio Italian. It follows the book also, but the lessons are complete and in depth. I have found that to be the best way to get the most from this book. I would highly recommend the Ultimate series to anyone wanting to learn a language. I have used many others and LL Ultimate is the best. If you want to learn Italian this is a great book to get you going. As always use the CD's to hear the language.

Italian class textbook

I purchased this as a textbook for a local adult education class that I started taking this fall. Our instructor was using it and passing out photocopies of the lessons each week and I decided that it made much more sense to purchase the book. It is well written and easy enough to follow for a beginner student of Italian in a classroom setting. I was able to learn enough to use for a trip to Rome.

Very good beginning grammar

I bought this to supplement three all-Italian texts used in the classroom. The explanations are clear and easy to understand, and the vocabulary is very useful. The book gives me an edge in the classroom when we have general conversation and when learning grammar in general.

entertaining well organized lessons with audio CDs

This Italian course is well organized, comprehensive and has 8 audio CDs. The dialogs are lively, modern, and natural. The book is divided into individual chapters, where each lesson has the following parts: 1) an Italian dialog, 2) the same dialog translated into English, 3) groups of words such as days of the week, the months, seasons, numbers, 4) grammar explained, 5) vocabulary: all the new words in a particular chapter plus related words, e.g. if the text uses "I go to the store", the vocabulary list will give alternatives such as mall, restaurant, café, etc, 6) exercises pertaining to the text 7) cultural notes about Italy, 8) a key to the exercises, and in later chapters 9) additional reading material in Italian. Four of the 8 CDs bring the dialogs and vocabulary of the book. In each chapter, the dialog is first read by female and male native speakers without interruption, then the dialog is read a second time, but this time the student can repeat the sentences after the speakers. After the dialogs, the vocabulary list from the book is read with a pause after each word so that the student can repeat the words. These CDs also bring additional pronunciation exercises. The second set of 4 CDs is designed to complement the text but can also be listened to in a car, or while exercising. All text is both in English and Italian, it relates to the lessons learned and deepens your understanding of the text. You will be asked to translate English sentences into Italian, or to respond to Italian questions. At the end of the book you will find an excellent summary of the grammar, verb charts with all their tenses, a chapter on letter writing in Italian, and a comprehensive glossary of all Italian words used in the book with their English translations.