Simon & Schuster's Pimsleur Conversational Italian

We recently went to Italy on a family vacation and wanted to make some attempt to be familiar with the language. I decided to purchase this product as it looked like a good introduction at a good price while realizing that I was not going to be fluent in the language. It comes with 16 half-hour lessons on 8 CDs. There is also a little bit of reading practice, but its almost all verbal. The lessons work well in a car although it can be a bit hard to get pronunciation right in a noisy environment. For me it was perfect because my commute is also about a half hour long. I needed to do each lesson at least twice, but your mileage will, I'm sure, vary. The lesson content could use a little bit of work, some of the introductory lessons seem to be aimed mostly at single guys that might hope to pick up an Italian lady. That's certainly a valid use case, but both my wife and I felt it wasn't subtle at all. Fortunately, in my opinion, and taken as a whole, the lessons do provide a foundation of Italian including many useful phrases, numbers, time, directions, etc. on top of how to ask a lady if she's like to have a drink at your place. I certainly did not speak Italian even remotely well when we arrived at our vacation destination, but these lessons made all the difference, and I was able to handle a surprisingly large number of interactions. Pimsleur deserves 5 stars for a great introduction to Italian.

Pimsleur metodologies have always worked well for me. You either love or hate the repetition and syllable by syllable method. It ensures correct and understandable pronounciation. I have effectively used the German and Japanese lessons as well as the Italian. My only issue with this purchase is that it took over three weeks to arrive. Guess that's what you get when the outside vendor uses shipping other than UPS or FedEx.

We're heading to Rome and Florence in late October and wanted to have some basic language skills to make the trip more enjoyable. This Pimsleur starter set is quite good and we love the way the lessons keep coming back to things you learned previously. It really helps the words and phrases stick and helps tune the ear to particular phrases, each of which are likely to be of at least some importance while we're there. The one thing that kept me from giving this a 5 star is the lack of ANY written materials. I knew this when I bought it and it's still a great CD set. However, there are many times when the speakers say something that is simply hard to understand and say properly, so I find myself going to an online translator to identify the word or phrase. If Pimsleur simply included a PDF with the transcripts, this series would be a 5 easily. As it stands, I'm creating my own transcript as I go, and it's helping me learn more effectively that doing audio alone. All said though, I've been learning Spanish off and on for years and wish I'd known about the Pimsleur-type learnings methods for that. I'm picking up basic Italian far faster with this learning method. This is worth the money and a low risk way to get started on a language.

This is an amazing system for learning another language! I have never been very good at grasping foreign languages. I tried to learn Spanish in high school and French in college. I only "learned" those languages in the most basic of ways even after studying them for YEARS. I wanted to learn Italian for personal reasons and didn't want to risk the time and money of taking it in a classroom setting (surely, it would be a failure like the other two languages). So, I chose Pimsleur. I cannot tell you how much I am enjoying this program! It is intuitive and simple, yet I feel like I have actually learned something at the end of each lesson. Sometimes I will repeat the day's lesson another time or two just for good measure, so if you do not grasp at least 80% the first time do not feel bad about repeating the lesson. Although I have no immediate plans of being a tourist, I feel that if I ran into an Italian speaking person in my daily life I could confidently converse with them in a basic way. That is a big thing for me. I never, ever felt confident to speak when learning in school. You had to push me to speak in the classroom and going up to a stranger? Forget it! I plan to buy the rest of the Pimsleur Italian program (buying the series in MP3 from their website is cheapest. Buying everything on CD is a lot more). This program really does work. If you have never had success with language in the past, you ought to give this program a try.

Ive been doing a lot of research about the Pimsleur method and decided to start with this purchase. Trying to decide which methods I wanted to use to help me learn. I finished all the cds and was amazed! I pretty much got everything that was said on every cd, so it was easy for me to progress onto the new cd. I think I have a natural language learning ability and can speak some Spanish, so it wasn't that bad. One has to recognize the program for what it is: an audio course. If your intent is to SPEAK the language, this is the way to go (as well as hearing). I will probably go with rocket Italian in the future to supplement this (either after I finish the whole Pimselur or right before). I dont mind there is is no transcripts. Usually, every time they introduce a word or phrase, you will hear it MULTIPLE times again. There were a few exceptions. For instance, in the first few cds, there was something long the female said near the end of the lesson. I kept trying to figure out what she said before going on to the next lesson.I eventually did before I started the next one. Surprisingly, they never went back over it:/. But most everything they do. I also wish they didnt spend so much time on saying street and avenue. There is so much to talk about, even vocab, i felt they kept going over that too much. I posted on my Facebook I cant imagine where I will be after 100 lessons. I disagree with people online (ive found various Pimsleur forums etc)in that you cant get on the track to fluency with this. After all lessons, you will probably have a good speaking knowledge of Italian. Remember, there is a difference between fluency and being like a native. If you start to think in the language, its one sign you are becoming more and more fluent. I am just now starting on lesson 17 and continuing with the rest. I have a couple Italian friends online. Writing to them even now and then (maybe even skyping to them in the future) along with finishing this product, and I will be really good to go. Visiting an actual location is only really good because you have no other choice but to be submersed in the language. You can, however, get it other ways like how I am doing it. I speak a good amount of Spanish and in many ways feel I know a lot more about Italian grammar (w/ out awareness) than with Spanish.

I have been using this ever since I purchased it on Feb. 16, 2017. I am listening to the CDs every day in order to keep up my pronunciation skills. I am also taking a course at a local community college, and the teacher says I am learning quickly. This purchase was definitely worth my money, and I am looking at purchasing the next level - Level 2. I like the way the instructor explains the "rules" of Italian, and I am pleased that the instructions are eventually being given partial in Italian closer to the end of the program. The conversations given at the beginning of a lot of the lessons are very helpful to listen to. Highly Recommend this program!

This is the first time I have attempted to learn a foreign language outside of a classroom. I was dubious at first, but have found this system to be quite effective. I transferred the lessons to my iPod and do my practicing during a daily walk. So far I have made my way through all 16 lessons once, and am now reviewing, beginning with lesson 7, around where the content becomes more challenging. I feel that what I have learned will serve me well on my upcoming trip to Italy, particularly in conjunction with a Lonely Planet phrase book I purchased. The one drawback of this system is its lack of a phrasebook. It should come with a transcription of the lessons for the visual learners like myself. I have made myself a "cheat sheet" of what I have learned from the CDs that will serve as a review, but this was difficult and time-consuming (thank goodness for online translators that helped me figure out how to spell everything!). The so-called "reading practice" is useful for learning the rules of Italian pronunciation, but is composed of random words and phrases that are never translated.

This language learning system is excellent. New words are introduced gradually, with clarity and with much repetition. Most of what you'd expect to use commonly is covered, like "where, what, and when". I was left feeling as though I learned all the material presented, although I did replay all the CDs at least twice. On the downside, after completing the program, I was left feeling as though there was a lot left to learn...but that is to be expected from only 16 hours of instruction. Something that I found helpful was to stop the tape when I could not visualize the spelling of a word after hearing it a few times. I'd look the word up by Googling (eg: "Italian word for drink"). It's much easier for me to say a word if I know how it "looks". It would have been simple for Pimsleur to include a sheet with spellings of all words used in the program.

I would highly recommend this set of CDs for beginners to Italian. Listening to it in the car to and from work has improved my italian enormously. Simple and easy to follow. I'm just about to buy the next set!

英語で学ぶ教材だけど、英語ができる人には安上がりで学べるのでお得な商品です。聞いてるだけでとは言わないけど、本から勉強するよりは頭に入る感じです。

The pace and repetition of new vocabulary and phrases followed by short conversations is excellent, in my opinion. Through modelling, attention is paid to correct pronunciation. As new vocabulary is introduced , the previous vocabulary words and phrases are reviewed and incorporated. There are no written materials so that the learner is only listening to the correct pronunciation and not trying to use English phonetics of printed words. By the time I finish this set of 16, 30-minute lessons I think I will be confident with simple, conversational Italian.

I found this nothing special. it repeats few sentences many many times...but does not cover lots of subjects. Langenscheit series are much better.

Good course that is interactive and interesting.