Italian Made Simple: Revised and Updated

great love it!

This book makes it easy to learn Italian. It gradually introduces you to verbs, nouns, adjectives, and even one or two irregular verbs without the drills that go with learning a language. And it has a good dictionary in the back of the book.

My Italian class uses this as a textbook. The bad: I find the dialogues in the book inane. Every chapter is a dialog between the same 2 people. There is no additional material presented - for example there is nothing about Italy, Italian history, geography, ... other than in the silly conversations! Also, only a couple of tenses are used (present, future , gerund, i believe). It is impossible to search for something as there is no index. There are many words used that I cannot find in my dictionary (Barron's with 100,000 words). The book also has an unattractive presentation with occasional black and white photographs. the good: there are a lot of exercises March 2014: I have changed my opinion after finishing the book in my Italian class. This is not a bad book, by the end you will get a pretty good basis of the grammar. The dialogue is still silly but the exercises and the vocabulary lists are good. There is no discussion on the Subjunctive mood but all other tenses are dealt with.

Studying Italian as an adult is challenging, to say the least. I've studied on my own, been to an immersion course in Italy for two weeks, and listened to CDs. Though all of those things help, I think this book has been the greatest benefit, so far. There is a mix of approaches and no rote memorization - other than what a person has to do to learn vocabulary. I do think that having the basics of present tense in essere, avere, and fare is HELPFUL (just make a little cheat sheet on a 3x5 card) but it is not necessary (non bisogna). The answers are in the back of the book and it is good, I think, to work through a section at a time in each chapter to feel I am on the right track. Again, this book is not the typical ... My name is, How are you, etc. Though these phrases are in the book, they are incorporated in a much more natural way. Buona fortuna. (P.S. if you have a smartphone or iPad, I have found it helpful to use a translation app **just to check** a certain word here or there. No cheating!)

The book tends to throw a lot of grammatical detail early on and only much later actual practice writing. The students need more vocabulary and conversational phrase work earlier on. Also, there are no pictures, which means that the student focuses upon translation, not direct acquisition. People remember with pictures and in contextual situations. There are inconsistencies in explanations and several typos. However, the ongoing Lettura saga is fun and the progression eventually leads to learning the language.

This is the BEST basic Italian book I have seen in my 6 years of study. I am thinking of using it to teach others. I love it because it teaches you the way you learned English, in context. By that I mean it does not start with verb conjugation though it does cover it well in the book. Pronouns are used early and made a natural part of things. For adult learners the text is REAL not about the typical young adult subjects. On top of all this the price is reasonable.

As a former foreign language professor, I decided to take an on-line Italian class. This textbook is one of the best I've seen for an adult-education class that focuses on speaking the language on an elementary level. Anyone can learn from it if they are willing to dedicate time to learning another language.

I like the organized, structured approach of this text. This, along with LingQ listening exercises, are helping me prepare for my trip to Italy.

This is a good book for those with some very basic Italian grammar. It follows the story of il signor Campi as he learns Italian from an Italian teacher in New York to prepare for a trip to Italy. Each chapter builds on new vocabulary and grammar topics as you learn Italian along with the teacher and student in the story. Although this book starts from basic grammar and works its way through to more advanced, this book may be a bit difficult as a starting point for those who have zero knowledge of Italian grammar.

Very easy and simple made

It was a present but I think the recipient found it very useful

Non l'ho comprato per me, ma per un amico che sta studiando da solo l'italiano. Mi dice che il libro è ben fatto, esaustivo e facile da usare.

Great book for learning basics of the language... written in very interesting & fun way