Product Description

The 16-lesson (8 CDs) Conversational Course gives customers the first half of the incredibly effective and efficient, world-famous Pimsleur Comprehensive Program. Customers will love the experience of acquiring the essential grammar and vocabulary of Italian, during the spoken practice sessions. It is this ease of language acquisition that makes the full Comprehensive Pimsleur Program so popular and successful for adult language learners.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43333 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-03
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 8
• Binding: Audio CD

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743550437
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"Pimsleur programs provide plenty of positive reinforcement that will keep learners on track, and we found that Pimsleur gave us more proficiency and confidence in speaking the new language than any of the other language programs we reviewed."-- AudioFile Magazine

"EXTREMELY ACCESSIBLE...each section within the lessons is short enough to hold our attention, and there is enough repetition to teach even those who consider themselves slow learners...Pimsleur [programs] are extremely thorough and easy to use -- quite lively!"-- Boston Herald

"Learn French while commuting, German while jogging, Spanish (or Russian, Italian, and Japanese) while cooking all with NO WRITTEN MATERIALS!"-- New York Daily News

"Designed for the ear and not the eye...the lessons provide PERFECT 30-minute bites of work."-- St Louis Post-Dispatch

"Learn to habla español or parlez français before your next trip aboard. The interactive LESSONS CHALLENGE STUDENTS to use new words in conversation instead of memorize them."-- American Way (American Airlines inflight magazine)

"I tried other language programs with little success...This is the best by far!"-- Pamela A. Mitchell, Pilot, International Society of Women Airline Pilots

About the Author
Dr. Paul Pimsleur devoted his life to language teaching and testing and was one of the world's leading experts in applied linguistics. After years of experience and research, Dr. Pimsleur developed The Pimsleur Method based on two key principles:  the Principle of Anticipation and a scientific principle of memory training that he called ?Graduated Interval Recall.?  This Method has been applied to the many levels and languages of the Pimsleur Programs.

Customer Reviews

Simple crash course before your trip. Basic, but effective.
From an Italian teacher's perspective, I highly recommend the Pimsleur series. I do think they're the best. And the reason is because they get you to repeat the phrases over and over and over again. Learning a language takes time, but if you need some essential expressions before your trip, this is the audio CDs you want.

The important thing in learning a language is repetition, and you'll get plenty of it with these CDs, as well as learning correct pronunciation. As far as books go, you may end up using a combination, but I do like the Living Language Beginner's book a lot.

Definitely join a course in your area - there's no better practice than to practice in a group! Perhaps you can ask if a community college has it as a continuing education program - although you won't have big problems with the language in the bigger cities, Italians do appreciate if you know at least a little bit.

If instead, you're planning on visiting Southern Italy, or the countryside, you definitely want to know some Italian (if you want a vacation, and not an adventure, that is!).I hope this helps!

Not quite what it seems
Students beware! I bought this set over the summer in hopes of getting a jump-start on learning Italian, as I had scheduled to take an Italian 101 class at my University in the fall. I was very excited about the product and really felt as though I was learning a lot. It was a very helpful set, the repetition made it easily to learn simple phrases in a short amount of time. I felt very prepared when the semester started and was looking forward to showing my new teacher how much I knew...
Too bad at least half of what I learned was WRONG!!! Some of the incorrect words/phrases are correct in theory but would offend an Italian if used in Italy, and others were just plain wrong. I was clearly not the only student who purchased this, as the phrases in it come up every so often in class. Our professor, who by the way grew up in Italy and is 100% Italian, explains that we are very confused and that the phrases cannot be used. Some of them, she had never even heard of and made absolutely no sense to her.
This may be an ok start to get the accent and way of speaking Italian down but do NOT depend on it to teach you the language or expect to use it in Italy.
Beware!

fun to learn with this program
I have tried several audio language learning programs, but have really enjoyed the Pimsleur Italian program & found it most helpful for learning. I believe the best features of this program are the variety of topics and complexity of each lesson, the way repetition is used while complexity of phrases and sentences increases (i.e., they start with a word, then a phrase, then making the phrase negative, then a sentence, then incorporate prior learning with the new, so on), and it's fun. It helps to enjoy learning a language. Not sure if it is just me or is intentional but the stories/subplots in the lessons are entertaining. It makes me laugh often when the American male traveller in the lessons strikes out with Italian women! Certainly makes my drive to work more enjoyable! I highly recommend the introductory lessons & plan to continue with the more advanced ones myself.