Series: Comprehensive (Book 4)
Audio CD
Publisher: Pimsleur; Unabridged, 30 Lessons + Reading edition (March 26, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1442357193
ISBN-13: 978-1442357198
Product Dimensions: 12.5 x 2.2 x 11 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #1,105,033 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #37 in Books > Books on CD > Languages > Language Instruction > Italian #330 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Foreign Languages > Italian #2983 in Books > Reference > Foreign Language Study & Reference > Instruction
I like this fourth course. It builds on everything that came before. There is more vocabulary per lesson in this latest course, and lots of drill on the passato prossimo, and all those pesky articles, adverbs, etc. I like it. I think one might find it most useful to go through the entire set and then do it again to see if all the info was retained. That is what I have done and it helped to know exactly what I was forgetting so I could drill those areas. I also try to write stories using the vocabulary and grammar so that I use new material in new ways. Mi sono divertita mentre imparare la lingua.
The booklet says to throw away paper and pencil, as you won't need them. I would not agree. I'd say these cds are a good supplement to paper and pencil type exercises, but not a substitute for them. For what they are, however, I think they're very good. The exercises build upon one another and I'm finding them very helpful.
Love these CDs. I use them on my commute to and from work (no time for a class) and feel like I've made steady progress learning just a little at a time, with the regular review built-in. I usually do one 30 minute lesson on the way home and then do it again the next morning on my way to work. Some are more difficult for me, so I've done some lessons more than that. I take weekends off usually, so it takes me more than six weeks to get through a whole set. I really like that while the English instructions are spoken by an English speaker, all of the Italian is by a native Italian speaker, so I can hear the proper accent.I have ordered from this vendor before and as always received the product promptly and well-packaged. No complaints.
Pimsleur has been be a very useful adjunct to learning Italian for me. I have bought several of the levels from Language Secrets. Their prices are much lower than other vendors and items are always shipped in a timely fashion.
Pimsleur is a relatively painless way to start learning a new language. I'm midway through level 4 and it gets you speaking Italian. I found that by level 3 you really need to study the grammar and spelling separately. Trying to intuit this from listening to conversation is difficult. There are various free apps like Duolingo that can get you started on this. Also, level 4 comes in a digital format that you can use on your phone and is much more convenient.
This is an excellent program, like all of the Pimsleur courses. There is a variety of topics, and a variety of grammatical structures (conditionals, imperfects, subjunctives, etc.). My only gripe is that some of the vocab is pretty obscure. The one weakness of all Pimsleur courses is that the total amount of vocab learned is not very great (probably less than 200 words per 30 lessons), and so ideally they should all be really useful. But this course has words like "bas-reliefs" and "cross-country skiing" (and "downhill skiing"). One lesson has a line "her grandmother was a ski champion" -- how useful is that? But overall still an excellent course. Tip: look for it in the library.
This is the absolute best and easiest way to learn a language. I do Rosetta Stone and Yabla and enjoy dual language books but I have by far learned and retained more with Pimsleur. Give it a try you will not be disappointed. I'm 46 years old so don't think because of age you can't learn a language.
Now that I am on Level 4 of the series, I can see that the Pimsleur method does indeed help me substantially with pronunciation and memorization of sentence structure. I just wish, for myself personally, that the subject matter was less business focused, but I can see where that might be a real plus for someone who travels to Italy primarily for work. There is much talk of conferences, appointments, and other office stuff. I would prefer more general conversation topics. No one has ever talked about their pets, for instance. Just a minor point though. It is, generally speaking, a very good series. And maybe they will get to pets. I'm only on disc two of Level 4.
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