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Are these Italian learning Materials good

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Snowfield
Newbie
Australia
Joined 4449 days ago

2 posts - 2 votes
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 1 of 6
16 January 2012 at 5:10am | IP Logged 
Hello,

This is my first post I just joined yesterday.

Well I am about the start a 2 year Italian course at school which I am going to start in 2 weeks. I really need to start learning as other people in the class took Italian for a year already. It was either learn Italian or Japanese and I got put in the Japanese one. I do not want to fall behind as that will be bad for my marks.

The learning material I have are:

Italian Conversation Demystified
Living Language Italian Complete Course The Basics
Linguaphone Italian All Talk


Are these good Italian learning materials? So far the one I enjoyed the most was Linguaphone Italian All Talk the other two confused me. Since I am a shy person whenever I study a language I dread speaking it infront of people especially for a test the teacher singles you out and makes to stand up and all eyes staring. Then there's the writing I'm not good at all I took French in school for one year I could understand the text but could not speak and my writing skills weren't good also.

I tried many times rolling my r's but the closest I could get it the Japanese and Korean sounding of the r mixed l sound.

Which one should I start first( out of the 2 books)? I borrowed them from the library so I have a time limit of about 6 weeks. If anyone has more effective Italian learning material than this kindly inform me.

Thanks
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newyorkeric
Diglot
Moderator
Singapore
Joined 6129 days ago

1598 posts - 2174 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian
Studies: Mandarin, Malay
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 Message 2 of 6
16 January 2012 at 5:22am | IP Logged 
The only one I am familiar with is Linguaphone Italian All Talk. It doesn't contain much content so it isn't a very time efficient method. That being said, if you enjoy it, why not finish it?

I recommend that you try Michel Thomas's Italian courses. It's relatively short (about 16 hours combined I think) and covers a lot of grammar and some vocabulary in a well designed and interesting way. You can do a google search on this forum to find a lot of information on the Michel Thomas courses.

Edited by newyorkeric on 16 January 2012 at 5:24am

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Snowfield
Newbie
Australia
Joined 4449 days ago

2 posts - 2 votes
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 3 of 6
16 January 2012 at 8:04am | IP Logged 
Thank you for the advice newyorkeric. I'll try this in the near future. Just wondering I hear that Michael Thomas is not a native Italian speaker? Is it okay to be like that as he may have an accent?

Edited by Snowfield on 16 January 2012 at 8:08am

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newyorkeric
Diglot
Moderator
Singapore
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1598 posts - 2174 votes 
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 Message 4 of 6
16 January 2012 at 8:06am | IP Logged 
He isn't a native speaker but I wouldn't worry too much about that. You can get through it quickly and benefit from the good grammar explanations and then use other materials like Assimil's Italian With Ease that use native speakers.
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tw561
Newbie
United States
Joined 4480 days ago

26 posts - 28 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Italian

 
 Message 5 of 6
16 January 2012 at 4:09pm | IP Logged 
I have Italian Grammar Demystified (which isn't exactly what you have, but similar I
suppose) and it's been really helpful for me in regards to getting used to the language.
I definitely recommend that series.

Also, linguaphone is pretty good. It's very basic though. I don't think you'll find it
too helpful in the long run. I enjoy the story line behind it though. I've been using
it now for about two weeks. I'm only on CD 3, but I am not sure if i'm going to continue
with it.

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mikonai
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
weirdnamewriting.bloRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4679 days ago

178 posts - 281 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian
Studies: Swahili, German

 
 Message 6 of 6
16 January 2012 at 5:04pm | IP Logged 
I haven't tried any of those personally, but I've generally heard good things about
Michael Thomas.

I've not used the Living Language Complete course, but I have used a few other Living
Language courses and found them to be quite helpful (specifically I started with "30
Days to Great Italian" and later went with "Italian Beyond the Basics").

I can definitely recommend Assimil's Italian with Ease series, that's currently my
favorite course, I think. You can find it for a decent price on Amazon.com, last I
checked.

If you happen to be out shopping for a grammar book, I could also recommend "English
Grammar for Students of Italian," which is particularly useful if you ever feel a bit
fuzzy (like I do) on the English grammar end of things, let alone the Italian side. It
explains all of the parts of speech first from how they work in English so you can be
familiar with the term, then how it works in Italian.


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