One thing I have learned, is there is not one product that will meet all of your needs. You will have to combine several. More importantly, you will need to spend time each day if you want to learn Italian. I am spending on average one hour a day, approximately 5 days a week.
added July 27,2007: after doing this nearly one year diligently, I can say a person really needs to find others who either speak Italian or are learning and spend time practicing speaking Italian with each other. While I have learned much, and was able to speak words, I am not able to construct sentences quickly. I think if you spend time with another person practicing is what could really help one learn Italian.
Below is a list of products thus far:
Pimsleur Italian - $16.47 Amazon - (includes 10 lessons). All 30 lesson will cost about $175.
This is Pimsleur's Basic. It contains the first 10
lessons of their more expensive program. I have had these cd's for about a week
(received them approx 11/01/06). I copied the first two lessons to my iPod so I
could listen while riding my bike, which I do about one hour a day. However, I
find I am getting more from the cd's in my car driving to and from work.
So far, I think this is the best program I have come across. Though the repetition is tedious and boring at times, this program is working. I am getting the accent down perfectly, the way a sentence should be structured and the reinforcement I need. I really feel I have learned some good Italian this week. If these first 10 lessons go as I think they will and I learn them well, I'll be buying the expensive set.
The negative here is, there is no manual or words to follow. If you are like me and would like to see the words, you will have to create your own manual, which I have done in Microsoft Word.
Update: 3/8/07 - I purchased the full version of Pimsleur Italian One - all 30 lessons. I am currently on lesson 19. Let me say, this is a great program. Much simpler and more fun than Rosetta. You actually "learn" to speak Italian. And you simply do not learn phrases, but you learn to speak with correct grammar and pronunciation. The caveat is, you will still need to by an Italian dictionary and verb workbook IF you are serious. I use this website to check spelling and to hear another pronunciation of the word. http://www.wordreference.com/enit/
Learn Italian Now! Version 10 $49.95
Honestly, I have only spent about 8 hours with this
program. While it has some good pluses, I do not think it would be a good first
choice in starting out. I do believe it will be a good supplement to the other
programs I am using. The big plus of this program, it is conversational. Hence,
as I learn from other programs, I go to "Learn Italian Now" and I can tell I am
picking up and understanding the conversations. I give it three out five stars,
but recommend it as a supplement to a more robust programs.
update: this is not a program for beginners in my opinion. Having spent much time with it, plus Pimsleur, I'd say don't buy unless you are an intermediate user. Unless you have a photographic memory.
Rapid Italian - Volume One
I downloaded this from iTunes to my iPod before I took
a road trip. I paid about $15. I wanted to see if it would help me and it did. I
think I learned more in that one hour recording than all the weeks of Rosetta
Stone. Granted, Rapid Italian is a "phrase" learning cd. i.e. How to order food,
ask for directions, counting, days of the week, etc. This has a lot
of strengths. Its weakness is you do not know exactly how the word is spelled. I
personally think it is very helpful to see a word and its spelling and know how
to use it.
Italian Rosetta Stone - Level 1
This is the first program I bought based on some radio adds and reviews at Amazon. I give this three stars out five. Mostly because I am not sure where the hell the lesson are going. I am being asked to identify elephants, children jumping off tables, cowboys being bucked off horses. I suppose if you plan to "live" in Italy, learning these minute items might be helpful. The are other flaws: i.e. baby vs. child and the word Bambino instead of Ragazzo. There is one picture of a young person where it is impossible to identify the gender. This occurs several times for several different things.
I know Rosetta is trying to teach you as a child would learn by sight association. The problem is there is NOT one English word to help you decipher what it is you are learning to speak. I happily found a good web-site I could type Italian words into, which translated for me, so I could at least understand what I was hearing, then match to the picture. Some pictures and words are obvious.
I really gave this program a real try, spending an hour a day for about 7 weeks. Though I learned word association with certain things, putting it all together just hasn't worked for me.
Feel free to make comments on my guestbook if you disagree. I really would be interested.
