Insieme: An Intermediate Italian Course

This book is great for many reasons. One -- the opening dialogue of each chapter uses colloquial Italian, and you really learn a lot of useful expressions and ways of speaking from this book. For that it is very strong. The book is peppered with them, and I think that you should read through the book to find them. The exercises are not the greatest but they are ok. I wouldn't buy it for the exercises. The readings in each chapter are also pretty good, taken from newspapers and magazines. This is for intermediate students so if you have a good foundation in Italian already, you can learn a lot from this book. I think that you will get the most out of this book using it in a classroom situation and not so much for self-study, but even in self-study there is much one can learn. Keith [...]

Ciao a tutti da los angeles.I'm no expert on italian textbooks, but it was a definite upgrade from my previous required book, Eccoci. That book was so dull and not interesting.I recommend this book. But dont just buy for self instruction, better in class setting.