Oxford Take Off in Italian

This latest Oxford "Take Off in Italian" offers a variety of media to learn to speak Italian. I had an earlier version, in a clunky big blue box, that was pretty useful.. this is better, sleeker, and more attuned to real italian speakers, and conversation. As a prep for a trip to Italy, you could not do better.

What a wonderful, educational, language kit from the beautiful design of the box, booklet and CDs to the ease of the lessons and ability to REMEMBER them! If you have ever been in a foreign country where you don't speak the language, you know how frustrating it can be to get around. If you devote just a good half hour to a lesson or two a day, you will be able to have a basic tourist fluency that will make you want to learn even more. Italian is such a beautiful language and I have always wanted to learn it; now I have more confidence to take that desire to the next level. If you are fortunate enough to be going to Italy and want to navigate the canals and piazzas with impunity (LOL), this is definitely the guide to take!

If you want to learn Italian fluently enough so that you can argue politics in Rome, then maybe this isn't the course for you, but if you're going to Italy on vacation, or for a short stay, or you want an introduction into the language before you plunge in and buy the Rosetta Stone or Fluenz software, then this just might be the introductory course for you. First off, this introductory course won't break you. So many people spend a bundle for language software that just languishes away in the closet. Because you don't have to sacrifice your first born for this software, it's a good place to start to even see if learning Italian is for you. The first lesson starts out with a simple dialogue between Stefano and Sarah as they're making introductions. It's easy to follow along if you've read the lesson plan and looked at the vocabulary. The course builds from there. If you complete it, you'll be a good traveler, able to ask directions, find the loo, the library, the police station, a good restaurant, etc. You won't feel like a fish out of water in Rome and you'll appreciate Italy all the more.

Take Off in Italian is a surprisingly heavy little box of language learning CDs and books. It comes in a nice fold-open box with a textbook style finish that contains the following components: 1. 5 CDs 2. 248-page course book related to the lessons on the CDs. 3. 150-page travel dictionary/phrasebook 4. Instructions for online activities and for downloading the audio in MP3 format (gives a code for this). How it works: The CDs and course book are absolutely meant to be used together. Listening to the CDs you will hear Italian in dialogue form and in phrases, but the translations/vocab are found in the book. Each of the 14 lessons is divided into activities. Most of the activities are in both the book and CD and are easy to follow, however a couple of activities are only found on the CD. In this case the book will read something like: "now do activities 4 and 5 on the recording." There is more than one speaker, which is nice for gaining exposure to the accents used by different people. The Content: After a 2+ min intro that describes how to use the course, it jumps right into the following lessons. Lessons: 1: Meeting people 2: What job do you do? 3: Do you have any children? 4: I'd like a coffee 5: The car park is 100 metres away 6: Every Thursday I go to the gym 7: I haven't been to the lakes yet 8: Let's make it tonight at 8 9: I'd like a less expensive one 10: Have a nice meal! 11: When I was little 12: What a beautiful house! 13: How are you feeling? 14: I'd like to be a painter Plus a grammar summary (nice) and a vocab summary section. Travel Dictionary and Phrasebook: This slightly larger than pocket reference is like a nicely organized dictionary based on many, many topics such as games/leisure, celebrations, apartment living, birds & animals, education, health etc. It has a TON of info in it - very thorough. However, I don't see it so much as the typical travel phrasebook. It only has 15 pages of phrases and they are more like snippets of phrases than actual questions that would be common. My Impression: This is an intense course. I have studied Spanish for years and French for a little over one year. This is the first new language I've looked at in quite a while and this is formatted as a fast forward course that will give you a lot to work with in a short amount of time. I definitely recommend Take Off In Italian for students or for someone who plans on living or staying in Italy for an extended period of time that will be dealing with normal, everyday life situations. This would be suitable for the casual traveler, but a supplement for travel phrases would be needed.

I wonder why no one rated this course yet - because it`s splendid! Clear explanations, all the needed basic vocabulary, interactive written and oral excersises - this book will make you speak Italian from the first chapters! I just love the activity "Your turn" which requires your ability to use all the new grammar and vocabulary from the chapter to build conversational phrases. You can also always look up or listen to the answers to the questions to make sure you answered them right. The other good thing is that all the recording was made by native Italians which can really help you with pronauncation. There is only one disadvantage: sometimes answering to the questions requires just a little vocabulary not known to you yet - though, it`s always a good idea to keep your dictionary close to you when learning a foreign language, isn`t it?