Ultimate Italian: Advanced

I have used so many different foreign language CD's and books. This is THE BEST for self study. An oldie, but goodie. Most public libraries belong to a consortium, so even if your library does not carry this book and CD set, you can get it from another library to copy the CD's. Different versions are just very slightly different.

Excellent course for those that have studied Italian. The CDs are the perfect complement to the course book. I have not found a better, more comprehensive "advanced" course on the market.

I have been through this book twice now and am working on my third time through. I can't imagine a better format for self-teaching than this one. Each chapter starts with a 2-3 page dialog which is spoken on tape ("Learn at Home" set) once and then replayed again with time given to repeat each segment of the conversation. This is followed by 2-3 grammer sections, a short essay on an aspect of Italy and concluding with a quiz. Unfortunately, I have found the "Learn On the Go" tapes to be utterly worthless. They are far too fast and difficult to follow, especially when driving. If anyone is interested, I have copied the vocabulary for each chapter onto an Access database. I can also copy the list onto either Word or Excel.

Listening to the tapes (unfortunately it doesn't come on cd yet) gets you thinking in italian and it is a great way to further your skills. Not only are the dialogs well spoken, they also present some funny material- not your usual dry, run-of-the-mill texts that you encounter in some other language books. The book that comes along with it is also very informative regarding the grammar that is used in the dialogs and has a nice dictionary in the back of the book. I highly recommend this to anyone that is looking to acquire the skills needed to engage in an-everyday-social conversation.

This set is great, and it's actually the only tape set that I found appropriate for advanced level Italian. I think a minor drawback is that the length of time in between some of the phrases doesn't give you enough time to practice repeating the phrase completely. However, I still think the set is fantastic. It puts idioms, different grammatical constructions and vocabulary in the context of realistic conversations.