Teach Yourself Instant Italian (Book Only)

by Elisabeth Smith

Learn Italian in six weeks! Even if you have failed in traditional language-learning courses, you will succeed with Teach Yourself Instant Italian ! In just 35 minutes a day for six weeks (including one day off each week), you will be able to speak confidently in your new language. As you become involved with the program's intriguing storyline, you will pick up the words and phrases integral to basic conversations. You will learn 400 key words and expressions in Italian and only the most important grammar tips so you can communicate quickly and easily.

128 pages, Paperback

First published April 22, 1998

About the author

Elisabeth Smith has published more than 30 books, CDs and DVDs in 11 different languages. She has taught enthusiastic audiences all over the world. Her unique entertaining courses are international bestsellers with over one million copies sold.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a starter to learning Italian very quickly (in 6 weeks, as it says on the cover), this little book is excellent.

I decided to learn Italian in readiness for my first trip to the lakes for a dual celebration of my wife's birthday and our wedding anniversary in 1998. I bought this with 6/7 weeks to go, and stuck to it every day for the 6 weeks. I fell in love with Italian, and 6 weeks later with Italy. We flew to Milan and got the train along the coast in order to see Lago Maggiore spread out alongside us, but the flight was an hour late, and we arrived in darkness on a pretty dismal train. But that evening, as we entered our mezzanine room in the Hotel Simplon in Baveno and were greeted by the hugest bouquet of roses I've ever seen, and pulled up the shutters to the high French doors, at that very moment a fireworks display commenced across the lake at Verbania - and it was a glorious start to an unforgettable long weekend.

I practiced my Italian at every stage, on the plane, at the airport, at the train station, in the hotel, in the shops on the Isola dei Pescatori and Stresa (visiting the hotel I thought Hemingway had written A Farewell To Arms in - but it turned out that was in a hotel in Vevey near Montreux in Switzerland? ), and I loved every minute of my time in that country. We returned to the Italian coast the next year, and I returned to that hotel a couple of years later, and revisited Stresa and the Borromean Islands, with an Italian guide. I had by now completed Teach Yourself: Italian, and I later got quite a way into Teach Yourself: Improve Your Italian - so this little starter book was the beginning of a great adventure for me, and the start of a love affair with Italian and Italy.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

(this is a newer edition than mine) Another language offering courtesy of Daniel and Christmas. This was my introduction to Italian along with the Michel Thomas series. It was okay but there are others that are better.