Basic Italian (Practice Makes Perfect) (Italian Edition) Workbook Edition

This book is a wonderful accompaniment to someone trying to learn Italian on their own via any online course (e.g., Rosetta Stone). The book unfolds in a clear, linear way with multiple exercises that give you the opportunity to go at your own pace and reinforce and/or comprehend what is unclear via the online products. I highly recommend this book for beginning Italian speakers.

This is not only an excellent basic book, but also an invaluable review book for an intermediate speaker/reader of Italian. I speak well enough (including gesturing) to travel and communicate all over Italy. However, there are small things in Italian that differ from English in structure, lingo, gender, plurals and grammar. ALL of these pesky little things are directly addressed and cleared up in this Practice Makes Perfect book. I certainly wish I had had this particular book at the beginning of my Italian study, and reviewing my Italian in anticipation of another extended trip to Italy, ALL of these little differences are laid down so clearly, that I feel much more confident that I'll be able to make myself more clearly understood. Examples of these are: gender, plurals,reflexive pronouns and verbs, the imperfect, the adverb ci, the future (rarely used in everyday Italian conversation). There are great exercises that reinforce new forms, and I especially appreciated the nota bene reminders that clears up alot of common errors! (see pg. 26.) Also, the culture corners sections are very informative regarding daily Italian life, and very connected to the language being taught and reinforced.

I have several different books on learning Italian, and this one is acceptable if you want a VERY basic overview. There are good points to it as it does give you a broad view of what to expect when learning this language. However, you will not really gain any in depth knowledge given the fact that there are only 2 - 3 pages dedicated to each topic. There are plenty of exercises but it doesnt seem to give you the examples and scenarios that you find in other text. I think Italian Now is a better general book on learning Italian. In addition there are several websites that offer interactive learning services. The book is not expensive and if you are looking for simple exercises and want an intro to Italian (or a refresher) then this is a good book for you.

Awful workbook, il più cattivo. MANY ERRORS. The answer key and exercises are riddled with mistakes. Would not recommend this to anyone, especially those who are starting from the beginning. Signora Visconti should be absolutely ashamed of herself for putting out garbage like this.

If you want to get a good grounding of basic Italian grammar and and make solid first steps in reading and writing Italian, this is the book for you. It's an excellent supplement to any audio course orclassroom course.

Good complement to the audio lessons we bought.

Needed this for an Italian class. It arrieved in perfect conditions and it was in a great price.

I enjoyed the Practice Makes Perfect Basic Spanish so much I purchased the Basic Italian. What a major disappointment. If I hadn't already learned a good deal of Italian several years I'd be completely lost. Even with my prior experience and knowledge I'm constantly finding new vocabulary words that I don't remember.What made the Basic Spanish book great was that it started at ground zero assuming the user had no Spanish vocabulary. By the end of the first lesson I was able to construct simple phrases and each new lesson build on all the previous lessons.Basic Italian does none of this. I'm going to continue with it and hope it gets better but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Bought this in order to learn proper Italian as I grew up in Sicilian dialect household. An excellent book for beginners as it starts english speakers off at the very first level. A few sudden jumps concerning difficulty could have been made smoother and slower but overall a great tool!

I started out with complete italian grammar by the same publisher. i got about halfway through before i gave up, because there was way too much stuff i don't need at my current level. i bought the basic version to help with that.it does do the job, however, you have to stay vigilant. there are many many errors, most of grammatical nature. ive had some knowledge already, so i could spot them relatively easily.on the other hand, it looks like noone proofread the book before printing. sometimes english words pop up in the middle of italian example sentences. also, it seems to lack a chapter on imperatives. it's not much, but still, you'd havee to get that somewhere else.

I chose this because I had been very impressed with the Basic Chinese textbook in this series. Perhaps it's me, but Basic Italian is not as clear or as easy to use. In the first few sections I have noticed that key vocabulary is used in the exercises that has not been introduced - for example in the Nationalities section, and the explanations about grammar points and sentence construction are not always clear. I keep having to go to other sources for more understandable explanations and to answer basic questions.

Am amazed at the errors in this book. How can anyone learn from a book with inaccuracies such as incorrect accents etcHas nobody proof read it?

Says that it is Basic Italian but when I open up the book on my kindle it is actually the basic French book. Busy getting a refund now.