Book Description

Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and an official language of Switzerland, Croatia, and Slovenia. It is spoken by about 58 million in Italy, 24,000 in San Marino, 840,000 in Switzerland, another million in other European countries, and 5 million in North and South America. The Pimsleur(R) Method: the easiest, fastest way to learn a new language. Completely portable, easily downloadable, and lots of fun. You ll be speaking and understanding in no time flat Italian Phase 1, Lessons 1-30 includes 15 hours of spoken language practice and one hour of reading instruction in thirty, 30-minute lessons. In the first 10 lessons, you ll cover the basics: saying hello, asking for or giving information, scheduling a meal or a meeting, asking for or giving basic directions, and much more. You ll be able to handle minimum courtesy requirements, understand much of what you hear, and be understood at a beginning level, but with nearnative pronunciation skills. In the next 10 lessons, you ll build on what you ve learned. Expand your menu, increase your scheduling abilities from general to specific, start to deal with currency and exchanging money, refine your conversations and add over a hundred new vocabulary items. You ll understand more of what you hear, and be able to participate with speech that is smoother and more confident. In the final 10 lessons of Phase 1, you ll be speaking and understanding at an intermediate level. In this phase, more directions are given in the target language, which moves your learning to a whole new plane. Lessons include shopping, visiting friends, going to a restaurant, plans for the evening, car trips, and talking about family. You ll be able to speak comfortably about things that happened in the past and make plans for the future. Reading Lessons are included and start at Unit 9 to provide you with an introduction to reading Italian. These lessons, which total about one hour, are designed to teach you to sound out words with correct pronunciation and accent. A Reading Booklet to be used with the audio lessons is also included in PDF format.