Having started my recent round of Italian studies on 28th November, I have been studying for just over a month and last night I finished the first chapter of my text book
In Italiano. Il Corso Volume 1 - which I think makes this an appropriate point to give some kind of review.
Since I was lucky enough that my decision to go to Italy next year coincided with a trip through London, I was able to stop off at Foyles and browse through a good range of beginner Italian books before I settled on this one, mainly because it provided the following:
Lot of drills and exercises
All audio included on attached MP3 CD
A promise on the back that you could download the answer key online
I decided that the fact that the course is in Italian only wouldn't be a problem for me, partly because of positive experiences using German only resources, and partly because I could already understand the bit on the back about the answer key. When I got the book home, it turned out that my practically non existent level of Italian presented a bit more of a challenge in actually obtaining said answer key, but after some dictionary lookups and tentative form filling I managed it. The textbook also allows you access to an ebook version of the same course, although this hasn't been much use to me, presumably because I don't use a tablet.
In terms of the drills and exercises, the book doesn't disappoint. There are plenty, including both written drills and spoken drills using the CD. The overall amount of audio provided is really impressive, at about 6 hours 45 minutes. Each of the 7 chapters is split up into a number of sections with a dialogue, audio drills and grammar/sentence patterns (the number of sections per chapter varies), a section of practice exercises which are mainly written, although some include the answers recorded on the CD which provides a different way of checking your work, a section focusing on reading and writing which, at this level, mainly seems to concern form filling and simple, personal letters, a very short section focusing on some aspect of pronunciation and a section on "culture" which provides a short text about some aspect of Italian life/culture, which is also recorded on the CD.
Altogether, this course is quite a cost effective package and suits the way that I like to study, at least as a beginner. I don't think it would suit someone studying their first language on their own though, for three main reasons:
1. There is no up front information about pronunciation. The Italian Language and Culture course on EdX gives a good overview of the main pronunciation features at the beginning, so I was covered from my dabble earlier this year, otherwise it could have been a problem.
2. The explanations accompanying the grammar section are brief to non-existant, which is a bit disappointing. I have invested in a cheap grammar guide with an English base (
Collins Easy Learning Italian Grammar) which I am using to look stuff up if needed (turns out it's also quite fun to browse...)
3. The textbook is 100% in Italian. I actually find this works well for me, since I can find the answers to most things I need to look up using a combination of Word Reference and Linguee and the act of looking things up helps me to engage with and remember the material a bit better anyway. I am also fascinated by how much my experience with German, French and even my very limited knowledge of Spanish can help me not only figure things out, but also remember words better.
The book also seems to dump a lot of vocabulary early on. There are no vocab lists as such (again, this fits in with how I like to work) but the first chapter alone has generated enough vocabulary and expressions for me to make 372 notes/744 cards in Anki, although the grammar covered so far is basic (present tense of essere plus agreement of adjectives and nouns ending in o/a and their plural forms).
I have to admit that Anki has been a huge help keeping Italian on track this last month. In addition to helping me to manage the sheer volume of new vocabulary, it has also allowed me to keep in touch with what I have studied during a couple of periods where I simply couldn't sit down with a textbook on a daily basis due to other life commitments. As a complete beginner, I think that keeping in touch with the language is much more important to maintain momentum, something I wasn't able to do with my other dabbles this year.