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What customers say about the Pimsleur ITALIAN audios:

Non si puo sbagliare! (You can't go wrong!)
Fugeddabout it! The best way to learn to speak Italian. Took these audios to Italy with me when I was about a third of the way through them. I had no problem getting around and communicating, even in towns where little or no Inglese was spoken. I couldn't hold a deep conversation, or a lengthy one, but to be able to survive in a foreign language when still completing level I was really gratifying. And recently I bought Ultimate Italian as a supplement. It's good, but nowhere near Pimsleur. Pimsleur is brilliantly designed to lock the learning into your memory. You find yourself thinking in Italian, not translating back and forth in your head. The course is worth every Euro. I can't wait to start Level II. If you can afford it, and your interest is chiefly speaking Italian rather than reading and writing it, this is tops. If, on the other hand, you want to read and write in Italian, you should look for a different course or supplement this one. -- Louie B., Chicago, Ill. USA

 Easily the Best

I had brought the complete sets of three volumes for both French and Russian before giving the Italian audios a try prior to a trip to Italy. I recommend Pimsleur with glowing enthusiasm to many friends and work colleagues, who have all raved about them. Many of them have caught the language bug off me after trying Pimsleur courses - whether French, Cantonese, Arabic or Italian. One person said Pimsleur was the only thing in 20 years that he had found to help him learn Cantonese and zoomed through the first volume at an amazing pace. Other work colleagues of Italian descent who have harboured a life long guilt for losing their language heritage have found these lessons highly therapeutic.

Over the decades I have been exposed to countless different linguistic approaches to learning languages, but none have impressed me as much as that of Pimsleur. I have even ordered CD courses in German from Amazon.de from companies such as Langenscheidt. The language CDs available in German are far superior to the vast majority of the courses you can get in the English language, but still only Pimsleur teaches language in the same way that I have intuitively learned to learn languages on my own over the years. I am so happy that someone has gone out and 'bottled' the secret techniques of good language learners so that people everywhere can discover how much fun learning languages can be.

If you buy cheaper alternatives to Pimsleur you are short changing yourself severely. Costly though you may think they are, enrolling in a course or getting private tuition will cost you at least as much and probably far more. Being a fluent speaker of a language and being a good teacher are also quite different things, so you may yet end up with teacher who is fluent at a language but poor at teaching it. With Pimsleur you are guaranteed a meticulously structured approach to learning in which you can have complete confidence. Also many of us lead busy lives and may have trouble making it to classes. With Pimsleur audios and an MP3 player you can learn while you drive, in the plane, while sitting in the train, while waiting in long queues or while going around the supermarket. Half an hour here and there soon adds up.

In the case of Italian in particular the proximity of the Latin languages to English is particularly suitable to the Pimsleur approach, and allows you to progress at a much faster rate than with, say Russian or Arabic. Pimsleur gives you the platform to further my language abilities in a way that no other course I have ever seen even comes close to. -- Johji Josquin, Sydney, Australia