Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Good, but a bitdull. November 7, 2007
Sarah Duncan (UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
With a holiday to Italy coming up, preceded by several long car journeys, I bought three language CDs to listen to in the car: Earworms, Learn in Your Car Complete Language Course and BBC Quickstart and I'd rate them them in that order, Earworms being easily the best and getting 5 stars. I found all of them easy to use in the car, although in the end I felt they were better suited to short journeys rather than doing a lot in one go.
Unlike the other two, which are aimed at the holiday goer, Learn in Your Car is a complete language course, just as it says on the cover, and is good value for money. However, I can't review it thoroughly, because I never got past the first disc. It's basically a little dull, just lists of vocab. The lessons follow themes eg travelling but they don't appear to be interlinked so the first list to learn is: I, you, he, she, we etc but then it never turns up again - well, not on Disc 1 anyway. Having said that, the speakers had pleasant voices (although the English is American English) and I liked the way they switched between a man and a woman speaking. It's certainly easy to use in the car, if a bit relentless. One person says the word in English, there's a gap in case you can remember the translation, then the Italian speaker says it in Italian, another gap for you, then again in Italian, then a third gap. They say you should be able to remember all of the words before moving on to the next lesson, but as they weren't interlinked, in fact you could listen to the whole CD without needing to remember anything. if you stuck it out, I'm sure it would give a more complete grounding in Italian than Earworms, but for a holiday, Earworms is the one to go for.
 Dull and not all that useful really! February 14, 2006
Lisa Wright
21 out of 21 found this review helpful
I bought these CDs second hand thinking they would help to supplement other learning materials as I am studying for the Italian GCSE, but in comparison to other audio courses I found this very dull and not a good way of learning at all. It is just words and phrases which you are given a very short time to repeat and that's the last you hear of them!! As mentioned before, you are given no chance to repeat again so nothing goes in (I found!). It's not fun at all and could send me to sleep which is never a good thing when you are driving!! I am working my way through 'Pimsleur speak and read essential Italian I, II and II' and they are simply awesome. You wouldn't use them in the car because you do need to concentrate and use the pause button but I have learnt so much from them in just a few weeks. I can also recommend the Michel Thomas language course and Linguaphone All-Talk (this latter is perfect for the car). I'm sorry to be negative but language learning needs to be stimulating and fun and this really wasn't.
 Very good audio training December 11, 2005
Sometimes gruntled (Hampshire United Kingdom)
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
When I started learning Italian I bought many books and software
programs before I got this, so I consider myself qualified to
give a comparative review. Books are good but you need several to
cover everything.. PC learning software is useful in it's
multi-media approach, but most of them have no concise guidance.With this audio set, you just turn it on, listen and repeat.
The nine discs progress through, gradually introducing new
words, verbs, pronouns, nouns, etc incorporating the grammar
rules as you go. It is certainly the most satisfying and fun
way to learn that I have tried. I found it interesting to use
the things was already familiar with, but you could use it
without knowing anything and pick up a good working knowledge
of Italian. In the set there are included 3 extra discs by the author about how
to approach learning any new language: very useful, although
the audio quality is somewhat " home-made ". Like the name say's, it's for learning in your car. As explained
in another review, there's English in one ear and Italian in the other.
I found that O.K. I did find that the gaps left for
speaking are pretty short: you really need to think quick.This
may be deliberate, but sometimes I like to pause the player and
think about the answer. I transferred all my discs onto one
to avoid having to change them over. One serious point: learning in your car can be distracting and
there are some safety implications to this: I’ll say no more.
In summary then, a very good buy for use on its own
or as a supplement to other material.
 Creates time to learn September 6, 2005
20 out of 20 found this review helpful
I would endorse all the comments made by Graham Phillips, who has made a good factual description of the product. I spent a good deal of time going through all nine CD's and I have now just returned from Italy, having had the first chance to try my skills out. My impressions were as follows: 1. I can think of no other way of learning so much of the language without taking time out to do lessons or study books at home. Those 30-40 minutes a day in the car, every day, would be difficult to find otherwise.
2. You are learning to speak by listening and speaking out-loud, not by reading. This gives extra confidence in speaking. The repetition of listening to a native speaker over and over again gives you a good feel for the sounds of the language.
3. The continual repetition of set sentences forces you to think quickly and clearly, which is good in conversation.
4. Because it is based on repetition, it does not so much equip you for spontaneous expression and conversation. But neither does any other kind of book or CD-Rom.
5. Encourages clear, accurate pronunciation, and accurate grammar.
6. In no way helps writing or spelling. I have still never written a word in Italian. Even though the product comes with booklets, it's far from being a full grammar guide and I must say I barely used the booklets. I did however refer to another book when I was unsure of grammar points - I used Italian in Three Months for this purpose. It covers about the same amount of grammar and vocab. When I went to Italy and spoke for the first time, everyone could understand clearly straightaway, and was happy to speak back in Italian. I could handle most general situations without difficulty. These CD's allowed to me to get to this level without any study time set aside. All I had to do was to use the CD's to and from work, rather than listening to radio or music.
A few clarifications April 23, 2005
Graham Phillips (Cambridge, UK)
29 out of 30 found this review helpful
Here are a few extra comments to help avoid misunderstanding.
Grammar. The course does cover Italian grammar. Each lesson (there are over a hundred in all) illustrates one or a few grammatical points. These are (quite sensibly) explained in the accompanying booklets rather than on the CDs. The course does not go into great detail, and you may want to get another grammar book as well.
Vocabulary. Certainly this course emphasises vocabulary. Some other courses cover far fewer words, with the consequence that you can find yourself in Italy confident of your imperfect subjunctives but unable to ask where the bathroom is. Learning vocab is a necessary part of learning a language, and this course makes the process less painful than most.
Context. As the booklet explains, no sentence introduces more than one new word. There are some lessons that just have a list of words, but these are soon built up into meaningful sentences. The first lesson starts with the word "I"; lesson 2 starts with "I want"; lesson 6 has "I would like to make a reservation" and by lesson 30 you have sentences like "he wants a ticket for the train that leaves for Naples at ten o'clock in the morning".
Themes. Each lesson has a title and a theme. Sometimes these are real-life themes, like hotels, shopping or transport, and sometimes they are grammatical themes like prepositional pronouns or the verb "Essere", imperfect tense. Some lessons have "ragbag" themes like "Some important concepts" or "Common expressions".
Repetition. Each word or phrase or sentence is spoken first in English then (after a pause) in Italian and then (after another pause) in Italian again. You have three opportunities to say the Italian. The instructions suggest that you work through the first lesson repeatedly until you know it pretty well, then add the second lesson similarly, then the third, etc, frequently going back to revise earlier lessons. Obviously you can't learn the language simply by playing through the CDs once (if only!).
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