Read an Excerpt
Italian
A Self-Teaching Guide
Preface
Italian: A Self-Teaching Guide is a simplified and practical beginner's course for anyone who wishes to learn Italian. The program is designed to provide self-learners, students in adult education courses, and students in beginning language courses with a general knowledge of the Italian language as it is spoken and written today.
In presenting almost all major grammatical structures of the Italian language, the book follows an essentially practical and linguistic approach, gradually building up a vocabulary of well over eleven hundred of the most commonly used Italian words. All explanations of grammatical points stress the basic and the indispensable and are, as much as possible, concise, simple, and to the point.
The text consists of (1) fifteen regular lessons; (2) three review lessons, immediately following lessons 5, 10, and 15; (3) an appendix with the answers to the exercises, including those in the review lessons; (4) an appendix with the conjugations of regular verbs, and one with the conjugations of avere and essere and irregular forms of the stem-changing verbs encountered in the text; and (5) an ItalianÐ English vocabulary, listing words presented in the fifteen lessons.
Each of the lessons begins with a list of useful words (Parole da Ricordare, Words to Remember), most of them related to the topic of the Dialogo that follows, portraying events, situations, or problems in everyday life. Following the English translation of the dialogue, several points of grammar are introduced in a step-by-step procedure. The exercises, rather than being grouped together at the end of the lesson, come immediately after the explanation of relevant grammatical points, thus giving students a sense of building effectively block by block. By checking the results of this immediate practice with the answers provided at the end of the book, students can clearly assess the progress they are making.
To make the best use of this text, carefully read the Pronunciation Guide, then proceed as follows:
- Always read and repeat aloud each of the words listed in the Words to Remember. Practice writing them, and keep in mind their meaning in English.
- Read the entire Dialogo, and repeat each sentence several times until you think you know it quite well. Then check the English translation of the Dialogo to see how much of it you were able to understand by yourself.
- Take your time in learning the content of the various grammatical points. When you have completed the first section, do the exercise(s) before going on to the next section. Check the answers in the back of the book to see how well you did.
- Analyze your mistakes, and if necessary, reread the grammar explanation. If your mistakes concern vocabulary items, review Words to Remember before continuing with the lesson.
Italian: A Self-Teaching Guide will not turn you into a polished speaker of Italian overnight. It will not enable you to deal immediately with every Italian text. But it will give you the basic tools to understand, speak, read, and write simple Italian. It opens the gate to a very gratifying experience: understanding and appreciating the language and the culture of Italy and its people. Buon lavoro--enjoy your work!
--E. A. L.
