Product Overview
The Easiest and Fastest Way to Learn Italian
Whether you want to travel, communicate with friends or colleagues, reconnect with family, or just understand more of whats going on in the world around you, learning Italian will expand your horizons and immeasurably enrich your life.
The best part is that it doesnt have to be difficult or take years to master. Thirty minutes a day is all it takes, and we get you speaking right from the first day. Pimsleur courses use a scientifically-proven method that puts you in control of your learning. If youve tried other language learning methods but found they simply didnt stick, then you owe it to yourself to give Pimsleur a try.
Why Pimsleur?
- Quick + Easy Only 30 minutes a day.
- Portable + Flexible Core lessons can be done anytime, anywhere, and easily fit into your busy life.
- Proven Method Works when other methods fail.
- Self-Paced Go fast or go slow its up to you.
- Based in Science Developed using proven research on memory and learning.
- Cost-effective Less expensive than classes or immersion, and features all native speakers.
- Genius Triggers your brains natural aptitude to learn.
- Works for everyone Recommended for ages 13 and above.
Whats Included?
- 30, 30-minute audio lessons
- 60 minutes of reading instruction to provide you practice reading Italian
- in total, 16 hours of audio, all featuring native speakers
- a Reading Booklet and Users Guide
What Youll Learn
Builds upon skills taught in Pimsleurs Italian Levels 1 and 2.
In the first 10 lessons, you will expand your vocabulary and increase your fluency to an even higher level. Youll gain experience participating in many informal and some formal discussions on practical, social, and semiprofessional topics. Youll skillfully form longer, more complex sentences, and most importantly, youll find yourself being understood, even by native speakers unused to dealing with foreigners. Youll be able to join in conversations eagerly, confident of being understood.
In the next 10 lessons, your skills will demonstrate ever-increasing mastery of Italian. Speaking with grace and complete naturalness, youll enjoy fluid conversations on many new subjects. Delving deeper into cultural norms and situations, youll find yourself responding effortlessly, and able to choose from a wide accumulation of vocabulary and structures.
In the final 10 lessons, youre nearing fluency with agile responses, and a natural sounding, near-native accent. Youre able to utilize the language in subtle ways, and speak using past, present, and future tenses. Self-confidence soars as you no longer experience the language and culture as a foreigner, but as someone with a deepening insight into the Italian-speaking world.
Reading Lessons are included at the end of Lesson 30. These lessons, which total about one hour, are designed to give you practice reading Italian, to provide vocabulary and improve pronunciation. Before you know it, youll be reading Italian with the ease and flexibility of a native speaker.
The Pimsleur Method
We make no secret of what makes this powerful method work so well. Paul Pimsleur spent his career researching and perfecting the precise elements anyone can use to learn a language quickly and easily. Here are a few of his secrets:
The Principle of Anticipation
In the nanosecond between a cue and your response, your brain has to work to come up with the right word. Having to do this boosts retention, and cements the word in your mind.
Core Vocabulary
Words, phrases, and sentences are selected for their usefulness in everyday conversation. We dont overwhelm you with too much, but steadily increase your ability with every lesson.
Graduated Interval Recall
Reminders of new words and structures come up at the exact interval for maximum retention and storage into your long-term memory.
Organic Learning
You work on multiple aspects of the language simultaneously. We integrate grammar, vocabulary, rhythm, melody, and intonation into every lesson, which allows you to experience the language as a living, expressive form of human culture.
Learning in Context
Research has shown that learning new words in context dramatically accelerates your ability to remember. Every scene in every Pimsleur lesson is set inside a conversation between two people. There are no drills, and no memorization necessary for success.
Active Participation
The Pimsleur Method + active learner participation = success. This method works with every language and every learner who follows it. You gain the power to recall and use what you know, and to add new words easily, exactly as you do in English.
The Italian Language
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, Croatia, and Slovenia. Italian is spoken by about 58 million people in Italy, 24,000 in San Marino, 840,000 in Switzerland, another million in other European countries, and approximately 5 million in North and South America. Historically, Italian is a daughter language of Latin. Italian uses the Roman alphabet and the pronunciation of the language follows the spelling very closely.
Tech Talk
- CDs are formatted for playing in all CD players, including car players, and users can copy files for use in iTunes or Windows Media Player.
