Learning Italian- online/mobile course recommendations

CGrieves · 2 Oct 2013 at 14:01

As you're a learned bunch, I thought I'd ask here. My wife's Italian, impatient and a nightmare teacher

I know some very basic Italian but would like to make a proper effort to learn. Ideally I'd attend a sit-down course, but the way things are going at the moment it's not feasible, so I'm looking for recommendations for online/computer/mobile self-study courses. Practicing what I've learned is easy as I've got the wife and lots of Italian friends.

I've got several grammar books to use as reference, use Memrise for vocab, but for actual study I'd prefer to try a more interactive method.

Cost isn't an issue, I almost pushed the button on Rosetta Stone, but am slightly suspicious because it's not easy to find many impartial independent reviews. The demo version wasn't really in-depth enough, and given that there's no use of the student's native language whatsoever, I can't really see how it's going to explain complicated tenses and conjugations. Still open to the idea of Rosetta though if anyone's had a personal, positive experience using it.

Any recommendations?

Theophany · 2 Oct 2013 at 14:30

I've had the same reservations about Rosetta Stone. Sounds like it's too good to be true and I wonder if bad reviews are kept hidden by the fact that the company that produces it is nothing short of an advertising master. Would be interested to hear any impartial opinions on using it!

BD10NNF · 2 Oct 2013 at 14:41

You can use a phone app called Duolingo its seems to be good from what I've done and is very Rosetta Stone. Should be free on android but not sure about apple.

aa6972 · 2 Oct 2013 at 15:04

http://www.fluenz.com is very good -

Here's their youtube channel http://youtu.be/g6pcFWUZcEU

ic1male · 3 Oct 2013 at 11:49

Michel Thomas is probably the best course - he teaches all the grammar in the foundation and advanced courses and does some vocabulary in the vocabulary course. There's also Linguaphone allTalk Italian which is like a soap opera. Plus finally Earworms (for iPad/iPhone) is pretty good.

Arsonist · 3 Oct 2013 at 12:22

BD10NNF said:
You can use a phone app called Duolingo its seems to be good from what I've done and is very Rosetta Stone. Should be free on android but not sure about apple.

This. I've been using DuoLingo for French on my phone and it's brilliant. Really forces you to understand the language in a way that's not dull. I'd expect their Italian version was just as good.

pitchfork · 3 Oct 2013 at 12:22

I borrowed rosetta stone off someone, but in the end I just went to weekly italian lessons.

Jono · 3 Oct 2013 at 13:25

Just add "i" (pronounced ee) or "io" (pronounced ee-oh) to half of the words, but keep speaking in English.

Jono · 3 Oct 2013 at 13:26

Or another vote here for Michel Thomas, although the "students" in his courses do, at times, go full retard, and it can be quite frustrating.

ic1male · 3 Oct 2013 at 13:38

Jono said:
Or another vote here for Michel Thomas, although the "students" in his courses do, at times, go full retard, and it can be quite frustrating.

Especially on Spanish. I wanted to throttle the male student by the end of the first course. :mad:

Dave M · 3 Oct 2013 at 14:41

Look for a *good* skype tutor if you can afford, if not Michael Thomas seems a good bet.
Read italian ebooks (test your pronunciation and translation on a website - forvo is good for the pronunciation).
Watch italian films (with italian subtitles at first, never english).

I think the biggest factor though is the amount of time you put in, 2 hours day of any method will be better than 60 minutes a week of the best tutoring in the world.

smyth · 3 Oct 2013 at 15:41

ic1male said:
Especially on Spanish. I wanted to throttle the male student by the end of the first course.

Haha, I've been listening to this on the way to work and at one point he asks the male student to pronouce puede, he tries about 5 times and micheal just seems to give up and say "that's right!".