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My younger daughter has been attending Italian classes through our local Italian Cultural Center for the last couple of years.

 

The teen beginner/intermediate and advanced/bilingual classes use a book series called Espresso, which is available from Applause Learning. The teacher's guide is in Italian though, so if you don't speak the language and don't have access to a native speaker, that probably wouldn't work. Applause carries some other excellent materials though.

 

My daughter also completed Kolbe's Italian 1 this past year, and thought it was okay, but very basic. I'm not that crazy about Prego, which is the text they use. It really lacks speaking practice, and the audio that's available isn't much, so I'd hesitate to use them without access to native speakers.

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We use Rosetta Stone, Instant Immersion Italian, and living books for the most part, but one of the best online resources I've found is this: Beginning Class Printables. It is meant for small children and they're all downloads, but it progresses quickly from alphabet to about level 3 I-Can-Read storybooks.

For listening, there are online kids' radio stations - adults, too, but the kids ones are usually easier to follow along for a beginner because they use simpler words and more repetitive songs.

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My younger daughter has been attending Italian classes through our local Italian Cultural Center for the last couple of years.

 

The teen beginner/intermediate and advanced/bilingual classes use a book series called Espresso, which is available from Applause Learning. The teacher's guide is in Italian though, so if you don't speak the language and don't have access to a native speaker, that probably wouldn't work. Applause carries some other excellent materials though.

 

My daughter also completed Kolbe's Italian 1 this past year, and thought it was okay, but very basic. I'm not that crazy about Prego, which is the text they use. It really lacks speaking practice, and the audio that's available isn't much, so I'd hesitate to use them without access to native speakers.

 

Thanks. I do not speak Italian, and I do not know of anybody here who does. Our local university does not offer Italian as a foreign language - so it has to be all self-study for now.

 

Is the student book all in Italian as well?

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We use Rosetta Stone, Instant Immersion Italian, and living books for the most part, but one of the best online resources I've found is this: Beginning Class Printables. It is meant for small children and they're all downloads, but it progresses quickly from alphabet to about level 3 I-Can-Read storybooks.

For listening, there are online kids' radio stations - adults, too, but the kids ones are usually easier to follow along for a beginner because they use simpler words and more repetitive songs.

 

Thanks. I am not sure I could motivate my 13 y/o son to use these; I am looking for a more systematic approach geared towards older learners. Something text+workbook+CDs with actual writing, not computer based.

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Prego, with all its extras, is probably going to come closest to what you're looking for just because it is widely used and has all the extras, lots of stuff on Quizlet, etc.

 

Ester Maria had several posts about Italian resources a couple of years ago. Her "favorite" (I forget the title) was difficult to use because it did not have enough explanations, and what it did have was in Italian. (We did have an Italian speaker, but she wasn't happy with it either.) It only worked well for the dd who was learning her 4th language, and therefore, needed very little in the way of grammar explanations. The other dd learned more from Rosetta Stone than either that book or Prego

 

I have also found a few older, beginning Italian books free online, which could help provide more practice.

 

ETA We also used Essential Italian Grammar in Practice, which is a workbook.

Edited by In The Great White North
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A few years ago, when I was trying to set up Spanish classes for homeschoolers, a language professor at a nearby U told me about free Italian classes offered by the Italian Embassy. The embassy was willing to provide a free classes to any students that were interested, as long as the class met the minimum number of students (I can't recall what that number was).

 

I don't know if they still have the program, or if it would interest your son, but I thought I'd pass on the bit of info that I have since it sounds like a wonderful opportunity.

 

For anyone that's interested, a call to the Italian Embassy would be the first step to find out it the program is still available.

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We've found Pimsleur to be a great way to start on any language. It's all aural, but you can get through it pretty fast. It helps a lot with the more formal approaches.

 

We tried starting Spanish with Destinos, but couldn't get very far at all until the kids went through Pimsleur. After that, they did quite a bit better with it. Before, it was just memorizing vocabulary and grammar in a vacuum and it never stuck.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I am the OP of the thread and want to give an update.

We have decided to use Prego! An invitation to Italian. It has the components I was looking for: textbook, workbook, audio CDs+lab manual, plus a companion website.

I was able to buy everything for the 7th edition rather inexpensively used on amazon (the older editions are even cheaper). I just found that the companion website for the 6th edition does have all the audio available, so maybe the purchase of the CDs was not necessary... oh well.

 

Thanks for all the recommendations. I may look into the online class in a year or so, when we hit the point that I will not longer be able to keep up learning alongside with DS (we reached that point in French with DD).

Live courses locally are not an option in our location; that would be my preferred method of language learning.

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Regentrude, thank you for updating. Prego does seem to be consistently well reviewed and have the benefit of being used widely enough to have many other resources.

 

I hesitate a bit. This would be the third language which Dd has taken a strong interest in learning. I have been able to help her a bit with Latin and a great deal with Spanish, but Italian will be a new endeavor for both of us.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I know you said you didn't want a computer-based program, so this may only be for others who come across the post.

 

We've been going through the same thing. I did study Italian, so I can help them but didn't want to "be" the curriculum. We did Pimsleur last year. It worked pretty well for my 16-year-old daughter who seems to have an ear for languages, but the other kids were complaining that they were completely lost, so we kept having to go back further in the lessons even though we had gone through them twice each time before continuing. As a result, we didn't get that far into the program.

 

I just bit the bullet and ordered levels 1 and 2 of Fluenz Italian. I like their method from what I can see. I found it used on Amazon at a considerable discount, and my 13-year-old who had the most vociferous complaints about Pimsleur said he really liked the sample lesson. We shall see.

 

My one determination is that whole family should study the same language at the same time so we can practice with each other.

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My son has chosen Italian as the foreign language he wants to study. Any recommendations for materials?

Thanks.

 

My middle son and I are studying this together (only just a little bit at this point, since we've both been so busy) but we picked a workbook that looked like it taught the grammar and syntax of the language -not just traveler phrases. It sells for $18.95: Italian: A self-teaching guide by Lebano (pub. Wiley).

Now he is studying Italian at the university even though he is an Economics major. He just loves Italy and the language, so rather than the standard German he decided to make his foreign language Italian! He also figured it would be slightly easier since he has studied Latin in the past.

 

For a supplement (similar to Rosetta) that will develop the pronunciation and auditory aspect of the language I would get the Immersion program sold at Sam's and Best Buy for about $50. (We've used that for Spanish and it is just as nice as Rosetta in my opinion.)

 

You might also do a search on Wiziq.com for an Italian teacher. There are many native Italian speakers who teach it there economically.

Just a thought.

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