One (older) man’s quest to learn Italian – Part 3

Upon return from Italy in the summer of 2000, I worked to complete Level III of the Pimsleur series. At the same time, I did more research and found a CD series called “Learn In Your Car” … Italian. I purchased this. It is a set of 9 CDs … 3 each for their Levels 1, 2, and 3. This series is different than the Pimsleur series. It takes what I feel is a more traditional approach to teaching languages … lots of lessons are purely conjugating verbs, but at least they are in a functional, useable, learnable (I think that’s a made up word, sorry!) format. As well, this series goes into much more difficult uses of pronouns (direct and indirect), reflexive verbs, etc. Also, much more vocabulary … including many new verbs or verb infinitives.

I must admit that even today, after about 5 years of study (that’s 5 years on and off I might add … not full time over 5 years), I’m still not completely finished with all of Level 3 of “Learn In Your Car”. There are a number of lessons that I continue to listen to on a regular basis. I have pretty much learned all of the vocabulary on all 9 CDs … it’s just some pronoun use and some of the more complex sentence structures that I’ve still not mastered. Most are not that commonly used in everyday Italian, so I don’t get much practice with them when in Italy either.

So, “Learn In Your Car” is a great resource to further expand your grasp of Italian, and is priced very nicely. I believe I purchased it through Amazon for about $40 plus shipping.

Caution! This set is also sold “broken up” … something like what Pimsleur does. I would advise saving the money (and making the personal commitment) and buying the complete 3-level set … not each set one-by-one.

In my next entry in this series, I’ll share some of the other resources I’ve found to further your self-study of Italian and do more advanced learning.