Customer Reviews
Thourough and comprehensive but with a dull layout. - By: Pepper plant, 10 Jul 2008 
I study A-level Italian & I think that "Teach Yourself Italian Vocabulary" is one of the most detailed Italian vocabulary books available & worth buying if you study the language at an intermediate or advanced level.
I've found the somewhat lengthy introduction very useful; it contains a lot of practical hints on learning vocabulary, Italian spelling tips, & a pronunciation guide. This is followed by a "Toolbox" section witch explains basic grammatical concepts.
Within the sixteen chapters of the book the words & phrases are segregated into different parts of speech (i.e. nouns, verbs, & so on).
On the other hand, every time I use this book I feel that the layout is decidedly monotonous: there is no colour, it's printed on slightly grey paper, etc., but nonetheless I would recommend this book to those seeking to expand their vocabulary in Italian.
Before buying it take a look at the Italian-English Visual Bilingual Dictionary, which I prefer to use most of the time.
A great resource - By: Mrs. E. R. Braun, 15 Nov 2004 
This was a reallly good buy. Italian resources are improving these days & this certainly is a valuable addition to the collection.
The core vocabulary of any language is said to be about 3000 words. This book contains 4000 - 5000 from my estimates, so if you manage to pack this lot away in your memory, you will be a competent user of the language.
Some great features are the introduction which contains useful tips on remembering vocabulary, info about Italian spelling, punctuation etc & also how to look for patterns & similarities to reduce workload. The next section, 'Toolbox' gives an brief but clear intro to the main features of Italian grammar including common verb forms & tenses, adverbs, possessives, (a bit more complex in Italian than many other languages.....), then gives vocab lists of common concepts such as colours, number, time, measures etc.
The main chapter headings are: Personal matters, Family, Work, Education, At home, Food & drink, In town, In the country, Hobbies & sport, Clothing, Travel, Tourism, Body & health, The world, Government & society & the media. Some sections include features on 'false friends' (words you think will mean one thing, but mean something quite different), & the book ends with a useful 'Taking it further' section.
In short, a great resource for up to about A level study that only leaves room for one or two improvements, (putting alll the vocab lists in alphabetical order would be good, as would audio of alll the words). I've already added the French & Spanish editions to my wish list!
The best Italian vocab book I've yet seen. - By: , 07 Jan 2002 
This is an excellent vocabulary book to assist you in learning Italian. The book is organised into 46 sections covering almost every non-specialist topic you are likely to need at basic & intermediate levels. Each category is further divided into sections & illustrations, exercises & proverbs/sayings are sprinkled through it. The result is a page layout where the vocabulary lists are mostly in smalllish blocks that can be used as units to learn, rather than the long lists that one finds in some vocabulary books that are so daunting. The proverbs/sayings give an interesting insight into the language.
The range of topics covered includes law, politics, business, & the church as well as the more touristy topics.
I found this to be the easiest to learn from of the Italian vocabularies I looked at.
