Customer Reviews
Good but not as good as the Spanish course. - By: Mr. S. Duffy, 06 May 2008 
The first thing to say is that the Michel Thomas way is perfect for me. I did his Spanish course & it gave me the motivation to take conversation lessons. The big problem is not the saying or reading of a language, it is the listening to others & understanding what they are saying that is difficult. So, having completed the Italian course I feel very confident with the structure & cognate vocabulary, & I just need to practice. Having followed Michel Thomas's Spanish course in the past I have to say that I found the Italian version less comprehensive than the Spanish. There seems to be a lot of time spent on the will & would, & the stressed 'r' on the word endings. As with the Spanish course you have to get past the students mistakes, but I think that it is because the students make so many mistakes in the will & would tenses that they seem to take up so much time. The situation is remedied somewhat in the advanced course, but I still don't think you get as much as with the Spanish course. Again the Michel Thomas way is perfect for me & aside from the comparative lack of depth to the Spanish course it is well worth your time & money. I am so happy with the courses that I can't wait for the French course to arrive, & find an italian to speak to.
Establishing basic groundwork painlessly - By: H. R. Williams, 08 Apr 2008 
I have the set of 8 CDs & listened to them in my car. This has proved the easiest method I have tried & certainly provides an excellent starting point. I agree, vocabulary is not extensive but I now feel confident enough to develop this with further textbooks & reading.
Thanks to Mr. Thomas - a great help.
Could do with some judicious editing! - By: carla, 28 Feb 2008 
Others had recommended this course to me so perhaps my expectations were a little higher. On the negative side, it was a bit of a culture shock when compared to other audio language courses. First the sound quality is a bit odd & gets a bit of time to get used to - it certainly isn't as clear or as produced as other language recordings. Michel is clearly quite elderly so his voice is not always that clear. The format of the course is essentiallly listening in on a lesson where Michel is teaching a male & female student. Like other reviewers I did find the students extremely irritating, mainly when they kept getting things wrong. This slowed things up considerably as alll the awkward silences where Michel is waiting for them to get it right are included!. Also, to go back to the elderly Michel again, the word combinations he introduces came across as a bit random & made me wonder how thought out the course structure was.
On the plus side I was surprised how much I could remember afterwards & many words did sink themselves into my head - possibly because the recording is extremely repetitious. Again, like other reviewers I would consider the course unsuitable if you are planning to go on holiday as typical language learned is along the lines of "I cannot do it just now, I am busy..." It is designed for someone, like me, who is studying the language at night school & wants a better understanding of sentence structure - which it has done.
I'll persevere with it but I can reallly only listen to around half an hour at the time - as it is very repetitious & a bit one note in its approach.
Brilliant - but perhaps don't begin here! - By: J. Morris, 26 Jul 2007 Michel Thomas has a relaxed teaching style which leads you gently but comprehensively through the basic structure of the Italian language. However, if you haven't started to learn any Italian yet then my advice would be to begin elsewhere, perhaps with an audio introduction to some basic words & phrases, then move up to this one next. I found myself able to focus on the listening, speaking & learning rather than worrying about the other 'students'. They are simply there to alllow you thinking time & to help Michel point out the potential pitfallls in how to understand & be understood.
Painful - By: Lou, 10 Jul 2007 
I agree with other reviewers. Michel's accent is apallling in English & his structures are so stiff in English that I wonder how the Italian is as well. Statements like "It is not possible for me that way", "What sort of reservation do you have for me?" These are examples of his English whih are not how any normal speaker of English talks.I also found the students incredibly annoying. The woman in particular- the giggling, & rushing in without thinking first annoyed me, as did Michel's constant interruption of them when they were answering.
