Not perfect, but definitely not as bad as I thought... 
After being a huge fan of the Michel Thomas method and having used it to learn French and German, I approached the new, non-Michel vocabulary courses with a slight hesitation. Bad reviews on Amazon, with particular malice towards series editor Rose Lee Hayden over her patronising encouragement and awful pronunciation really made me think that it would be a let down.
I actually really enjoyed the course. Yes, Rose Lee Hayden is incredibly patronising but I genuinely believe that she doesn't mean to be - she wants to be encouraging and to help us learn, even if the result is the fact she sounds completely fake. From a personal point of view, she reminds me of my grandmother in that respect, which allowed me to be able to deal with it. After awhile, I could just ignore her patronising statements and focus on the Italian being taught. What really irked me most though was her pronunciation - it is truly awful, but that may also be due to the fact she has a rather strong American accent. Only copy the pronunciation of the native Italian speakers.
Regardless of its shortcomings, it does have redeeming features - it does teach an awfully large and varied vocabulary, I much prefer the two native speakers rather than the incompetent, irritating students on the earlier courses and it is good value for money. From my perspective, the course gave me everything I needed. I've been in a relationship with an Italian for over five years, I speak pretty good Italian already and we've recently made the decision to move to Rome in the New Year. With this in mind, I bought the course as a means to sharpen, expand upon and consolidate the Italian vocabulary I already possess.
And it really didn't disappoint - I found it very useful, although it is definitely not perfect. Don't believe all of the negative hype about this series and give it go. You might be as pleasantly surprised as I was. |
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