Italian in 3 Months with Free Audio App: Your Essential Guide to Understanding and Speaking Italian (Hugo in 3 Months)

The hugo series of introductory language books don't get as much attention as other big brands, but I was very impressed with their Italian book. I highly recommend it for someone who doesn't have a lot of experience with foreign language learning and wants a gentle introduction into the grammar of the Italian language. It is mostly focused on grammar, but I was pleased to find that each of the ten lessons contain three or four thoughtfully written conversations along with with full translations and accompanying audio recordings. Reading and listening to short conversations is a great way to acquire a language in a way that will stay with you better that trying to memorize individual words. At the end of every lesson there are a few phrases to remind you of the grammar topics covered and a list of the vocabulary that was used in the conversations and other examples. There is no perfect way to organize a book of this type, but I really like what the author has done here, I find it much more approachable and useful than other books of this type. Along with the book there is a simple and free app containing recordings of every conversation, phrase and vocabulary word. Listening to audio of conversations you understand over and over is a great way to internalize the language. There are some things I don't like. Sometimes the grammar explanations are a bit overly simplified. Which would be fine, given that the target audience is beginning language learners, but I wish the author provided readers with a few more warnings in some sections that these simplified rules do not work in every case. Also, the recordings of the conversations are spoken at close to a normal conversional pace and can't be slowed down. Some beginners might find this a little frustrating. Adding a feature to slow the audio or just providing us with mp3s so we can use the speed settings on our own players would have been nice. Overall, this book is a great deal. In my opinion, this book pairs really well with an audio course like Pimsleur, because it provides just enough grammatical explanation to make you more confident and fill in gaps in what you are learning in an audio only course. If you completed both simultaneously, you would have a really solid start in the Italian language. Good luck in your language learning journey!

Great book so far.

I am sure this is both an excellent and comprehensive resource. However, I am equally unsure if 3 months is really a realistic timeframe for completing it. I am of the opinion that to complete it in 3 months, to really do it justice, you must be at an intermediate level, or if a true beginner, be willing to invest more than 10-15 minutes a day (I am neither). I consider myself at least average intelligence, but I found that it progressed too quickly for me. The first chapter (aka "Week 1") was deceptively straightforward (I completed it in 20-30 minutes), but off the rip, the second chapter (aka "Week 2") introduced a lot of vocabulary which quickly became overwhelming for me. There are pros and cons to including more complex dialogues early on in a language course; on the one hand, it teaches you to learn to "listen," not translate every word, but simply get the gist of what is being said, which is an important aspect of listening comprehension. However, I personally like to listen to a dialogue, then read it in the index language while listening, and finally, practice translating the English portion back into the index language. The dialogues included in week 2 were too complex and my knowledge of Italian woefully insufficient to complete this last step which left me feeling frustrated. I also felt overwhelmed by the number of exercises each week, which for reference is more than double the number of exercises in other languages in this same "3 month" series. TL;DR As a person unwilling to invest more than 10-15 minutes a day in language learning, I might reasonably be able to realistically complete this book in 6 to 12 months.

Normally you can mark single words, copy them for dictionary use etc. Must be something wrong with this book on Kindle at least in my Kindle app on my iPad. I bought the same book from another digital book dealer, everything now went without any problem, and it was also cheaper… But the book itself is fantastic like other language books from the same book publisher, I really recomend the book. A good mix of grammar and word knowledge and an excellent possibiliy to listen to the text exercises on the internet. The whole thing is a bit disturbing as I normally like Kindle ebooks best. And, not the least, Amazon sent the money back fast without discussion, which I really apperciate.

En helt fantastiskt bra bok trots det låga priset. En rätt så heltäckande grammatik, många intressanta dialoger och en app där man kan lyssna på stora delar av boken. Denna serien är väldigt bra och jag har den på många andra språk också.

Great

The book seemed to be very good, but there is no access to the free Audio App which is an important problem.

very informative book

Great book to learn Italian quickly.