We are going to Italy in a few weeks and thought about trying one of the audio tapes, such as Italian for Tourists. There are several out there - anyone have any experience with these audio tapes. Thanks!

Hi Dennis, I've tried several vendors tapes and so far I like Pimsleur the best. I used them for Spanish last year and am studying Romanian on them this year. I just had a conversation with a Romanian woman today and she said that my pronunciation was very good. <BR>I know that for me a few weeks is not enough though. I've been listing on the way to work and back for several weeks now. Of course any time is better than none and they will appreciate it. <BR>Have a great trip. <BR>Art <BR>

Hi Dennis, I've tried several vendors tapes and so far I like Pimsleur the best. I used them for Spanish last year and am studying Romanian on them this year. I just had a conversation with a Romanian woman today and she said that my pronunciation was very good. <BR>I know that for me a few weeks is not enough though. I've been listing on the way to work and back for several weeks now. Of course any time is better than none and they will appreciate it. <BR>Have a great trip. <BR>Art <BR>

Hi Dennis, I've tried several vendors tapes and so far I like Pimsleur the best. I used them for Spanish last year and am studying Romanian on them this year. I just had a conversation with a Romanian woman today and she said that my pronunciation was very good. <BR>I know that for me a few weeks is not enough though. I've been listing on the way to work and back for several weeks now. Of course any time is better than none and they will appreciate it. <BR>Have a great trip. <BR>Art <BR>

I'm SORRY. I attempted 10 times to post my answer getting the dreaded message. It seems that it ended up posting it 3 tiems.

Dennis, you might want to check your local library. Our small town library has an excellent choice of several different audio language tapes. You could sample them all to see which you like best if your town has similar offerings. <BR> <BR>Also our local "which truck wrecked last" discount house had Berlitz CD rom packages for $7.99 in various languages. I haven't tried a language course at my PC. The package said it included an on-line workbook. <BR> <BR>Good luck!

I'm finding the "Learn in Your Car" French to be very good -- I'm actually learning it and enjoying it! They also do Spanish, German & Italian. I tried Berlitz, but find the step-by-step format of "Learn in Your Car" much easier to learn. The tapes are about $16 for four hours of tape at all the big book sellers.

One thing that I found VERY helpful (and I've used a number of different series -- they all have value, but at different stages in your progression), was to wear headphones in the early part of my learning experience. There are subtleties that you can pick up on that way and it is important to recognize them. With outside sounds interfering, etc., it is simply not as easy to do that, IMHO. <BR>

i still feel that you are better off taking some conversational coursses at a local community college. you burp back the tapes but if someone deviates from the response you learn you are with little comprehension. you need to lears ssome verbs in the present,past and future tenses and the sentence structure. best done with others in a class. the tapesa can fill in the blanks .