Practice Makes Perfect: Italian Vocabulary (Practice Makes Perfect Series) Paperback – 16 Feb. 2008

I am a complete beginner, learning Italian using the BBC Talk book/CD combination and the BBC grammar book, together with supporting dictionaries and verb books. I bought this because in order to be able to make my way through readers and parallel texts I will need a much larger vocabulary rather more rapidly than the chat-based BBC system will teach me.On the whole it is excellent. As other reviewers have pointed out, it is organized by theme, which means that as well as being something you can work through in order, it can be used as a reference when you want to focus on one particular set of vocabulary. The themes are listed in the table of contents and can be seen when you click above to Look Inside, so I won't repeat them here, but the cover such diverse topics as domestic life, education and technology, culture the arts and leisure time, family, and Italian in the twenty-first century: E-life.Each chapter begins with a list of commonly used nouns under the relevant theme. Then each theme is broken down into further categories. So in Emotional States, the main categories are "describing emotions," "emotional states, "describing mental and moral traits," "thinking and feeling" and "religion." Lists of words are given for each category,showing the Italian word on the left and the English word on the right (there is no pronunciation guide - the book assumes that you are sufficiently familiar with Italian to know how to pronounce words). The emphasis is on nouns, but there are appropriate verbs as well. These lists are accompanied by exercises for the reader to work through, so that they can practice using the vocabulary in the lists, and these are particularly useful for getting words to stick in the mind and helping the reader to understand how they fit into sentences. As well as parrot-learning, therefore, it offers the reader the ability to start using what is being learned. Answers to the exercises are at the end of the book.The only major irritation for me, which might not bother other readers, is that there is no indication of where the stress in a word should fall. Italian is fairly standardized but there are many exceptions that do not have the benefit of an accent to mark them out. In such cases it would be so useful to have some indication that the stress falls in a different place than usual. Part of learning vocabulary is learning how to say it, and as this book does not come with a CD that means that it would have been useful to have a simply device (italics or underlining) to highlight words where the stress does not conform to the usual rules.Some readers may miss any lack of help as to how to pronounce words. Not only do the lists contain no assistance, but there is no pronunciation table to refer back to to check up on the usages that English readers often struggle with (different pronunciations of c and g, for example). I have this in all my other books, and they appear in standard phrase books, so it is not a problem to find elsewhere, but when I suddenly jumble how cchi should be handled or forget the rule for s between vowels it would be useful to have a quick reference to go back to.Finally, the book is A4 sized, so it will go into a laptop bag or briefcase, but isn't exactly handy for chucking in your handbag or for reading whilst standing on the tube or bus of a morning.Overall I like this book a lot. It is practical, well laid out, and the focus is not merely on learning words but on learning how to use them. The downside is that it leaves the reader to muddle out for themselves how words should be pronounced and where the stresses should fall.

What can you sayv- lots and lots of practice exercises in a very thick book. Bthese green practice books are helping me no end on getting lots of grammar, vocabulary, verbs, and sentance building. Esay to extend the exercises so I could max out with one and two hour sessions without getting bored. Great for intense sessions of written practice.

lots of vocabulary and exercises and very well classified.

As an independent Italian learner this vocabulary is very useful - I particularly like the way vocabulary is themed: vocabulary that will be useful on my holiday trips to Italy and hopefully if I decide to take some exams.

Nicely laid out in easy sections which deal with topics in an interesting amount of detail. More than enough vocab to get you going. I found it easy to use.It doesn't build up from basic to complex but just goes for it right away.

Good book.

I bought this to try and teach myself Italian along with podcasts & cds, this book is full of us full tips and information, its easy to use and really helped.

Very useful reading at a good price.