Living Language German, Complete Edition: Beginner through advanced course, including 3 coursebooks, 9 audio CDs, and free online learning

This is a really good and thorough course in the language that presents in conversational form all the major concepts: verb tenses (present, past, & future) & moods (indicative, subjunctive, conditional, & imperative), idiomatic phrases, and other grammatical structures. It looks about equal to two college semesters of Italian (maybe three, depending on how different schools structure their language programs; it's essentially first-year Italian). I've been using this course for two weeks now and am halfway through it. I wouldn't recommend this pace, but I mention it so you can interpret what complaints I have in light of it. This course consists of 3 books: Essential, Intermediate, and Advanced, and includes a blank notebook and 9 audio CD's that correspond to the lessons in the books. There is also an online language lab for quizzing knowledge. The whole course comes in a cardboard slipcase. The lesson books are about the ideal size: lightweight paperbacks, between the size of a trade paperback and an average college textbook; they're big enough to spread out and work with, but small and light enough to use nearly anywhere. The English type is in black, and the Italian in blue, which aids learning. The course is 46 lessons in all, and seems built around language immersion, emphasizing conversational phrases and language that you might use when travelling to/studying in Italy. From this use, of course, you could go anywhere with the language. This course's grammatical explanations are clear and comprehensive, though I might want many more examples to really understand the concepts from a variety of angles and in a variety of situations. (My learning style is more analytical than intuitive, and I don't mind poring over grammar & verb charts to drink in concepts.) This course does a good job of introducing new vocabulary and grammatical concepts "on the fly," by which I mean it throws these things in without formally explaining them beforehand. The reason I find this a good thing is because that's how one would encounter the language in Italy or with a fluent speaker, and this course trains you to be always attentive to new words, phrases, and grammar. I might like a vocab. list at the end of each lesson for new words introduced in that lesson, rather than the glossary for the entire course at the end of each book. But that LL omits vocab. lists does encourage active learning. The notebook that LL provides seems to be for the purpose of writing down new vocab. as one encounters it, and new idiomatic phrases and verb conjugations, etc. The "Unit Essentials" sections in the Intermed. and Adv. books are useful for summarizing key grammatical concepts; likewise the general language summary at the end of each book. I also might like a comprehensive table of contents to help me review what sections of the course I might need to as I use the language once completing the course. The unit outlines along the top of each page are detailed enough for this, but require more flipping through from unit to unit than would a table of contents. Quizzes come about every 4 lessons to reinforce material. They seem a little short for really testing full knowledge, but that they are short and a little easy does keep you moving through the course, rather than getting bogged down on concepts that you will pick up anyway as you keep using the language. LL points out further resources for using the language, such as Italian newspapers and message boards, and one could even find on Youtube Italian news broadcasts and other audio-video resources. I find the online language lab to be moderately useful: I'm glad it's there, but it doesn't clinch my grasp of new concepts. (The book and CD dialogues do that for me.) Some of the games in the language lab seem distracting, like the word search and "pop the bubbles," but they do lighten the mood a bit. The online flashcards and sentence completions are useful exercises beyond the exercises in the books. Overall, this is a solid course that will teach you Italian. I think the best learning will result from using all the course's materials, as LL suggests, including practicing with the CD recordings, filling up the notebook with vocab., idiomatic expressions, and verb conjugations, and reviewing these regularly. The whole course (Complete Italian) is a good value for the price, though the Essential might not seem so for being so basic. Once I master Italian, I plan to use other Living Language Complete packages to learn other languages.

This is hands down the best Italian learning system I've used! The progression from beginner to advanced is logical and well-paced. Love having both the books and audio CDs - perfect for different learning styles. The online component adds great interactive practice. After 6 months, I'm conversational and feel confident with Italian grammar. Excellent value for a complete course!

I bought the Living Language Complete edition almost three months ago, and have just completed the intermediate course. I'm happy to report that I can now read easy Italian language books with a reasonable degree of comprehension, and can make a fair guess at more advanced material--although I definitely need to work at expanding my vocabulary beyond what was included in the lessons. It remains to be seen if I can hold a real conversation with a native speaker. There were also a few typos (the English speaker says "three" and the Italian speaker clearly says "quattro", which is four) and a number of things that I thought were typos, but later learned were just new material that hadn't been explained yet (which was a bit frustrating). I purchased this course over the Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone because of a) the price, and b) I have a very long commute and was looking for something I could listen to in the car, rather than being tied to a computer. Sometimes I would listen to the audio first, and other times I would read the material before listening to the audio; either way seemed to work just fine. I did listen to each chapter multiple (like ten) times, though. Just once isn't enough for my memory. The beginner course was structured easily--similar to the way I learned Spanish in school, so it was a familiar formula. The audio in the intermediate course was less easy for me, namely because they switched up the order in which they read a certain word or phrase. In the beginner course, they would say it in English first, giving me the opportunity (if I was quick) to shout out the translation before the Italian speaker did so. In the intermediate, they did it the other way around, reading a sentence in Italian first, then immediately repeating it in English. The good news is that it allowed me to brush up on my listening comprehension skills, but on the whole, for the way my brain works, it made the learning a less active process, as all I could do was repeat what had been said without having the opportunity to translate on my own. Also, in the intermediate course book they don't always provide a translation for the Italian phrases. For example, they'll ask you do an exercise wherein you change a sentence from present tense to future tense...which you can totally do without having to know what the sentence is about; you just need to change the verb tense. It was frustrating for me because I wanted more complete comprehension, so I spent a LOT of time looking things up in the dictionary and on the internet so that I would understand the whole sentence. One could pass the quizzes without having to do that, but part of the fun of it for me was learning as much as I possibly could. Third, in the intermediate course, they throw A LOT of information at you in a very short span of time (for example, you learn both past and future tense in the same chapter), rather than parceling it out and drilling it in until it's second nature the way they did in the first course. Even so, I really enjoyed it. Be forewarned, however: you can complete the course and still not know very much at all. To really learn what they're trying to teach you, you have to put in some "extracurricular" effort. Spend quality time with your dictionary; download Italian language (or English/Italian) books to read on your kindle, make flash cards, and PRACTICE. If you just want a quick crash course of useful Italian phrases, there are probably better sources than this. If you want to be truly fluent, there are probably better courses--but they will cost you. With Living Language, you learn an astonishing amount for the amount of money you pay, with the added convenience of being able to listen while you drive. I start on the advanced course tomorrow. I don't expect to be fluent by the time I get to Italy, but I hope to be reasonably functional with basic communication. Update: spent several weeks in Italy, and am pleased to report that I was "functional," particularly in Tuscany. So if you are looking for a cd-based course, for in the car, rather than a computer-based one, this one works great.

Ok, First of all as a teacher and vivid language learner, I have to say this is a good course for the experienced language learner or if you need a brush up. I would probably start a beginner in a picture book course, or you could add a supplement to this beginner or essentials section, as they call it. I recommend using all the materials in order to get the most out of this course. The CDs are the most important part for listening and speaking. I would say drill them until you have mastered sentence order, pronunciation, and listening of all follow alongs. The online vocabulary and phrases is the extra supplement. Don’t rush through it. Take your time. If you do this independently, check in with fluent language partners to see how effective your progress is going. All of my German friends are impressed with my speaking now. Again if you are beginner add a German channel, picture books or apps with sounds to help support this material. Take the quizzes seriously, for they are your progress benchmarks, after I complete the advanced version successfully I will go back to Germany. The frame work of this course gives you all essential elements to survive in a German speaking country, study it extremely carefully and write a lot of the phrases and vocabulary words out or on a separate sheet of paper to reinforce the vocabulary. I would even say make flash cards with the vocabulary even though there are virtual flash cards on the supplement website. I give it a 5 even though it’s really like 4.8 or 4.9. It seriously needs images in the book to keep the readers attention. Again you get pictures on the site.

I picked this up from amazon when in a remote part of South Korea because German lessons were inaccessible where I lived. I knew no German, and had no idea what to expect from the language. But this is a great book to start learning German with. The exercises are simple enough to follow, and the explanations in English are helpful when you're just starting out.The glossary at the back has a list of useful vocab from the lessons, as well as a listing of useful, basic grammar. The CDs are great listening practice, and as advised, it helps to repeat the words right after they're spoken to get the most out of the exercises, and enhance retention and pronunciation. Depending on how much time you set aside for it, you can finish it as quickly or as slowly as you want. By the end of the books, you will go much faster, and understand things more clearly than from the beginning.but for anyone that wants to go beyond the basics of language recognition. The book itself, will help you reach about level A1 in speaking, and upto A2 in grammar. Anyone expecting to go deeper into the language should supplement this with other language learning tools (Duolingo, grammar workbooks, movies, tv series) for more comprehensive learning. The book comes with a weblink for additional exercises that are fun to do. Great starting point for anyone that wants to learn German.

I really enjoyed how nicely paced this course was, I would recommend this course to an absolute beginner or just someone who wants to go back and review their Italian. I took a risk getting this course because I have never tried a Living Language course before. What I have to say is that this course really helped me improve my Italian and even build upon it. As someone who likes to move at a fast pace this course really helped me, although there were some days I was lazy, this course was also great to move at slow pace with the audio. I personally did not use the audio CD.s because I had an exam in a month so I had to move at a really fast pace, but I did listen to them from time to time. The CD's were great to just listen to, although I would not just listen to the CD's to learn Italian. They are just a great way to go over and practice your listening skills. Now on to the course overall physical wise. The books are not very big and thick so they are great for someone on the go. They can easily fit in a bag and lightweight to carry. Honestly this was an added bonus for me. The books are separated into 3 parts: Essential, Intermediate, and Advance. Easy to carry and easy to look back at any material. Although I would have preferred if the CD's came with an MP3 for easy listening. Overall I enjoyed the course and have bought Living Language Brazilian Portuguese since I loved how well this course was put together.

Pros: The workbooks have thorough exercises, with good practice conversations. Bang for your buck. Cons: The most notable flaw in this course is that it almost completely ignores a 2-way vowel distinction between "e" and "o." Aside from noted that an accent can mark an open or closed "e" or "o" in the grammar guide in the back, the difference between the two vowels are never formally mentioned throughout the course. They are treated as the same vowel, even though there are in fact minimal pairs in Italian. For example, "venti" with a closed "e" means 20. "Venti" with an open "e" means "winds." The vowels generally are not differentiated in orthography, which is why it is particularly important to understand the difference in pronunciation. If this flaw alone was fixed, this course would get 4 stars. The layout sometimes does not provide enough space to write down your answers, as well as typos in spacing. Grammar explanations can be sometimes unclear.

A fun way to learn Italian, using book and CD, with conversations and exercises. I bought this a few years ago, and alas, haven't kept up. I vow to re-start.

I REALLY liked this book. I had ZERO German knowledge and just after the first book (there are three in the box), my wife who is a German native speaker, told me I am speaking well. This book takes you by the hand and shows you the base of the language without being boring.

It's well-structured, easy to follow, it does really help you acquire knowledge and proceed quickly. Very good, highly recommended.

this is a set of three book from essential ,intermediate, and advance so comes with 9 audio Cd's three Cd's for each book. so the books are very easy to follow,they have grammar explanation which i find really useful if you want to clear some grammar difficulties,these books are for totally beginners so they work on each words on the audio we got the English speaker and the Italian,so you got the English word and then the translation into Italian and then is a blank space on the audio that you can repeat after the Italian speaker so you can practice your pronunciation ,which i find really helpful, even the books comes with the phonetic of every word..so they work word by word so you can have a clear picture of the Italian sound. i do not recommend the book for advance student ,i can even recommend for intermediate student so you can "refresh" your Italian,but i do recommend definitely for beginner. it's a good value to start with. even i know it can have too much English on the audio...but if you drive your car or go by bus ,so you will not need the book in front of you because the English speaker can explain a little grammar on the audio,but her voice it's not that annoying which i enjoy to listen to both the English and Italian

I am so excited to learn and to see my progress The methodology is good, the audio too However the web link doesn’t work

Bom material para apoio, bem completo