Ciao!

Ciao! is being used at my university for the first three semesters of Italian courses, so I have had an opportunity to thoroughly use the text. While I am a new student of the Italian language, I have studied the French language since for several years using some outstanding texts.

It seems there are few major Italian textbooks on the market, and unfortunately none of them seem particularly good pedagogically speaking. This book is "good" howevever, I would not recommend it for self-study for several reasons:

1. The organization of the text is not particularly logical. Grammar rules are scattered throughout the chapters. It is not until halfway through the text that the student learns the possessive pronouns (his, her, their, our, your, theirs, etc...) yet, they are used frequently in the dialogues and exercises leading up to their actual discussion in the text. My problem with this is that the student is goes too long without learning how to use the possessives and has too much of an opportunity to develop incorrect usage and sentence structure during the first half of the book.

2. The corresponding CD contains only the dialogues which are found at the opening of each chapter. While its nice to have these to listen to, the student would benefit much more from hearing the vocabulary words pronounced! This was probably one of the most frustrating challenges I faced when learning Italian-- lack of access to a quality audio lexicon.

3. The exercises are good- but there is no answer key. Again, for students, having a resource like an answer key is essential for developing proper sentence structure and avoiding the development of poor habits. The corresponding workbook (Ciao! Quaderno degli esercizi Workbook and Lab Manual will cost you another $70.00 and does have an answer key available (Audioscript (with Answer Key) for Ciao!, 6th for which you'll need to shell out an addition $10.00. However, the workbook with answers is by no means deserving of your $80.00, so hold off on purchasing those.

4. The cultural interludes which are found at the conclusion of each chapter are extremely complicated and completely written in Italian starting from the first chapter. Needless to say, the student doesn't learn much about the culture since its too difficult for a novice student to read!

There are some positives to the text however. There are a number of up-to-date idiomatic expressions and new technology (such as cell phones) are included in the vocabulary lists. It is a nicely illustrated book and the chapters are limited small, manageable selections so that the student doesn't feel overwhelmed. With the right instructor, one can learn quite nicely out of this book in a classroom setting.

For the self-learner, who does not have daily access to an Italian-speaking friend, I recommend the following alternative texts which may prove more effective for home-study:
1. Rosetta Stone Version 3: Italian Level 1 with Audio Companion
2. Italian Now!: A Level One Worktext
3. Ultimate Italian Beginner-Intermediate (Book) (LL(R) Ultimate Basic-Intermed)
4. Soluzioni! : A Practical Guide to Italian Grammar
5. Berlitz Self-Teacher: Italian (Berlitz Self-Teachers)
6. Italian for Dummies (With Audio CD)
7. Routledge Intensive Italian Workbook (Routledgeintensive Language Courses)

Book is in pristine condition BUT, didn't come with book code for the online Quia workbook.

Unfortunately the CD does not seem to follow the text. Presentations on the CD are very limited and do not provide good practice for students. The Berlitz CDs are much better.
The book is very expensive for a language text. In updating the text through sequential editions, the authors have added very little to the topic, but have changed the pagination sufficiently to make it necessary for students to buy the latest edition. Thus increasing the cost for students without any significant improvements in the material.
In some places there are vignettes in Italian with no translation provided. Since some of the expressions are not in the vocabulary, this makes it difficult to understand, for example "Informazioni", page 86 in the 5th edition.

This lab manual is a great accompaniment for the textbook "Ciao"! I found that the exercises are very helpful. They emphasise the grammatical points made in the textbook very well. The only problem with it is that if you use it to teach yourself, and are not in a classroom situation, you can only do half of the exersises, as no tape or CD is included for the laboratory half of the book. I think it is still worth buying, inspite of this flaw!

This workbook as tremendously helpful in supplementing the work from the textbook and classroom exercises. It brought together all the activities and lessons as an additional reinforcement. I would definitely recommend purchasing this workbook/lab manual.