Learn Italian with Paul Noble for Beginners – Part 1

Italian Made Easy with Your Personal Language Coach

By: Paul Noble

Narrated by: Paul Noble

Length: 4 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

No grammar tests. No memory drills. No chance of failure.

Welcome to Learn with Paul Noble – a unique, tried and tested language learning method that has been used by almost a million people to speak fluently and confidently in no time at all.

Take a simple, relaxed approach to learning a language that has been proven to succeed every time. Unlike more traditional language learning courses, Paul Noble’s unique method has no grammar tests, no memory drills and no chance of failure. Whatever your experience with languages, whether you’re an absolute beginner or someone with basic knowledge who wants to improve their ability, this is the course to get you speaking Italian quickly, easily, and effortlessly. Just listen, interact and learn wherever you are.

In this audiobook, Paul will introduce you to the basics of the Italian language and guide you through over 4 hours of practical, everyday scenarios that will build your confidence.

You will learn a huge range of vocabulary in no time at all, and be able to quickly make your new knowledge work for you in a variety of everyday scenarios. A native-speaking Italian expert will help you to perfect your pronunciation as you progress through the course. Language learning has finally become fun, enjoyable and accessible.

A downloadable booklet is also included to use as a reference and revision tool. The accompanying booklet is available here: http://collinsdictionary.com/resources

This download is Part One of a three-part course. Once you’ve finished Part One, download Learn Italian with Paul Noble for Beginners – Part Two.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2010 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd (P)2010 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Awesome for language creation

This is the best resource I've ever used to learn how tonformulate sentences in another language and had helped me be successful on my other practice apps.

Great method, okay selection

I’m having a great time learning Italian through Paul Noble’s audio books. His method feels natural and hearing native speakers pronounce the words helps a lot.

The only problem I have with it (which is the only reason I’m giving it 4 instead of 5 stars) is that while much of the words and conversation taught is invaluable to a beginner traveler (I’d like to book a table, I need a room for this long, I’d like to go here...) I think there were some basics that were left out.

However! This is only a review of part one. Maybe, and hopefully, the later books will have more of the basic necessary vocabulary.

Great Way to Learn

I thought that the approach was simple yet expertly done. I feel that this style of repetitive learning was most beneficial to me. It builds upon one learning aspect on a previous one in nice successive steps.

The BEST language learning audio series

One month ago, I bought Pimsleur Italian Level 1, Lessons 1-5 and 6-10; Innovative Language Learning's "Italian Survival Phrases"; and this, Collins Italian with Paul Noble, Part 1. While all had pros and cons, Collins Italian with Paul Noble was BY FAR the best of the lot. I felt I had a much better grasp of the language, more words to work with, and more confidence overall after listening to this audiobook just one time.
I listened to the Pimsleur audiobooks first. The native speakers talk very fast, much faster than the Collins speaker, but I like how they broke down the words and phrases from end to beginning. However, they give you almost no time to reply before the native speaker cuts in with the correct response. I had to listen to each lesson twice before I "got" it. "Italian Survival Phrases" was the same way. This makes it nearly impossible to learn in the car. That's the only time I have! Also, after starting Collins, I learned that Pimsleur had started me out wrong, teaching phrases with the pronoun for emphasis before telling me that people don't really do that, basically setting in place the habit for incorrectly adding emphasis in everyday speech before saying, no, never mind, don't do that. Collins teaches you in the opposite way— here's how Italians actually talk, and if you need extra emphasis, add the pronoun.
In addition, Collins, in teaching about the Latin roots of common English words, reveals that native English speakers essentially already know thousands of Italian words-- any word that ends with -TION or -IC or -ICAL, for example. This blew my mind. By simply changing the ending of these words, I already know the pronunciation and meaning of thousands of Italian words, and I just started learning Italian a month ago! This gave me a huge amount of confidence that I can actually learn a language that seemed impossibly daunting before.
"Italian Survival Phrases" did have great Italian survival phrases, without question. But the whole thing went so fast that I felt this was not made for a beginner listening to their first Italian phrasebook. Also, the musical cue that it was time to repeat what the speaker had taught got very annoying, very fast, and was completely unnecessary.
One final and maybe minor nitpick about Pimsleur: As soon as they teach you how to say, "I would like to drink something," they teach you how to say "wine" and "beer," but no other Italian words for beverages. Much of the second audiobook revolves around ordering wine and beer or asking someone to drink wine or beer with you. Since my husband and I don't drink alcohol, this was not at all helpful. Why would I want to learn words that will have no impact on my travel? Collins Italian with Paul Noble taught the word for "coffee." Humorously enough, I don't drink coffee either, but at least Paul Noble taught enough other words that the entire audiobook did not seem to dwell on this one concept, of ordering coffee.
Only Collins Italian with Paul Noble, Part 1 taught me much of what I needed to know and gave me the confidence to speak Italian right away. This is without a doubt the best language learning audio series out there -- highly recommended and worth every penny. I will definitely be continuing with the other books in the series

Repetition is the key to learning

Paul has a very calm voice and teaches basic concepts in this beginner book. At first I thought I was going to be bored, and then I realized that the key to learning was through repetition. Every lesson builds on the next and his explanations are clear and concise. The female translator speaks so well and it's easy to hear every letter. I am using this book along with other apps and in person lessons- I am finding it very helpful as a foundation to learning the Italian language - a note, every time you start/stop - be sure to rewind - as it's so easy to forget what you previously learned and this reinforces the older material then you pick up new material.

Easy and so much FUN!

Where does Collins Italian with Paul Noble - Learn Italian the Natural Way, Part 1 rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

At the top. Best language learning style that I have encountered.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The author/narrator has a easy voice to listen to.

Have you listened to any of Paul Noble’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

no

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I feel I am grasping Italian at a faster pace than I thought I would. I travel to France next and I will get his French lessons.

Making Language Learning Painless

Great natural way to learn a language. Found that I understood concepts later when I encountered them in real life.

Took me from grammar to basic speaking

I did some beginner Italian with an app and even tried online classes, but felt like I hit a wall. This book helped immensely with having the confidence to speak Italian and make up some of my own sentences. The repetition is exactly what I needed for my learning style. I am excited for the “Next steps” now.

Paul Noble is the BEST

Ato, like in tomato ! Genius. I love Paul Nobles method, his pace, his natural English accent among many other things. I started with French, and now I’m onto the Italian. I was shocked by some of the negative reviews so I had voice my string support of this amazing teacher. Learning a new language takes work. Paul Noble and Duolingo make it possible. Bravo to him !

Great intro to the language!

I was skeptical at first but ended these lessons with the ability to string together short sentences. The repetition was just enough to keep the information memorized.