Instant Italian (Teach Yourself Languages) - Tapa blanda

With carefully structured method targets, this book introduces only the most important Italian vocabulary and grammar and gets you speaking straight away. The learning programme aims to take only 35 minutes a day for six weeks and has fewer than 400 words to be learnt. The grammar has been pared down to the "bare bones" and is explained in simple English so you will not get bogged down by unnecessarily complicated structures that you will not need. There is lots of practice as you work through the course and by using the flashcards provided at the end of the book and memorizing the sentences in the "learn by heart" section, you should find that you are speaking in whole sentences and with confidence right from the start. The rules of pronunciation are simplified and are available separately on an accompanying CD or cassette, so you have a model to follow rather than trying to follow written instructions.

Elisabeth Smith is German and has taught French, German and Spanish at different levels all over the world for the past 30 years. She was the Chief Executive of a South African publishing house before moving to Spain, where she now lives for most of the year.