Reddit reviews The Bantam New College Italian & English Dictionary
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Bantam Books 1989-06-01
My girlfriend and I tried this before ultimately enrolling in three months of immersion in Bologna.
Secondo me...the first book's translation is a lot harder than the second one. If you do do this, make sure you get the corresponding audiobook in Italian so you can practice listening; but be forewarned that the speaker is crazy-fast. As much as it sounds like a good idea, at the end of the day I just think it's too hard to use as a beginning text. It's partly because the audio is so damned fast, it's partly because of the made-up words, it's partly because the choice of verbs and idiom is anything but beginner-focused, and it's partly because it's a narrative with tons of passato remoto, but when you add it all up, it's just not a "kid's book" with respect to learning Italian. So at a minimum, make sure you get the audiobook...
It's a little boring, but may I recommend the Assimil book and CD: http://www.amazon.com/Italian-Assimil-Language-Learning-Programs/dp/270051064X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373819682&sr=8-1&keywords=assimil+italian instead? The book is the size of a small paperback and introduces a nice working vocabulary (even trying to teach you the tonic stress in text -- it uses bold to highlight which vowel has the stress) and the CD has speakers of both sexes whom you'll have no problem understanding. It's boring in the sense that it's teaching you vocabulary like 'tickets,' 'elevator,' and 'camping' instead of made-up fantastical words with myriad suffixes (suffisi alternativi) that make the real language so much fun and yet are completely, mind-bogglingly opaque to beginners.
And once you're bootstrapped enough to sort-of read, you want this: http://www.amazon.com/Grammatica-italiana-base-Pietro-Trifone/dp/8808070751/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373820448&sr=1-1&keywords=grammatica+italiana+di+base as your grammar reference, and this: http://www.amazon.com/Bantam-College-Italian-English-Dictionary/dp/0553279475/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373820738&sr=1-1&keywords=bantam+italian+english for your dictionary.
In bocca al lupo!