Reddit reviews The Berlitz Self-Teacher -- Italian: A Unique Home-Study Method Developed by the Famous Berlitz Schools of Language (Berlitz Self-Teachers)

I tried learning French for a couple years. It's all gone out of my head now, but I have some important tips for you:

• Learn Italian. It's way easier, if you already speak English. They're similar languages.
  
  
• Study every day. Language is not like riding a bicycle. It can be forgotten.
  
  
• Learn the structure of the language, and the grammatical rules. Don't worry if you don't grasp it all in one go. This is not your most important task.
  
  
• Focus on vocabularly before trying to put sentences together, and getting to writing, or speaking. Learning the vocabularly is the easiest part of learning a language, and will allow you to infer the meaning of a sentence without knowing everything. Again, don't get too stuck on grammar. Vocabulary is crucial.
  
  
• In building your vocabularly, try to have a goal. 3,000 common, everyday words will be enough to get you going. It seems like a lot, but it is only 8.21 words a day that you have to remember. You can learn that within half an hour, or an hour.
  
  
• Speak everything you read, and speak the language as much as possible. It will stick in your brain more, and will allow you to progress faster. With French, I made the mistake of focusing on books, and silently learning the vocabularly. I can read some French, but can barely understand it when people speak. It's too fast for me. So, use your ears and mouth when learning.
  
  
• For study materials, check out Pimsleur, and Berlitz programs. They are usually of high quality.
  
  
• Make learning fun. Watch TV, and listen to music, and play video games in Italian. Repeat aloud what you hear, and read.
  
  
• When it comes to studying via audio don't drift off. You can't learn by just hearing the language. You have to concentrate, and know the meaning of the words. I used to listen to French radio, and just let it play in the background, but really, besides getting me used to the language, it didn't do much educational-wise.
  
  
• Speak to Italians, or people that already know Italian. Tell them that you're learning. Don't worry if you screw up. They will correct you.
  
  
• Write down, and track your progress. Just jot down what you did to learn.