Fredrick Arnstein

Fantastic. Wise.

Revisado: 01-12-22

My wife read this book and highly recommended it to me. She is on a spiritual path, which I support but do not want for myself. But in respect to her, I read (listened to) the book. I was amazed at the wisdom in it. Completely easy to understand, easy to digest. Is it "spirtual?" Who knows. It rises above dogma, including the dogma that one should be "spiritual."

Others can summarize this book, and perhaps that would be helpful for a review. But that is for somebody else to do. I would only say that for me it is one of those rare books that has dramatically changed how I understand my life, and others too. Or maybe it's just reminded me of what I've forgotten. In any case, it was unexpectedly good for me and might be for you too.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Wonderful

Revisado: 02-07-21

I find this book perfect for my learning level which is something like low intermediate. I'm using the audible version in conjunction with the book. They are a perfect combination. Each "conversation" is very short, which makes it easy to work on and digest. My method is to listen first, maybe a few times, and get what I can, then study the text, and then listen again. But everybody will have their own method. The many "Conversations" are actually one story, and the story is very engaging. It pulls me along; it's lots of fun.

There are several other books, rather similar, all I believe by Olly Richards. One of them is called "Short Stories in Italian." It too has a corresponding audio version and is very good, but the stories / chapters are much longer than the "conversations" and so it takes me longer to digest them and sometimes I bog down. But that is a small problem. I highly recommend this one along with the "101 Conversations."

And another book is called "Conversational Italian Dialogues." Each Dialogue is around 200 words, about twice as long as the "Conversations" in "101 Conversations." I think this Dialogues book is also excellent and recommend it highly. However, unlike the other two -- the "Conversations" and the "Stories" -- the Audible version of the Dialogues is hard for me to listen to. One of the readers in each Dialogue is a native speaker, while the other is glaringly not. It's really jarring. But I would recommend the Dialogues book very highly in itself.

Overall, for me, the 101 Conversations, combination of book and audible, hits the mark best, but I think the other two are also excellent. Olly does a great job getting exactly the right level of difficulty mixed with engaging stories and situations.

Thank you Olly!

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Would be great except for the lady reader

Revisado: 11-17-20

These little dialogs are excellent tools for learning Italian. I had worked on some of them without benefit of an audio component and was excited at the prospect of finally hearing them spoken. But no -- there are two readers, a man who is an Italian native speaker, and a woman who is American. The man is excellent; he speaks quickly, but clearly and understandably. But the woman sounds nothing like an Italian and sometimes mumbles her words so that I can't understand them at all. It is extremely frustrating. Why in the world did they have to do this? They couldn't find two people in all of Italy who were willing to read these dialogs? I would give this audio five stars if it were read properly.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña