The claim that you will be able to 'speak Italian' is not meant to suggest that you will be fluent. It means that you will be able to speak and understand (as opposed to parrot from a phrase book) a little basic Italian. That is no mean feat in such a short time.

The course material is based around the usual holiday oriented dialogues, which makes it better for this 'Instant' purpose than the Michel Thomas courses, although these too are useful quick-start methods.

It focuses on getting to the meat of what you need to know to communicate and understand on holiday while letting you get away with the less important mistakes. It also pushes you to memorize (essential - whatever anyone else says!) and to open your mouth and speak (again, essential to do this before you get to Italy!)

I have to confess, I already speak Spanish, which greatly reduces the learning curve (native speakers of Italian and Spanish can understand each other). So, although I had never learnt any Italian before, I wasn't really a beginner.

I can see that it would be a challenge for an absolute beginner to complete the course in six weeks. None the less, it does start right at the beginning and assumes no prior language learning experience. I was able to complete this course in about 2 weeks, so maybe six weeks for a genuine beginner is tough, but not impossible.

I went on to use the Michel Thomas Language Builder (which is good for learning verb tenses) and after six weeks went on two weeks holiday to Italy. I used my Italian in all the usual places (bottled out at the car hire, where the man spoke perfect English!), managed a couple of brief (and very imperfect) conversations, and generally felt that Instant Italian had done me proud.

However, the front of the book states - after 35 minutes a day you'll speak italian.

This is simply not true. You will not speak italian.

However, if you are new to the language and planning a trip abroad, this is perhaps a nice introduction into the language which will help you understand the phrases from your phrase book a little better.

However, I have an Italian friend and tested out my new found language skills on him. Although the book does make it possible to be understood quite quickly, the skills you are taught are very basic which means you are only going to understand other people if they respond in a very 'text book' like way.

The book also tends to introduce odd words here and there without explaining them properly. I'm only in to the second week, so can't comment too much yet, but if you want to be able to order a meal, book a hotel, talk a bit about yourself, and don't have much time to learn - this is great. Although I suspect Italian language teachers will be cringing at the sight of this.

I'm now stuck on Day 1 of Week 2 because the author has suddenly introduced a second variation of the word 'but' ('ma', and now 'però') and she fails to mention the difference between the two. When should one use 'ma'? When should one use 'però'? Well, I've been searching on the internet for two hours and I've yet to find out.

When I buy a book that teaches me another language, I want to do well. This means, I want an explanation for everything. Every little change is going to confuse a beginner and as such, these changes warrant an explanation.

Overall, the author has good intentions and if the first week is anything to go by, the method is much better than that of a phrasebook. I'm finding it very easy to learn new words. The problem is, how much more hassle can I put up with over the next five weeks? The plural misprint was easily spotted because the rules are quite straightforward, but what about the more complicated grammar in future weeks? If it's more difficult - how will I spot mistakes? How can I trust the spellings to be correct? How do I know I'm not going to bump into another unexplained ma/però situation?

This is fresh on my mind and I'm annoyed. If I get through the next five weeks and this thing actually works out, I'll post a more favourable review.