Course description
For the beginning and intermediate classes, we use "Ultimate Italian Basic-Intermediate" by Living Language. There is also an optional eight cassette or CD package that accompanies the book . For the advanced classes, we provide handouts at no charge.
Beginning A (chapters 1-6)
Topics - Greetings and introductions, snack time, traveling by plane, nationalities, plans for the weekend, and clothing.
Grammar and usage - Pronunciation, subject pronouns, "to be", simple negation, numbers, gender, plural, articles, "to have", telling time, prepositions, nations and nationalities, the present tense of regular verbs, some irregular verbs, question words, etc.
Beginning B (chapters 7-12)
Topics - Studies, on the telephone, months, seasons, dates, and weather, the family, food and drink, and a typical day.
Grammar and usage - Additional present tense of regular verbs, additional irregular verbs, idiomatic usage, ordinal numbers, possessive adjectives, possessive pronouns, double negatives, reflexive pronouns, reflexive verbs, reciprocal verbs, etc.
Beginning C (chapters 13-19)
Topics - Asking for and giving directions, radio and television, traveling by train, in a hotel, the travel agency, employment, and sports.
Grammar and usage - The imperative, adverbs, gender exceptions, additional idiomatic usage, punctuation, additional irregular verbs, direct object pronouns, the present perfect, indirect object pronouns, etc.
Intermediate A (chapters 20-26)
Topics - The home, newspapers, at the bank, the mail, a doctor's appointment, computers and the internet, and the arts.
Grammar and usage - The conjunctive pronoun ne, future tense, future tense of irregular verbs, additional idiomatic usage, disjunctive pronouns, the partitive, suffixes and their uses, the present progressive, additional imperative tense, the imperfect, etc.
Intermediate B (chapters 27-33)
Topics - Music, fruits and vegetables, groceries, hair, money, a little bit of everything, and a tour of the city.
Grammar and usage - The pluperfect tense, the infinitive as a noun, comparisons, superlatives, present conditional tense, additional irregular verbs, past conditional, impersonal si, additional idiomatic usage, present subjunctive, etc.
Intermediate C (chapters 34-40)
Topics - At the police station, at the pharmacy, renting a car, in a shoe store, at the office, at a real estate agency, and Italian culture.
Grammar and usage - Additional present subjunctive, additional irregular verbs, present perfect subjunctive, relative pronouns, imperfect subjunctive, past perfect subjunctive, "if" clauses, future perfect, passive form, historical past, past perfect, etc.
Advanced Classes
Topics - Discussion of articles, issues, literature, etc.
Grammar and usage - As appropriate related to conversation topics.
