I paid almost £50 for the Dorling Kindersley Hugo Complete Italian Course by Ted Smart.

The packaging is very good, and it fits easily onto a bookcase. The 6 Cd's and 2 books (beginners and advanced) can all be stored together in the case provided until you need to use them.

I was hoping for a course which I would find easy to follow, and one I would look forward to using on a daily basis! Sadly that hasn't been the case.

The main reason for purchasing this course was because it is aimed at beginners and you can progress to being fluent in Italian. I wanted a course I could grow with. I wasn't expecting miracles, but I did expect the course to be easy to follow, easy to understand, and for it to be worth almost £50. I was very disappointed. I will give credit where it is due.... the first 2 lessons were great! They were explained in detail, and were easy to follow and understand. Unfortunately moving on to further lessons was very difficult due to the layout of the book and the audio Cd's. The idea is to use the excercises in the book, and follow the audio on the provided Cd's. I am afraid I struggled to find the correct Audio on the Cd's so that I could do the excercises properly in the book, as the audio didn't appear to be in any particular order. It was an effort to have to hunt through the audio files to match them up to the lesson in the book, so after 2 lessons I gave in.

Looks like I will have to sign up for classes. The Hugo language courses are supposed to be one of the best home study language course providers on the market. Not for me I am afraid. I want something that I can follow without any of the messing about I have had with the Hugo Italian course.

Ciao :) (I did manage to learn at least one word).