Italian Online Subscriptions

What is Audio Companion?

Audio Companion CDs enhance language learning anytime, anyplace. You’ll learn new skills on the computer, and then reinforce them by listening to Audio Companion. Simply play them on your stereo, or download to an MP3 Player and go!

Enhance your learning experience

Audio Companion activities correspond to Rosetta Stone CD-ROM software lessons. Just listen to Audio Companion and practice what you’ve learned, turning travel time into productive language learning time.

Extend your study time

You don’t have to stop learning when you leave your computer. Audio Companion lets you access your lessons whenever and wherever you want.

Build vocabulary and pronounce words and phrases

Audio companion features distinct words and shorter phrases to make them easier to hear and repeat. You’ll build good enunciation habits by hearing native speakers pronounce them first.

Speak and converse

The speaking portion of Audio Companion lets you listen to questions and answers, repeating them to use later. To help you build your conversational skills, first you’ll listen to a conversation and then repeat phrases individually.

Benefits summary:

• Reinforces what you are learning with our core CD-ROM products.
• Easy to download and compatible with audio players or on your computer.
• Free with the Level 1,2 & 3 set.

What You'll Learn

This set will help you:

• Build your vocabulary and language abilities.
• Spell and write accurately.
• Speak without a script.
• Retain what you’ve learned.
• Read and understand your new language.
• Share ideas and opinions, express feelings and talk about everyday life.

Sample topics include:

• The basics, such as age and family relations
• Questions, greetings, introductions
• Times of day, calendar terms, the weather
• Directions, locations, telling time
• Present, past and future tense
• Apologies and polite requests
• How to order at a restaurant and give and receive directions
• Emotions, opinions and ideas
• Political, media, business and religious terms

About Italian

Italian is the native language of more than 60 million people, and is the official language of Italy, the Republic of San Marino and the Vatican. Italian is also one of the official languages of Switzerland and the European Union.

Italian Learning Tips

• Italian pronunciation and spelling are regular and predictable.
• You’ll notice that some Italian words use accent marks, which help you properly pronounce words. Sometimes an accent distinguishes one word from another that is identical except for the mark. For example, e and è.
• There are two categories of Italian nouns: masculine and feminine.
• Don’t be surprised if you see sentences without subjects. Rosetta Stone will teach you to identify who is speaking or who is being spoken about through the form of the verb.
• Italian has both formal and informal ways to address others, depending on the age of the speaker and her relationship to the person being addressed.
• Lei is the formal way to express the second person. You may notice that the word Lei and some pronouns associated with it are always capitalized, even in the middle of sentences and sometimes at the end of words.

Requirements for Rosetta Stone User Workstations

• Windows (32-bit editions only) 2000, XP or Vista, Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5
• 512 MB RAM
• 1 GHz or faster processor speed
• 600 MB free hard-drive space (per level)
• 16-bit sound card
• 800 x 600 display resolution (1024 x 768 recommended)
• Internet or phone connection required for product activation
• Speech recognition feature requires a headset microphone (USB recommended)
• 16X CD-ROM Drive (for installation)

Additional Requirements for Online Products

• High-speed internet connection
• Browsers: Internet Explorer 6sp1, Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2.0, Safari 2 and Safari 3
• Flash 9 plug-in installed on browser

Note for Microsoft® Windows Vista™ users:

Current Rosetta Stone® products have been engineered to install and run on the Windows Vista operating system. Some 3rd party components used in Rosetta Stone products have not been certified by Microsoft as ‘Vista Compliant’. Accordingly, you may encounter some Vista-related operating issues. Rosetta Stone technical support may or may not be able to resolve these Vista-related issues. Rosetta Stone hereby disclaims any representations, warranties, guaranties and conditions with respect to the compatibility of the Rosetta Stone products with the Windows Vista operating systems.