I have tried Michel Thomas Italian - but I think he tries to push the extended grammar too quickly, because I find myself very confused by the difference between the present continuous, and the present "will do", if that makes sense (excuse my lack of grammatical terms!).
In other words, it seems he spends a large amount of time making sure you know the difference between "I am eating" or "I will be eating" or "I am right now in the process of eating", then later says you can just use the infinitive in most situations.
I've only been learning for 2.5 weeks, but I have worked my way through all the Michel Thomas CDs, Instant Italian (the "quick and small essentials" book and also now the full version), Earworms MBT Italian (my favourite, if a bit limited, but a great starter!), and have also been listening to some podcasts like italianpod and Radio Lingua's My Daily Phrase podcast, but the trouble I've found with these is that you get 4 minutes of padding and crappy music for 3 minutes of learning, and it gets real tedious fast forwarding by lesson 20!
I've also tried the Italian 101 ipod app, which is no good as some aspects are wrong - even I know that "tempo" is not "whether"!
I think I know enough basic vocab to survive the four days (about 300 words plus the numbers, days, months, time) but I really am stuck on the grammar and irregular verbs - we go, we will go, we are going... I thought there was a rule with -iamo and -o and -remmo...but then something comes along to break that rule.
So, in the week I have left, I'd really like a "grammar for dummies who know the basic vocab and grammar/gender rules but have got themselves in a muddle" kind of help! Any ideas?
