Aims

Using Italian Vocabulary is intended to provide the student of Italian with a comprehensive and structured approach to the learning of vocabulary. It can be used right from the outset in intermediate and advanced undergraduate courses, or as a supplementary manual at all levels – including the elementary one – to supplement the study of vocabulary. It is designed to provide the learner with a broad treatment of those vocabulary topics that are not covered as designated areas of study in typical language courses, and thus can be used to “fill in the vocabulary gaps” that such courses invariably leave. Additionally, this book can be easily adapted for profitable use in “Language for Special Purposes” courses.

The guiding principle behind the plan of this book is the idea that students need to acquire a comprehensive control of concrete and abstract vocabulary to carry out essential communicative and interactional tasks – an area of learning that is often neglected by other types of textbooks for the simple reason that they are more focused on presenting other aspects of the language.

Using Italian Vocabulary, therefore, is designed to:

• provide a vocabulary-training tool that can be used throughout the undergraduate program in Italian as the student progresses through it;

• provide a practical topic-based textbook that can be inserted into all kinds of course syllabi to impart a sense of how the language can be used in specific ways;

• promote self-instruction in the language;

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