INTRODUCTION
If you are an English-speaking learner preparing GCSE, Scottish Standard
Grade (credit level) or similar examination, or simply learning the language
for everyday use, this grammar and workbook is for you. You will typically be
either following a course at school, college or evening class, or teaching your-
self from a published course. This book is not itself a course, but a self-help
reference/revision grammar, with exercises designed to reinforce your grasp
of the points dealt with, unit by unit. You will find it a help to have access to a
good Italian–English dictionary when working through the book.
Since this is not a self-contained course, the grammar points are usually
given on their own, out of context. Of course, this is artificial, because, in
everyday life, when we say or write something it is always in a situation or
context. To compensate for this artificiality, the grammar points are illus-
trated with abundant examples, which are often reused, with variations,
under different headings. This is partly to strengthen your grasp of grammar
and vocabulary, but mostly to help you learn how to manipulate the Italian
language in a wide range of situations. Giving plenty of examples is a more
effective way of helping you develop the ability to communicate in Italian
than giving you lists of rules with just one or two examples.
At the end of each unit, there are several sets of exercises. If you work
through these, you will find that they consolidate your understanding of the
various points introduced in the unit, and also that they give you the con-
fidence to have a go at expressing yourself in a range of situations and
contexts.
The aim of the examples and exercises is to strengthen awareness of the
specific points dealt with in the unit; they are not intended to cover all the
possible uses of a given word or grammatical structure.
At the end of the book, there is a key to all the exercises, and a glossary of
grammatical terms, with examples.