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Planning to get your passport stamped soon? It’s true that you can get by in almost any country if English is your native language – that is, if you don’t mind being reduced to ridiculous charades, you’re willing to stick your foot in your mouth, and you’re all right with being left totally in the dark when it comes to signage, menus, or transactions involving reading, writing or speaking.

On the other hand, you could do your homework and study the local language. At least a little. Along with erudite cocktail party appeal and crossword-puzzle clout, familiarity with a foreign language gives shape and sound to ideas, thereby allowing travelers a more profound cultural experience.

Generally speaking, speaking another nation’s language inevitably spawns more friendships and opens more doors in distant lands. In addition, if you’re visiting another country, you are an ambassador, and the image of the ugly American can always use beautification.

In the name of civility, when learning a language, start with “please” and “thank you,” which the world around are indeed the magic words. Know how to greet people and bid them farewell. And then add a few handy phrases such as “I’d like another glass of wine,” followed by the inevitable, “Where is the bathroom?” and maybe, “I did not vote for him.”

In addition to the practical applications of one’s speaking a bit of the mother tongue while traveling, learning a language delights the nimble mind with nuances of inflection and intonation, idiom, figures of speech and translations. Take, for example, the French phrase for “potato” – pomme de terre – which translates in English to “apple of the earth,” or the Spanish phrase for “to give birth” – dar a luz – which translates as “to give light.”

Poetic translations aside, foreign language provides a sensual experience – think romantic “rrrrs” rolling off the tongue and the joy of communicating any amount with somebody who does not speak English.

Rule No. 1: To learn a language, abandon ego and eloquence and render yourself like a preschooler.

If you yearn to learn Italiano, or another language other than your own, the marketplace offers a variety of study materials ranging in technology, efficacy and, of course, cost. All programs reviewed below offered lessons in Italian, which is what I used, in the interest of comparing apples to apples – or shall I say mele alle mele.

Rosetta Stone

Price: A wide variety of options: $110 (three-month online subscription), $200 (Level 1 on CD-ROM), $240 (Level 2 on CD-ROM), $260 (Level 3 on CD-ROM), $500 (levels 1-3 on CD-ROM; save $200 with all three levels)

Gist: Rosetta Stone sets the standard as the most interactive and comprehensive, covering the aspects of learning a language from many facets: writing, seeing, hearing, speaking, reading. The namesake of the discovery that helped crack the code of hieroglyphics, Rosetta Stone trades on that idea, relying heavily on the pictorial and presenting Italian in the way many children learn their first language – through pictures matched to words and phrases. Rosetta Stone incorporates no English, interpreting nothing. You learn Italian through Italian.

Pros: Many levels, myriad exercises, with almost infinite variations on the exercises. At any point of any lesson, you can time yourself, submit to tests, or delay prompts, which helps beginners. Rosetta Stone is especially effective for visual learners. One mind-boggling audio-visual feature: In the speaking portion, listen to a spoken segment made visual through a voiceprint, like an EKG readout. Then you can click on a button to record yourself repeating the same segment and see your own voiceprint charted as you speak. Amazing. Comparing the voiceprints helps you see how your accent is progressing.

Cons: Cost. All that innovation comes at a price. Also, installing the software can be confusing. Piracy prevention makes the system cumbersome, requiring installation of one CD, then keeping another CD in the computer. In short, that means you can’t just take lessons with you on an iPod or in the car. And the interactive nature of this system means you can’t fold your studies into multitasking. Instead of listening and speaking while preparing dinner or taking a walk, you must sit down and focus on nothing else but this program on your computer.

Website:

Rating: Bravissimo! (Yay!)

Instant Immersion

Price: $9-$100 (used or new from ), $29.99 at Costco

Gist: Eight CDs, a workbook and an audio course guide that spells out the recorded lessons. Instant Immersion begins slowly, starting with bare-root fundamentals: the alphabet. Lessons move on to common words. A woman speaks the Italian; you repeat it, then another woman interprets the word. This program resembles learning a language in an elementary school classroom. Each CD grows more challenging, but remains in the same format. The pace is forgiving. The course teaches common vocabulary words, verbs, phrases. Some segments include dialogues. Instant Immersion is very straightforward, exactly what you might expect from an audio learning language program.

Pros: iTunes recognizes it and even grabs the track names, which is a bonus. It imports easily, and this system is very easy to take with you and listen to on your iPod or in the car. An “audio course guide” is a collection of PDFs for each CD. This is useful, as you can read along to every CD and see everything in writing that you are listening to. Their website also offers software and book formats. The CDs also come with a handy traveling case.

Cons: A CD-ROM called “Talk Now!” would not open or install on Apple, despite repeated frustrating attempts and paperwork claiming the CD-ROM is Mac-compatible. Another downside to such a straightforward program with no gimmicks is that you may start to dread listening to it the same way you used to dread diagramming sentences in English class.

Website:

Rating: Bravo! (Good job!)

Berlitz Publishing

Price: $10-$80 (wide range online)

Gist: Again, pretty straightforward – just listen to the CDs. First Berlitz Publishing presents a dialogue, then they take it apart, translate it, and prompt you to repeat each part a couple of times. Then the same dialogue is repeated. Some variations: The speaker asks you questions to see if you can answer after listening to the dialogue without interpretation. Then you form questions before being told how to phrase them. They have someone ask you questions, tell you what to say in English, and you have to come up with the Italian on your own. More confusing to explain than to participate!

Pros: A big advantage lies in the ability to just grab a CD (or put it on your iPod) and listen to lessons whenever or wherever you are. There’s no reading or writing. Importing lessons into iTunes worked just like importing a regular audio CD – no problem. The website also includes travel guides, maps and atlases, dictionaries, phrase books and other books that seem to cover the reading/writing/grammar aspect of learning a language. Berlitz also offers other audio language learning programs including ones for children, for intermediate speakers, even songs that incorporate words or phrases to listen to during rush hour. To see a sampling of options, click on “audio preview” under “Language Learning.”

Cons: A huge part of being in Italy – or wherever English is not the common language – is being able to read signs and menus. With learning limited to an all-audio program, a traveler would have trouble recognizing words when they’re written, rather than spoken. Berlitz does present some basic spelling and pronunciation rules, and they recommend buying an Italian newspaper or surfing the Internet to find Italian sites to get a glimpse at the written word. It seems Berlitz Publishing recognizes this deficiency in their program. Apparently, there’s a “free listener’s guide” available at , which I could not find, due to the overwhelming website.

Website:

Rating: Bene. (Adequate)

Earworms

Price: 15 pounds (about $30)

Gist: If you can stop laughing long enough to listen to these lessons, it’s actually quite effective – at least for the first few tracks. Earworms employs the same phenomenon of the ridiculously catchy radio pop song that gets annoyingly lodged in your head, playing over and over ad nauseam. You will learn this Italian whether you want to or not – not to mention the unavoidable head bopping that ensues.

Pros: You can, of course, listen to it wherever you would listen to music. To teach numbers, Earworms includes use of imagery and mnemonic devices, which is helpful and unique to this program. A small booklet lists the main words with pronunciations from each track. Earworms seems to allow the learning of another language without much thinking. This system satisfies the child at heart who couldn’t sit still in language arts class.

Cons: As the CD wears on and the lessons get slightly more complex, the tunes get less inspired, even less catchy. By that point, the novelty factor has worn off anyway. The major con for this program is that you only learn rudimentary Italian via Level 1 and Level 2 CDs. That’s it. On the first CD, Earworms teaches only about 200 words, which equals the vocabulary landscape of a toddler or a smart dog. If you just want to skim the surface of a language, this is your program.

Website:

Rating: Amusing, then effective, if not annoying. Only for beginners. Cosi’ cosi’. (So-so)

Foreign Service Institute

Price: $75 (download), $199 (CDs)

Gist: The lessons involve listening twice to a dialogue between two Italian speakers. The first pass clips along at a native speaker’s pace that’s a bit brisk for a neophyte to follow. The second time presents pauses, allowing you to repeat segments of the dialogue. Then the English speaker dissects the dialogue one word or phrase at a time, interprets it, and grants you time to repeat those words or phrases.

Pros: Offered in a variety of formats: