Reddit mentions of Pimsleur Italian Basic Course - Level 1 Lessons 1-10 CD: Learn to Speak and Understand Italian with Pimsleur Language Programs (1)

National Geographic has a travel guide for Rome. Rick Steves' Rome 2012 lacks photos but includes very specific travel tips. Rome (City Guide) would be my favorite for its inspiring photographs.

I've heard that the Italians aren't good at English so you better know more of the language than you would need elsewhere. I plan to learn enough Italian to read it a little. Italian, Basic: Learn to Speak and Understand Italian with Pimsleur Language Programs is good enough for getting the pronunciation right.

I tried learning French for a couple years. It's all gone out of my head now, but I have some important tips for you:

• Learn Italian. It's way easier, if you already speak English. They're similar languages.
  
  
• Study every day. Language is not like riding a bicycle. It can be forgotten.
  
  
• Learn the structure of the language, and the grammatical rules. Don't worry if you don't grasp it all in one go. This is not your most important task.
  
  
• Focus on vocabularly before trying to put sentences together, and getting to writing, or speaking. Learning the vocabularly is the easiest part of learning a language, and will allow you to infer the meaning of a sentence without knowing everything. Again, don't get too stuck on grammar. Vocabulary is crucial.
  
  
• In building your vocabularly, try to have a goal. 3,000 common, everyday words will be enough to get you going. It seems like a lot, but it is only 8.21 words a day that you have to remember. You can learn that within half an hour, or an hour.
  
  
• Speak everything you read, and speak the language as much as possible. It will stick in your brain more, and will allow you to progress faster. With French, I made the mistake of focusing on books, and silently learning the vocabularly. I can read some French, but can barely understand it when people speak. It's too fast for me. So, use your ears and mouth when learning.
  
  
• For study materials, check out Pimsleur, and Berlitz programs. They are usually of high quality.
  
  
• Make learning fun. Watch TV, and listen to music, and play video games in Italian. Repeat aloud what you hear, and read.
  
  
• When it comes to studying via audio don't drift off. You can't learn by just hearing the language. You have to concentrate, and know the meaning of the words. I used to listen to French radio, and just let it play in the background, but really, besides getting me used to the language, it didn't do much educational-wise.
  
  
• Speak to Italians, or people that already know Italian. Tell them that you're learning. Don't worry if you screw up. They will correct you.
  
  
• Write down, and track your progress. Just jot down what you did to learn.