Interview with Jo Linsdell

Tell us about your book Italian for Tourists: Pocket Edition

Italian For Tourists: Pocket Edition a phrasebook, published through the online content marketplace Lulu.com, is a basic guide to the Italian language covering phrases and words most needed by tourists. It includes all the words and phrases a tourist is likely to need during their stay in Italy as well as a pronunciation guide and a map of Italy.

How did you come to write an Italian language guide for tourists?
I came to Italy with the plan of staying for 3 days and figured I could get by for such a short stay using English. With this in mind I hadn’t prepared for the fact that Italians might not speak English. In fact a lot of them don’t or if they do it’s very limited. I felt rude not being able to thank or greet people in Italian, after all I was in Italy. If an Italian came to England not being able to speak English how far would he get? I got myself a phrasebook to help me but a lot of the information was irrelevant and it took ages to find what I needed. I wrote this book bearing all this in mind. A tourist doesn’t need to know everything about Italian grammar and the in’s and out’s of renting an apartment. They want to have an easy to use reference book of the language they will need to use and understand during their stay.


This book is listed as a "pocket edition," do you have a more extensive guide available?

Italian for Tourists started out as an ebook. I got a lot of messages asking for a printed version and so I published the 6x9 edition. Since then I’ve had many requests for a more travel friendly size and so now it’s available in the new pocket format too.

Where can people purchase a copy of your book?
From http://www.lulu.com/jolinsdell

Where can people find out more about you and your writing?
At my main website http://jolinsdell.tripod.com

Anything else you'd like to add?
I’d just like to add that anyone who purchases a copy of Italian for Tourists Pocket Edition from Lulu.com on Saturday 9th May will get a free e-book of their choice from my collection by sending me proof of purchase to jo_bins@yahoo.com.

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