'A good puzzle, like virtue, is its own reward' (Henry E. Dedeney) The games and puzzles in this collection offer a further reward: they make the learning of Italian easier and more enjoyable for students at the high school, university, community college, and continuing education levels.

Some of the puzzles focus o form, otehrs on meaning. Word games - crosswords, word searches, scrambled letter, and tic-tac-tow games - reinforce specific areas of gramma and vocabulary. Logic games deal with meaning; they require thelearner to understand the contentof the puzzle in order to solve it. Logic games stimulate thought in Italian and improve overall comprehension.

For classroom use or as a self-study manial, these games allow the student of Italian as a second language to develop skills much more readily than traditional language-learning exercises can.

MARCEL DANESI teaches on the history of puzzles at Victoria College of the University of Toronto. Danesi has written puzzles for Reader’s Digest, The Toronto Star, and also maintains a blog on puzzles for Psychology Today. He has also published several best-selling puzzle books, such as The Total Brain Workout and The Complete Brain Workout.

Marcel Danesi's profile page