We are exactly one month away from our departure on our trip to the Mediterranean and Italy. Back in June, I wrote about my plans to attempt to learn a new language — Italian. I decided to try an online language course I’d learned about in Global Traveler‘s July issue in the Technology feature. (One of the perks as associate editor is that I see everything before it’s published.)  I promised to give you updates on my progress, so here’s the first. Mango Passport‘s program certainly provides the language-learning exactly as it describes, and I’ve found it easy to use, with information on grammar and cultural and historical notes that go beyond just learning vocabulary. One of the features I’ve really liked is that I can hear a phrase pronounced one word at a time as I drag my cursor over each one, or I can click on an icon which delivers the phrase at conversational speed, spoken by a native speaker. Now to a few confessions: First, I downloaded the program to my desktop, without considering the fact that I was going to be away from home quite a lot this summer. (The program is “licensed” to a specific IP address). That leads to my second confession: I haven’t been studying at a consistent or regular pace, so I’m not as far along in the program as I would like to be. (I’ve completed 13 lessons in four chapters; there are a total of 52 lessons in 10 chapters.) You can be sure I’ll be cramming over the next four weeks! I’m really enjoying the challenge of learning a new language (especially having the motivation for it that I do), and I’ve found that the little bit of other Romance languages I know (French and Spanish) and my daily work with words has helped somewhat. I’d certainly give an “A” to Mango for the way they’ve built their course and the content it contains, and I’d recommend anyone looking to pick up a new language for the purposes of basic facility for travel should check out what Mango has to offer. I’ll check in with you once more before our departure to let you know how far I got in my studies. A presto! — Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor