I think I need my grammar refreshing; Michel Thomas broke me

[Digitaltoast]

I thought I'd join IP101 after having tried the Michel Thomas course.
The problem with him is that, yes, some of it sticks, but he's got me totally and utterly confused with the present continuous and that kind of thing.

I think he makes it un-necessarily difficult; for a beginner, is it that important to spend so much time early on making the distinction between "I am eating" and "I am right now i the process of eating" or doing, for example. I have fare and faccio and facciamo and all spinning round in my head, and this page didn't help at all either!
http://conjit.cactus2000.de/showverb.en.php?verb=fare

I'm not having problems with vocabulary, but getting the grammar right is important as the words, but I wish there was a simpler way than either learning the irregular verb tables or going over it again and again. Is there some kind of mnemonic for this?

[njmanton]

Hi Toast,

I think it depends on why you're learning - if it's just to 'get by' in a language for casual travel then imo you don't need to worry so much about using the correct tense; knowing vocabulary and stock phrases is more important.
If however your aim is to achieve a cerain level of competency, then put more emphasis on grammar and sentence construction.

Bear in mind the present continuous is used in different contexts in Italian to English.

I agree with you that the verb table you showed is very daunting! You can safely ignore most of these for the time being. Knowing the presente and passato prossimo are probably the two most important