Getting Real is the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals — a developer of web-based software used by over 1 million people and businesses in 70 countries.

37signals used the unconventional Getting Real process to launch five successful web-based applications (Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack, Writeboard, Ta-da List), and Ruby on Rails, an open-source web application framework, in just two years with no funding, no debt, and only 7 people.

If you happen to be a software developer and are learning a language in which the book has already been translated, you’re in luck! What you came here for: Getting Real: Translations.

There are several reputable phrase book publishers that I have found thus far:

• Berlitz
• Collins
• Dover
• Langenscheidt
• Larousse
• Lonely Planet
• Rick Steves’

Each publisher has their own idea of what is best to include in a phrase book. For the Italian language learner, it doesn’t really matter. As long as the book has enough phrases to warrant the price, the book is worthy. The whole purpose of having a phrase book is to grab nuggets of real-life communication.

To meet language learning needs for Italian, there are several phrase books available. For the ultra cheap, choose Dover’s Easy Italian Phrase Book. The most expensive in my selected list is the Berlitz Italian Phrase Book and Dictionary (~$9). Berlitz offers a package that includes a CD for just a few dollars more, a good choice for learning the pronunciation from a native speaker.

Of course Lonely Planet and Larousse also have good phrase books for Italian. If you plan to purchase the phrase book at your local bookstore, any on the Italian language resource page will do. However, if you plan to purchase online, I would choose the Berlitz Italian Phrase Book and Dictionary with CD.

Concise dictionaries are generally a good selection for the language learning beginner. They offer a decent word-count, many extra features useful for the language learner, and are usually printed well and on good paper. Concise dictionaries also have the benefit of being fairly inexpensive. For those reasons, the Collins Italian Concise Dictionary, 4e is my recommended pick for an Italian dictionary. To solve all major needs, I have listed other dictionaries as well.

For Italian dictionaries, I have found three excellent concise dictionaries. They are Webster’s New World Italian Dictionary, Collins Italian Concise Dictionary, 4e, and the Concise Oxford-Paravia Italian Dictionary. I chose the Collins for two major reasons. The Collins has a recent publication date and is half the price of the Oxford.

Webster’s New World Italian Dictionary is has been considered the best Italian concise dictionary for some time. It is a fine dictionary and is said to be more detailed than the Collins. The problem with the Webster’s is its publication date: 1985. The world has certainly changed since 1985 — many new words have been formed. For this reason, I have chosen Collins over Webster’s.

The Concise Oxford-Paravia Italian Dictionary is sometimes considered a slightly better dictionary than the Collins, but as a hardcover, it’s much heavier, making it more difficult to transport. If price, size, and weight aren’t an issue for you, go with the Oxford. Otherwise, the Collins is a fine choice.

Regarding desk reference dictionaries, there is one in particular that is worth a look. The Oxford-Paravia Italian Dictionary, a 2800-page hardcover that is worthy of your desk space for the intense Italian language learner, or maybe future translator? This one should solve just about every need you have, and then I would recommend a monolingual Italian dictionary.

Mini dictionaries can also be useful. These are the dictionaries that you can actually keep in your pocket. Unless you have a large jacket with room to spare, you’re not going to be able to fit the so-called “pocket” dictionaries (at least by most publisher’s standards) into your pocket, and don’t even consider the concise dictionaries for this purpose. The mini dictionaries published by Larousse or the gem dictionaries by Collins will fit snugly in your jeans pocket. For these, check out the Larousse Mini Dictionary Italian or the Collins Gem Italian, 6th Edition.

And this concludes 5-6 hours of Italian dictionaries research. Expect more in the future when I can get my hands on a good selection of each to provide full reviews. Until then, happy Italian language learning.

Unfortunately, obtaining The Little Prince can be a slow process for most languages in the United States. The easiest places to obtain the book are the slowest to order (special orders/general slowness). However, if you want a good student-level book that you can obtain in many, many languages, The Little Prince is a great choice.

You can purchase The Little Prince from WorldLanguage.com and Multilingual Books from TLP: Page 1 and TLP: Page 2. Beware of ridiculously slow orders (and high prices, probably due to import costs).

Because of the slowness and high prices, I have compiled a list of translations that you can purchase from Amazon directly (note that I have only included items that are in stock). The list is small, but useful for many.

• Arabic
  • Al-Amir Al Saghir (Paperback)
• English
  • The Little Prince (Hardcover)
  • The Little Prince (Paperback)
• French
  • Le Petit Prince (Hardcover)
  • Le Petit Prince (Paperback)
• German
  • Der Kleine Prinz (Hardcover)
  • Der Kleine Prinz (Paperback)
• Italian
  • Il Piccolo Principe (Paperback)
• Japanese
  • Hoshi No Ojisama Prince (Paperback)
• Latin
  • Regulus (Paperback)
• Spanish
  • El Principito (Paperback)

You can also find The Little Prince online in numerous places. However, the work is under copyright (in the U.S. at least) and is most likely posted illegally. I’ll leave it up to you to do your own searching if you wish. Here are the titles for languages I’ve found thus far:

• Afrikaans — Die Klein Prinsie
• Albanian — Princi I Vogel
• Arabic — al-Amîr al-Saghîr
• Armenian — Pokrig Ishkhane
• Bengali — Khude Rajkumar
• Bulgarian — Malkiyat Prints
• Catalan — El petit príncep
• Croatian — Mali Princ
• Danish — Lille Prins
• English — The Little Prince
• Estonian — Väike prints
• Finnish — Pikku Prinssi
• French — Le Petit Prince
• French Regional, Gascon — Lo Prinçot
• French Regional, Languedocien — Lo Princilhon
• Galician — O Principiño
• German — Der Kleine Prinz
• German Regional, Alemannisch — Dr chlei Prinz
• German Regional, Alsatian — D’r klein Prinz
• German Regional, Bavarian — Da kloa Prinz
• German Regional, Fränkisch — Der klaa Prinz
• German Regional, Hessisch — De klaane Prinz
• German Regional, Kölsch — Dä kleine Prinz
• German Regional, Luxemburgisch — De Klenge Prënz
• German Regional, Pfälzisch — De kläne Prinz
• German Regional, Saxon (Low) — De kütte Prinz
• German Regional, Swabian — Dr kleine Prinz
• Greek — O míkros príngipas
• Hebrew — Ha-nasikh ha-qatan
• Hindi — Chhota Rajkumar
• Hungarian — A kis herceg
• Italian — Il Piccolo Principe
• Italian Regional, Ladin — Le Pice Prinz
• Italian Regional, Napoletano-Calabrese — O Princepe Piccerillo
• Japanese — Hoshi No Ojisama
• Korean — Orin Wang-ja
• Kurdish — Mirzaye Bicuk
• Latin — Regulus
• Latvian — Mazais princis
• Malagasy — Ilay Andriandahy Kely
• Norwegian — Den lille prinsen
• Persian — Shahriar Kudzhulu
• Polish — Maly Ksiaze
• Portuguese — O Principezinho
• Portuguese (Brazilian) — O Pequeno Príncipe
• Romanian — Micul print
• Romansch — Igl Pitschen Prenci
• Romany — O Cino Krajoro
• Serbo-Croatian — Mali Kraljevic
• Slovak — Malý princ
• Slovenian — Mali princ
• Spanish — El Principito
• Swedish — Lille prinsen
• Tamil — Kutti Ilavarasan
• Thai — Jâau Chaai Nóoi
• Turkish — Küçük Prens
• Yiddish — Der kleyner prints