Teach Yourself Vietnamese

by Dana Healy

Book Overview

Checking into Ho Chi Min City? Teach yourself Vietnamese! With Teach Yourself it's possible for virtually anyone to learn and experience the languages of the world, from Afrikaans to Zulu; Ancient... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0071434321
• ISBN13: 9780071434324
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Length: 268 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Audio needs improvement

Like another reviewer said, teaching tones needs more attention and practice, especially in contrasting them. I am not complaining about the audio amount in the main text but it would be advisable to have it clearer, slower and with pauses between phrases, even if Vietnamese people speak faster naturally. Alternatively, recording in 2 speeds could be provided - slow and natural. Individual vocabulary words could be read as well. As for the text, vocabulary choice and exercises, they are not bad and manageable, not always spoon-fed but the words can be found in the provided glossary. For any serious learner, a dictionary is a must, so... I give it 4 points for some flaws with audio. Perhaps, having Southern accent example would be good but this may only confuse some learners, taking into account the difficulty of the accent.

good conversational learning tool

have not started listening to the cds, but the book that comes with this set is good. has alot of conversational dialogue that is fairly comprehensive. the book goes over dialogue word by word compared to other books that will just explain the phrases. highly recommend along with other learning guides. probably not the best for beginners.

underrated

this actually was the first book i started with in 2000 and to be fair i would say it is a very good course. It isnt a complete course as it advertises itself to be but then again no vietnamese language course is "complete". The pronuciation section on the CD is very good like the other post said you have to go through it hundreds of times before you pick it up but the is the sacrifice you have to make towards mastery of the tones. As an introduction to the language it is good, just realize that it is supplemental and you should be getting your hands on every course you can buy borrow or find in order to study viet.

a book for intermediate learners

I have been living in a Vietnamese house-hold for two years now (I rent from Vietnamese people) and I have been to Vietnam two times. I had long learned the "basic" grammer structure and many useful words before I bought this book. The book _can_ be used for newbies, but I would not advise it. It is basically a crash-course in Vietnamese, cramming in valuable lessons at every-interval and leaving out some explainations that a person totally unfamiliar with vietnamese would find hard to grasp. This is a perfect book for a transition from a begginer to an intermediate student. For a Total beginner I would say it is not the book. I also did not find anything especially intriguing about the cultural notes. But if you can rememeber a lot of information really quickly, it is possible to read the entire book in about 4 hours.