Customer Reviews

Beginner's Swedish (Hippocrene Beginner's)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Okay, in light of the last two reviews, let's try to get some balance here:

I have come to the point in my language learning pursuits that I am so very tired of `trained' language professionals touting the benefits of `modern' language learning techniques. If you compare the actual techniques of `modern methods' with techniques used in the past, you will find two things: first, the logical, orderly presentation of concepts that were once found in texts is gone. Second, you will find that the material is `dumbed down.' Sorry... there is really no other way of putting it. Luckily, this book is not written in that fashion.

Beginner's Swedish has audio CD's to attune your ear (and tongue) to the sounds of Swedish, but unlike most `modern style' offerings, it also does a wonderful job of presenting the material in a sequential, orderly, logical, graded fashion. Many books these days are all over the place: they introduce grammar concepts randomly and incompletely (if at all), and they offer little, if any, practice to aid in remembering the material. Not this book. Each chapter has two dialogs, a list of vocabulary, a list of phrases, logically sequenced grammar, an etymological comparison of Swedish and English, cultural notes, and although it could use more, it does have a good number of exercises. The CD has audio for each dialog, the phrases, and the vocabulary lists.

What this book will not do is pamper you. It will not show you silly, Dick and Jane style, time-wasting cartoons. Rather, it will teach you the language in an efficient, comprehensive manner, if you are willing to put in the time and effort. It does not insult your intelligence and treat you as if you have a learning disability. It won't treat you like a parrot or an infant. It will treat you as an intelligent adult who wants to learn the language. If you can handle that, you'll like this book.

Keep in mind though, that a good book like this is only one facet of learning a language. You basically need to barrage yourself with everything that you can find: read websites, listen to internet radio, find dual language books, find someone to practice with, listen to the language constantly; even if you don't understand, you are getting the sounds of the language in your head. Get a grammar book. Study. Study. Study. And above all, do not believe the hype about modern methods taking you to fluency in two weeks. Not gonna happen. In fact, truth be told, learning languages using 'modern techniques' is quite a bit slower than using traditional methods.

While this book and 2 CD set is well laid-out and nicely presented, I feel that the title is very misleading. Although no previous knowledge of the Swedish language is assumed, this book is certainly not for the beginner. Even in the first chapter, a huge vocabulary is introduced to the reader. This includes words which I am fairly sure no beginner would particularly need to know, complex grammar properties and basically far too much material. For the complete beginner like me, it was very overwhelming. I would warn prospective buyers that it would be exceptionally easy to become disheartened with the content of this book.

I'm halfway through this Beginner's Swedish. I've studied other Swedish lesson books with audiocassettes, but this Swedish language book is really enjoyable. It has conversations with clear, easy-to-the-ear voices. After each lesson is either a bit about etymology, history, culture, economy or just everyday life, etc. It has useful phrases, and vocabulary, too. So well done! Love it! If there's the next level by Scott Mellor, I'll buy it.

In the new edition, all the proofreading errors have been cleaned up, and the audio CDs, which cover the dialogues and vocabulary sections, are a big help. This is how the book should have been published originally. Even the new cover is a big improvement. (See customer images.)

i can't say that i understand what everyone is complaining about. yes, the book gives you a lot of grammar and vocabulary to work with. but having studied three other languages, i'm just happy to have finally found a textbook with real content.

usually i end up shelling out for language books that contain more pictures and "white space" than text and inevitably break the bank. i'm new to swedish but i haven't found Beginner's Swedish to be particularly difficult to use.

Being a language teacher myself, I found this book extremely disappointing.
It is written like books for learners of English were written several decades ago, before task-based learning was invented.

For starters, we have 14 pages of heavy grammar and phonetics, which in my opinion is rather irrelevant and confusing for a complete beginner.

Then Lesson One is guaranteed to blow out any initial enthusiasm or motivation from learners, with a 3-page vocabulary list (containing over 130 new words to be "learnt" by heart), 5 additional pages of grammar, simple exercises lacking any relevance to real life situations, and a page on etymology.

After all this, I was pleasantly surprised to find a page on geography. However, it turned out to be drier than school-books twenty years ago.

Having studied three European languages to an advanced level, I have never come across a modern book that has so little to offer to beginners.
On the bright side, it would probably make a highly interesting read for linguists who would like to learn a bit about the Swedish language.

Many beginners' textbooks have you out and speaking right away: learning greetings, introductions, asking for help or the time, talking about your age, telling your phone number, where you are from etc. and learning to create your own sentences and learning to express yourself all from lesson one. This book doesn't do that.

As I am soon to be moving to Sweden I am interested in learning to create my own sentences, state my ideas and introduce myself. What I received in this book in lesson one was how to get along as a tourist: go through the airport and taught phrases rather than being taught how to construct sentences and express ideas from the beginning. If I wanted a phrase book I would have not been disappointed. Thank goodness it slowly gets somewhat better. This is no beginners' textbook but rather a large phrase book with insufficient grammar explanations and a CD so far. But I will stick with it.

Cons:
*The progression of grammar seems very incoherent when compared against the dialog. The grammar explanations are insufficient. The writer followed a list of scenarios such as getting through immigration and did not have a good layout for how to teach grammar. (I suggest buying a grammar guide)

*The practice after each section is exceedingly sparse. There is almost no practice at all. You have two pages of sentences to translate or fill in the blanks. There is no listening comprehension or additional readings, or fun activities.

*The dialogs are not useful and are sadly the focus of the entire chapter. It makes for an unimaginative, dull learning experience so far.

*And what I consider the biggest fault of all: you are not taught how to use Swedish but rather taught dialogs and vocabulary.

Pros:
*There is an audio CD, with the recorded dialogs and the vocabulary list and useful expressions.
*Culture, etymology and sections on geography at the end of the chapters.
*Better than some of the other Swedish language books that I have found.
*The book does try to cover some useful areas like getting a flight, getting a hair cut etc.

Note:
The amount of initial vocabulary is not as large amount as led to believe from other reviews but average when compared to say my Japanese beginner's textbook. I will try to continue on with this book, I am still on the first half (starting lesson four). There are things I can learn from it but I hope for better language instruction books once I am in Sweden. It would be helpful to buy a grammar book (which helped be greatly) and use other sources for your studies to keep it fun like listening to music or watching Swedish tv shows (try svt.se to start). And Good Luck!!

While I know a bit of Swedish already, I found this book too advanced for me! Only get this book if you are already confident with grammar and pronunciation. There are no pauses between the audio speakers to allow for self practice and they speak very fast. Also, they only say the swedish version; they do not translate in the audio into English which makes it difficult to use for long commutes in the car (my original intention for the CDs). However, the product is good if you are intermediate Swedish speaker looking for supplements. It shipped to me in mint condition in a week or less and the CDs had never even been opened! Unfortunately I will still need to seek out another book aimed at the basic fundamentals of Swedish. I even have considerable knowledge of Spanish and German, and while it does help, the book should focus only English and Swedish, instead of making multiple references to other languages.

This guide is a great way to start learning Swedish. It uses some a lot of variety and scenarios to make the lessons interesting. By the time you are done with the book, you will have a pretty good understanding of the basics, and quite a decent vocabulary. And as a bonus, you get a little history of the country and language.

The downside is that there are a few mistakes in the text, and a few mistakes on the cds - not many, but more than there should be. This was very confusing and could cause problems for total beginners. Luckily, I have a Swedish wife who I could double check with!

Overall, this was a good beginners guide, especially for the price. I would recommend it.

This is not an ideal primer textbook for teaching one's self Swedish. I have yet to find one. Rosetta stone is a guessing game too and doesn't teach much of anything.

The "dialogue" sections are useless pedogogically. The CDs are nothing really, just a recording of the dialogue sections, just people rambling through some Swedish conversation way too fast for a beginner to get anything out of it. It all just goes over your head.

I wish I could find a reader the 5 and 6 year-old Swedish children use, LOL. That would work great. Like "Run, Dick, Run," and "See Sally run..." etc. in Swedish. There are some grammatical hints and stuff in this book that helps and lot of tips, but way too much of those useless "dialogues," and nothing is approached in an evolutionary fashion, it's just all over the map. Would I buy it again? Probably. The paucity of good textbooks and pronunciation guides for Swedish means you have to buy everything you can, but this book is far from a beginner's panacea.

One last note, listen to the siren song about the much bally-hooed Rosetta Stone. That's exactly what it is, a puzzle with absolutely not aids, guides, tools, etc.

Rosetta Stone is a nice little "stone" in the building materials and tools of learning a language, but that's all it is, a rough stone at that. More like a glorified giant-sized Sesame Street language program for kids, but to say that is berating Sesame Street a bit, which does a much better job. You still very much need to use grammar books and dictionaries, lesson books, etc. if learning a language from "scratch" and while you are using Rosetta Stone. There are no language-specific built-in appendices, no dictionary, no language translation guides of any kind, no footnotes pointing out grammatical anomalies etc. (of which there are many in every language.)Nothing.

There are just phrases in text accompanied by the audio (if you select audio accompaniment) in Swedish, to fit the pictures, and you have to guess, either, or, depending on your choice lesson. But none of these many preferences is more than just a quiz game. THERE ARE NO OTHER LEARNING TOOLS.

It seems the creators/programmers of Rosetta Stone made the same basic program template of photo pictures for all language suites they sell, and they just changed the voice and text for the different languages. What a money-maker! And what a rip-off! I would bet they spent more on marketing this product than creating it.