Customer Reviews

Beginner's Vietnamese (Beginner's (Foreign Language))

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The title says much of it: it is for beginners. If you start with this book (and if you're studying by youself), you will not get lost or desmotivated like you probably would (i did) with "Colloquial Vietnamese: A Complete Language Course".

B.V. is a very step by step book; starts introducing words, with words make sentences, with sentences make dialogs, and with dialogs make texts. It is a complete book. Each lesson (out of 30) provides a dialog that is the core if the lesson; this dialog is supported not only by the vocabulary, but also with notes on usage, grammar, and plenty of drills to make us comprehend better what we were just thaught and retain it. It has also exercises and questions about the texts.

After 3 lessons, what we learned in the dialogs becomes a text without translation (all the dialogs have translations); it is like a review lesson.

Being of 1972 (1995 is the reprint date) doesn't harm this book at all. Very good!

I have to take issue with the reviewer who panned this book, presumably because he wanted some kind of Chomsky-esque government-and-binding-theory-like book on Vietnamese. If you're really into linguistics (I'm a PhD candidate in linguistics myself) and want to gain some deeper insights into the form and structure of Vietnamese then yes, this book will be a big disappointment (of course, so will any in-print book in English).

If, on the other hand, you want a clear introduction to basic Vietnamese with form and pattern drills (which the previous reviewer also seems to hate), then this is one of the better books out there.

Bottom line : if you're interested in learning to speak or read Vietnamese (as opposed to writing journal articles about obscure aspects of VNese syntax), this is really a good introductory work, especially for the price. The only reason I gave it 4 stars is the lack of audio tapes and the typical mediocre typesetting of Hippocrine books.

Great book and helps for beginner Vietnamese. Some of the lessons are not useful and the glossary only goes from Vietnamese to English, but great anyway. Book recomended. ..

I purchased this book a few weeks ago and have been studying it page by page. While I must admit that this is
an old book written in a formal Hanoi style dialect I'm satified using it to learn Vietnamese. This is because
there's alot of material to learn. I'm a slow learner of a foreign language and have discovered that the best
method for me is lots of material again and again. My wife who is from Saigon kind've sneered at the book saying
that average persons in Vietnam don't "talk that way". However, I'm still glad I bought this book. I recommend it
for anyone wanting to learn Vietnames as part of their regime.

Yeah, no tapes, but if you have some friends who can help with pronunciation, this book is the best I've found. I have about 8 beginning books, and all are useful, but this is definitely my favorite. Buy the book, work with a Siagonese friend to get the sounds of the vowels and consonants down, pay attention to the tones and you can lean one of the world's harder languages.

Co cho chung ta di mua quyen ay, duoc khong?

OK, OK, so if I butchered this, I'm still learning. Pimsleur is fine, but it's all in the Hanoi dialect; FSI course is better (and free - bittorent or google search on fsi vietnamese) but is a slow. If you want to learn the Saigon dialect, try the FSI course coupled with this book.

In short, it is superb. I think it is designed for beginners and intermediates. Words become sentences, they become paragraphs, they become text. It is first time I come across such kind of teaching and I admired. Lack of auido help is lamentable. Recommended highly

I want to thank the publishers for what I call the best grammer book out there. I searched through many looking for something intermediate and this book satisfied what I need for a group of us who are already beyond basic vietnamese. The lessons are short enough that students can remember it and the practise drills are excellent and effective. The pronunciation at the begginning of each lesson are also invaluable. My students love this publication and I myself as the Instructor will recommend this book to anyone who wants to advance. Most books I have researched does not have to much explanation on Vietnamese grammer, but this book so far has the most which is helping us progress beyond the basics.

I have (and have had) several beginner level Vietnamese textbooks, and this one (by far) has worked the best for me.

I've discovered the different techniques that authors use for progressing through the material. Simply put, the way the author sets up the "path" of learning has worked the best for me. However, it is a huge improvement from other books I have. I do not know if it is just because my mind works in sync with the author's, or what, but the difference in the rate I was absorbing material is incredible.

I love the way he introduces conversation situations, and adds a little extra and here there - but it is always stuff that is easily figured out. However, it truly does help you develop ways to figure out unknown words based on the surrounding sentence.

Highly recommend this book! Only wish it had audio.

This book is brilliant! I haven't used it yet since I received it a few days ago, but i have started reading the tip and drills. Pronuncistion drills and grammar notes are clear and well explained. The only con is that there isn't any tape or recorded voice examples...but you'll get a chance to learn it well having a Vietnamese friend to talk with,like me. If you need and love a systematic approach to the language, I recommend his book.

This book was recommended to me by an author of an other Vietnamese textbook and I have found it excellent. I only wish that they had done CD's or tapes to go with it. That would be my only minus. I have also recommended this title to other students who are learning this wonderful language with me.