Customer Reviews

Breakthrough Navajo: An Introductory Course

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

 

 

First of all, I have a bias: I was a friend of the late Alan Wilson, the author of this and several other excellent Navajo and Apache texts.

I had the privilege of working with Alan on three projects, and I feel it should be said he was a gifted linguistic scholar and an exacting textbook author. He understood the craft of creating language lessons that start the reader from scratch, then build steadily in vocabulary and sentence complexity.

Now, it must also be said that Navajo is an extremely complex language, and few could ever hope to master it without extended immersion in the culture. From its sounds to its syntax, the Navajo language poses a myriad of challenges to the language learner and textbook author alike. But by providing a quick introduction to the basics, then rapidly and sequentially building new skills, Alan's books really excel.

True, they were type-written in the days before personal computers, and the diacritical marks were added by hand. And, true, the recordings are far from state-of-the-art. Alan wasn't much into technology and had to rely on the equipment and skills he could find and afford (these books were labors of love, with few resources coming from the publisher). Nevertheless, and this is the point I want to drive home, his texts and recordings are filled with excellent content. Alan was a stickler for accuracy and authenticity in pronunciation, orthography, and real-world language usage, and students continue to benefit from his lessons.

I agree it would be nice if his books could be re-typeset and new recordings made. But this is a huge project and, sadly, few people have the expertise, inclination, and resources to make it happen (Alan passed away in 2000). A more modern text does, in fact exist, and I recommend readers look at it: "Dine Bizaad: Speak, Read, Write Navajo" by Irvy Goosen. In the meantime, it would be a mistake to dismiss the works of Alan Wilson simply because of their age.

This book simply doesn't cut it and probably never will. The data for this book is very misleading -- there is no Book and Cassette edition even though it looks like there is. In actuality, the paperback book edition is the same price as the cassettes and each must be ordered separately. The $49 list price only gets you one or the other, not both.

Audio Forum has been around for a long time and I was hoping they had changed their ways but they continue to repackage old texts with new covers and call them new editions. For example, the text in this book is from 1969 -- only the cover art is from 1992. To make matters worse, it looks the original text was created on a typewriter, run through a mimeograph machine (!) two or three times and then put on film. The end result is a poor quality product all-around. This is unfortunately true of many dozens of Audio Forum products.

For those who aren't already familiar with Navajo, this text would be impossible to work through. Navajo uses a wide variety of characters with diacritics and accents, most of which cannot be accurately deciphered without prior experience with the language. For those who are familiar with the Navajo alphabet, it can be done, but you won't enjoy it.

It's a shame that Audio Forum can't see to spend some money on resetting some of these older texts which still serve an important function -- just not in this horrendous condition.

Unfortunately, Navajo studies suffer as a result.

I am an Anglo, living on the reservation, working in healthcare and have a strong desire to learn Navajo. Even my strong desire falls flat with this text.

It was not clear to me that this book is useless without the cassettes, and when I found them, having overpaid for the poor quality of this book, I was not about to invest another $50.

There are MUCH better learning resources and I recommend that you send your dollars in another direction.

Yes, the book w/ the 2 cassettes is expensive, and yes, the book looks like it was typed on a 1960's typewriter ( IT WAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), but I can say that the audio cassettes do exist. I checked out the set (large paperback book + 2 poor quality audio cassettes) from my local public library!!

I have not used it much yet, so I only gave it 4 stars based on the poor quality of the old cassettes. ( A newly purchased one may be cleaner...I don't know).

Need to listen to how you listen to the sounds so I will buy a learning Navajo CD to boot, then I can start with the book. I am very happy with the quality of the book though. It is very informative to the Navajo language and speech style.

Navajo is an extremely hard language to learn for the English speaker. This is due in part because of the verb system that exists in the Athabaskan language family. That being said, this book may be a little dated, but it is still very usable. The lessons are easy to follow and understand, and the verb paradigms are equally easy to understand. The lessons do not get into the 'nuts-and-bolts' of the verb system, but rather have you learn the full forms of a particular verb. The idea works, and does not bog you down with mind-bending grammar explanations at such an early stage. Thus this is easily something I would recommend to the beginning student of Navajo. (And as far as the price, now-a-days it is as easy as looking at the Amazon marketplace.)

[My review of the audio is here Breakthrough Navajo CDs & text]

The entry for this selection is entirely misleading--there is no CD or casstte sold with the book, the cassette must be ordered separately. This language depends heavily upon tones/inflections,neither of which can be heard in print, making the (very poorly) printed material good for starting fires, thus saving collecting pinyon. Apparently the publishers/sellers have decided that if partitioning is good enough for the land, it is good enough for the language. This entry should not so much read "BREAKTHOUGH NAVAJO" as much as "BREAKDOWN NAVAJO".