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Catalan: A Comprehensive Grammar (Comprehensive Grammars)

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If you are searching for a the most complete, extensive book on learning Catalan, then you search has ended. "Catalan: A Comprehensive Grammar" by authors Max. W. Wheeler, Alan Yates, and Nicolau Dols is the best book on the market in learning this widely spoken Romance language.

Published by the magnificent British publishing giant, Routledge Press, this book will give you the lowdown on everything you need to read, write, and understand Catalan. Grammar, structure, verb conjugations are all covered here. Mr. Yates, who in my opinion is one of the best Catalan linguists in the world, previously wrote the excellent "Teach Yourself Catalan" book, which was the first book that allow me to comprehend Catalan in little time.

Both Wheeler and Yates, who are professors at two universities in Great Britain, along with Dols, who teaches at a university in Spain, have done an excellent job in capturing the essence and importance of this language.

While Catalan is primarily spoken only in four countries (Spain, France, Andorra, and Italy), it is a language that should be studied by those interested in Catalan studies. Travelers and businessmen to Catalonia and the Balearic Islands will find this book helpful in learning this language, that although it is the seventh most spoken in the European Union, it is not officially recognized by that organization.

If you want to learn Catalan, I suggest the following books.

(1) "Teach Yourself Catalan" by Alan Yates

(2) "Catalan Sin Enfuerzo" by the Assimil staff (for Spanish speakers wanting to learn Catalan)

(3) "Catalan-English Dictionary" by the Routledge Press staff (It is about $30)

(4) "Cambridge Word Selector: English-Catalan" by the Cambridge University Press staff.

With these books, you'll be mastering this once-forbidden language in no time. No trip to Barcelona, Catalonia, or the Balearic Islands can be fully enjoyed without learning the native language of the region's inhabitants.

Routledge's and Blackwell's "Comprehensive Grammars" are perhaps the most complete linguistic surveys made today. Whether you're travelling to Catalonia, wish to read Catalan poetry, or are just linguistically interested in Catalan, this book can help you get an orderly and thorough understanding of the language, regardless of your initial level.

While Catalan has undergone serious standardization programs in recent years, it still has wide regional variation, and this book addresses it fairly good. Besides, the book is very detailed (like all the books in the series I mentioned above), so you may wish to skip some parts of it if you use it just for reference.

This grammar, written by a team of excellent experts in Catalan linguistics, is useful to both (foreign) learners of the language and scholars of Romance or General Linguistics. The content is well structured and accessible to the non-expert, but without being superficial as happens with many learner's grammars. Being written in English and published by a reknown publisher, it reaches a large readership, which it deserves. The book also successfully tries to be complete on the level of linguistic variation, with different dialectal areas (Catalonian as well as Valencian and Balearic Catalan) and social strata being considered. There are other useful sources for either the learner of the language or the linguist, written in Catalan, Spanish, or even English (e.g. José I. Hualde's 1992 grammar published by the same publisher), but for the time being, I would recommand the Wheeler et al. book as the best choice for the learner and the second best choice for the linguist (the best linguistic choice being the "Gramàtica del català contemporani" reference grammar published in 2002 but difficult to get hold of outside Spain).

After visiting Barcelona and Catalunya, I had thoughts of returning so I decided to learn Catalan. I picked up Complete Catalan. While it is good, I needed a more complete grammar perspective. This book definitely fills the niche! It is very complete. Be aware that this is not like a "learn a new language" CD +/- book set, but rather a grammar book with a very different perspective. Check out the contents (noun gender, noun plurals, etc.) to be sure it will work for you.