Customer Reviews

Colloquial Catalan: A Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series)

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

 

 

In recent years, Routledge has gone from consistently producing excellent language courses to producing some excellent courses and some bad courses. Unfortunately, Colloquial Catalan is a prime example of the very worst Colloquial courses.

The main error in this course is the fact that it's exceptionally limited. After completing some of the more extensive Colloquial courses, you will master the grammar of the language and have a solid basic vocabulary. Colloquial courses like Colloquial Italian, Colloquial Czech, Colloquial Albanian or Colloquial Icelandic list over 2000 words. The average Colloquial courses list 1000-1500 words. In sharp contrast, Colloquial Catalan doesn't even reach 600 words!

In my opinion, the Colloquial courses are often a better option than Teach Yourself courses, but that's not the case with Catalan. Teach Yourself Catalan will teach you more than twice as much as Colloquial Catalan.

I envisioned an accompanying written guide, but nope! The short lessons on cd are convenient, but if you aren't the best auditory learner (like myself), look for some written material to supplement.

The production quality of the disks is excellent; you can hear people breathe out on certain sounds. There are at least half a dozen different speakers, each with their own enunciation quirks and conversational speed.

Although very little English is provided and these disks are not intended to stand alone, I was able to guess 90% of the content of the first disk based on my memory of high school French and my contact with Spanish speakers over the years. The very short dialogues present enough context that it is easy to guess what is going on, and the lessons build slowly in complexity. Phrases useful for survival are emphasized--gambits for the hotel reservation desk, the restaurant, the telephone. This course is exactly what it is billed to be: colloquial.

While it is clear that I could never master grammar without written material, the time spent listening to this disk has been worthwhile (I have only tried the first of the two in the set). At times when I am desperate to see a word written out, I have been able to find it using the internet, on sites such as http://www.travlang.com. For a tourist who only has time to study while commuting, I think this is a great study program.

Although a cd teaching Catalan is great, it really needs to have the guide in order to use it properly. This is not clear in the description.

With just two weeks to go before a trip to Barcelona I needed to learn the basics fast and luckily I found this book which was brilliant. The vocabulary was useful and covered all the main areas and the grammar sections were easy to understand. I wish I'd had a book like this when I learned French at school.