Customer Reviews

Colloquial Croatian and Serbian : The Complete Course (Colloquial Series (Book Only))

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

 

 

If you are a newcomer to the language, it is important to know that this course teaches in the Croation dialect, which is different from the Serbian dialect spoken in Belgrade and the surrounding areas. This course is applicable to those who wish to master the Croation spoken around Zagrab, and the unique Serbian spoken within areas of Bosnia. HOWEVER, if you are attempting to master the more common Serbian of Serbia and southern provinces, and you have no experience with these languages, this course could confuse you.

This could be a very good book for learning Croatian. As said below, the idea with each chapter consisting of three dialogues concerning tourism, business and a soap opera is very good since it enables the learner to cope with different situations. On the whole, the grammar is presented in a clear way and after finishing the course the learner should have a good grasp of Croatian grammar. Still, somewhere along the line someone got lazy - either the author or the people at lay out.

-Of the three different dialouges only the first in each chapter (tourism) has got decent vocabulary tables. For the other two dialouges in each chapter you do get some words, but since they aren't arranged into tables it is much harder to read and learn them. Of course you can write your own vocabulary for each of them but it will take quite some time - Routledge are the ones who should have put down that additional time.

-Speaking of vocabulary, the general vocabulary at the end of the book is a bad joke. My estimate is that even less than half of the words in the book made it to the vocabulary. It's quite frustrating to do an exercise, find a word you don't know and then for the umpteen time have to realize than the author/Routledge didn't bother to include that word either in the vocabulary.

-The exercises are quite good, but now the laziness reaches extreme hights. Only about 20% of the answers to the exercises are included in the book! I've no idea why, in every other Colloquial book I've read all the answers are given.

-Word accent in Croatian is not predictable and for some few words the accent is marked. For most it is not.

To sum up, the lack of vocabulary tables after each dialouge, the much-too-short general vocabulary and the non-existent answers to the exercises hugely diminish the value of this book. It is sad that a book with such good potential should be destroyed because someone didn't bother to add the final touch. My advice to the author: look at other books in the Colloquial series, such as Colloquial Slovak or Colloquial Lithuanian and learn from them.

This must be one of the best language courses for learning the language spoken in Croatia (which is extremely close to the one spoken in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro). There are three themes running through the book, all of them useful. The first one is the familiar "English Tourists" which will give you the vocabulary for ordinary situations, just as in most other language courses. Then there is a very interesting "soap-opera", which will be most useful if you're into some flirting. Given how extremely good-looking the Croatian girls are, this section is a blessing. Then there is a further theme focusing on a businessman going to Croatia.

The grammar is very concise and well-structured, and the vocabularies in each chapter are fairly full-covering. The audio is great as well, with natural Croatian speech. There is only one small problem and that is that the course does not show whether stressed vowels are long or short.

Though focusing on the speech in Croatia, the book also contains many references to the differences between Croatian and Serbian, which I found very interesting.

Be aware that the overall rating of this book is rather low, NOT becuase it's a bad book (it's great) but because some people like the previous reviewer from Greece attack all books that aren't exclusively in Serbian. That is a political action that has nothing to do with the qualities of this book. As someone who have never visited the region and have no passions about the political situation in the region, I would like to see reviews focusing on the qualities of the book

I WAS RAISED BY SERBIAN SPEAKING PARENTS AND IGNORED THE CHANCE TO LEARN FIRSTHAND. THESE TAPES ARE WONDERFUL AND DO HELP TREMENDOUSLY. I AM PLANNING A TRIP TO SERBIA AND THE TAPES BRING BACK ALOT OF WORDS THAT WERE LURKING IN THE DIM RECESSES OF MY MIND. I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND THE ES SERBO-CROATION LANGUAGE/30 IN CONJUCTION WITH THESE TAPES.

I got this book because of the glowing reviews here, but so far I'm unimpressed. Maybe my expectations were unreasonably high. The tape just starts off with no indication of what page we're on, and picks out seemingly random bits and pieces of the book to narrate. On top of that, some of the dialogues on the tape aren't in the book. This can be particularly frustrating for the beginner, e.g. me. The glossary in the back is not as complete as it should be. I would think it should at least have all the words used in the book so that the reader doesn't have to keep referring to another book or dictionary. Maybe as I keep plugging away at it, I'll learn this language, but this book and tape have definitely not been very user-friendly so far.

Hawkesworth's book is a mediocre introductory book on Serbian and Croatian. First, the book leans toward Croatian in its dialogues and spellings without giving much explanation as to the Serbian forms of these examples. Additionally, words are used throughout the book which are not defined in the lessons, nor in the glossary in the back of the book. Often, words are defined multiple times, yet others are not at all. However, one can find an excellent table in the back of the book on all forms of nouns and adjectives-- a great resource for quick references, as a student or traveler!

Use this book, but only with a GOOD dictionary, and a Serbian tutor (if Serbian is desired). Otherwise, search elsewhere.

I agree with most comments in all other reviews especially "gwilym". I have been using the book on and off for a few years while I am trying to learn the language. I too, wish to learn the Bosnian variant, and find that the book is definitely more "Croatian" in its use of vocabulary. However, considering the disolution of Yugoslavia is still fairly recent and not many newer books exist, I was very glad to have use of this book. It is quite easy to follow and the different stories provide useful vocabulary.
Definitely the main drawback is the terribly unfinished and unexhaustive vocabulary lists, and the exercises without answers. These two factors limit the book, and I find myself searching for a better grammar book with more examples to help me learn all the cases and verb structures. I could have learnt these better if there were answers.
Overall though, a good starting book. Give it a try and ask your native speaking friends for help and clarification.

I already speak 6 languages fairly fluently, and just starting out on croatian (pure beginner) and i borrowed both this book and Norris' book from my local town library. Hawkesworth's cassette is Definitely useless, as another reviewer said. The cassette is too fast, but u do learn some pronounciation. I feel Hawkesworth's book is a lot more detailed, and explains a lot more things. Maybe too much, for anyone who is a complete beginner. Norris' book is a lot lighter, and very good for beginners, because u really go step by step. Both are therefore very complimentary. My croatian friend agreed that they have more croatian than serbian in them.

The book is fine, but the tapes are useless, they are recorded at a high speed, so it's impossible to practice along with them. And they make no reference to how they are related to the book. Listening to the tape is like walking into a cafe of native speakers who are gossiping away, but are ignoring you totally.

I found "Teach Yourself Serbo-Croat" to be a better book with much better tapes.

it should be noted that you will never find a book in any language that teaches you to speak exactly like people of a particular area or age group. The closest you can get is a colloquial version like this one. If you know someone from Zagreb, this is very useful, and my Serbian co-workers understand me just fine (once they got past my accent.)

Remember, English from England, Texas and Brooklyn is all different, but we have the basics to be understood in each. And the Spanish they teach in American schools is from Spain, not Puerto Rico or Mexico, but people from all three places will understand you.

You should, however, start with basic area-wide How-Do-Yo-Do's before moving on to local slang.