Customer Reviews

Colloquial Greek (Colloquial Series)

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

 

 

I guess this book would rate one star because the cover is pretty. Otherwise it is so sloppily written and disorganized as to be unusable. Not only do words appear in the exercises that are not in the glossary in back, there are English to Greek exercises where the necessary Greek words have not been provided. More than once an English-to-Greek translation requires a grammatical construction (i.e., different case endings or different tense/mood) that has not been introduced. The tapes devote about four times as much airtime as necessary to the Greek alphabet (which is not at all difficult to learn) before they, too, wander off into the ozone. Many important questions of usage and grammar are dismissed as being "beyond the scope of this book." Almost anything beyond the Greek alphabet seems to be beyond the scope of this book.

I know this is harsh, but this book could be a real confidence-destroyer for some who hasn't had much experience with languages.

I was baffled by the way the vocabulary for the reading pasaages was arranged. A list at the beginning and list at the end in no particular order. Not all the words are glossed, even in the vocabulary at the back of the book. The book gives no indication which passages are on the cassette. The cassette contains too much irrelevant English filler.

There is a later edition of this fine book/audio combination that came out in January of 1995. Ms. Watts has been around the Greek language and its instruction for quite awhile under different publishing houses and has consistenly produced fine instructional material. The Colloquial series by Routledge and the Greek in Three Months by Hugo series are both done by Ms. Watts. If you can, go to your local bookstore and compare the Colloquial, the Greek in Three Months and the Teach Yourself Series. While each is fairly comprehensive, one may be more suited to your liking. The Hugo series was updated in 1998, so at the time of this writing, Nov. '99, it is Ms. Watts' most recent offering. Whatever you do, always get the audio companion to the book.

This book does have its drawbacks but it is one of the better books in English. Much better than Teach Yourself Greek, for example. The only problem is its lack of organization. As far as the coordinatioon of the book with the CD's you never seem to know where you are, and there is no CD track list. The dialogues are very clearly pronounced on the CD. Some tracks, however, are nowhere to be found in the book. It has a lot of exercises (key is 49 pages) however, which is rare for the Colloquial series. There could be more exercises o the type which make you generate sentences in Greek. The vocabulary consists of about 1500 words which is a little more than would be appropriate for a basic course. The best feature is the excellent explanations which are introduced at the appropriate time and do not leave anything "hanging". No other "learn yourself" type book in English has such good explanations of grammar. Watts also doesn't waste time and space on transliterations like some other books. You will have to be patient, however, since much of the book is quite disorganised as far as the order of the grammar is concerned. In my opinion it comes in 2nd place after the Oxford Take Off in Greek. As in any course DO NOT buy the book without the CD's.

This book needs some work if it's going to be useful to anyone just beginning Greek. I gave up after about 5 lessons...and I'm fairly adept at learning languages.

This book is also put out with a audio companion. Go back and search for that title. Make sure you get that edition, not just the book. Furthermore, there is a later edition of the book/audio combination that came out in January of 1995. Ms. Watts has been around the Greek language and its instruction for quite awhile under different publishing houses and has consistenly produced fine instructional material. The Colloquial series and the Greek in Three Months by Hugo series are both done by Ms. Watts. If you can, go to your local bookstore and compare the Colloquial, the Greek in Three Months and the Teach Yourself Series. While each is fairly comprehensive, one may be more suited to your liking. Whatever you do, always get the audio companion to the book.

I have been attempting to learn modern Greek for the past year. I tried various books, websites, audio material and generally was not impressed with the quality - many let you learn complete sentences off by heart and that's about it. This book is the first that actually made me feel not too stupid to learn Greek. It is not too dense, grammatical concepts are introduced slowly and just when needed. Exercises (solutions are also provided) round off each chapter.

Having borrowed Colloquial Greek from the library, I knew it was the book I wanted for my greek studies, so I was happy to find that I could purchase it from Amazon.com. I can recommend the book as a great introductory course for home studies.