Customer Reviews

Colloquial Mongolian: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a highly commendable effort, especially given its status as just about the only readily available Mongolian textbook out there. If you're curious about what's going on in this enormously fascinating yet unfortunately neglected language, it probably wouldn't hurt to know that it's going to take a lot of determination and far more than a mild interest in Mongolian to get much of anything from this extremely demanding and surprisingly thorough text.

While Colloquial Mongolian is based around a ton of pretty practical dialogues, the text may come off as being heavily focused on grammar, especially early on. This is probably a necessary evil as Mongolian grammar isn't the kind of thing that's just going to make sense after glancing at a couple of passages, but still a lot of people are going to be turned off by being expected to puzzle through sections on `iterative verbal nouns' and `imperfective converbs' before you learn how to say `goodbye.' Probably the best bet is to simply ignore the terminology and just concentrate on the examples given. Point is there's no real need to get hung up on some of these explanations and a good move might be to remind yourself that Mongolians don't care when their suffixes are reflexive, in the same way that anyone able to read these reviews probably knows the difference between the words I, me, we and us without necessarily being aware of the `correct' terms for their cases or person. Like most of the offerings from the colloquial series, this book is content with fabricating conversations then tacking on vocabulary lists, leaving the responsibility for reviewing all this information up to the reader, who has to look elsewhere for reinforcement. Since you're gonna need all the help you can get, the grammar sections are good practice even if sometimes the Mongolian may be easier to understand than the English, but hey, that's kinda a good thing.

The dialogues are situational and begin with fun little idioms. They cover basic greetings, shopping, hotels, ordering food and so on, then move quickly into travel itineraries and visits to herdsmen, where we get hefty doses of cultural and historical information. The good news is that translations are provided for just about every sentence in the book so when you find yourself frustrated by the pacing (we're on to modernized excerpts from the Secret History of the Mongols by chapter 10), or just need a break, sitting back with the English versions of the dialogues makes for some very interesting reading.

As other reviewers have noted the description of Mongolian pronunciation here leaves a lot to be desired, but you're not going to have to work through too many conversations before you realize that coughing up a satisfactorily complete rundown of Cyrillic as forced upon just about the least Slavic language imaginable would be tall order, and it's probably best to just work at it the hard way while trying to juggle all the exceptions and fleeting or hidden letters as they come. With such a user-unfriendly alphabet the tapes are absolutely imperative, and they include all the dialogues (about 4 a chapter), but, unaccountably, none of the vocabulary lists. It's a glaring and unfortunate omission because recording the new words would really help with memorization and with familiarizing yourself with the script, plus there's enough extraneous English banter on the tapes that could have been cut out to make more room. Also it should be noted that readers interested in the older vertical script will be disappointed, as the book only provides a standard letter chart and two versions of the same uniquely confusing paragraph, which most likely won't be enough to lead to any kind of literacy.

While not really a criticism, the biggest thing working against this book is that it's probably a little too ambitious. The text is super dense and gives you more than you would need for a visit to Mongolia, and yet isn't quite accessible enough to be 100% satisfactory as a self-study aid. This would, though, be a great textbook for class use if you're lucky enough to be in that position. It's still an impressive work and as packed with information, linguistic and otherwise, as these things get.

If you really want to learn mongolian get yourself a tutor. I am a fluent speaker of Turkish, and not too shabby at Uzbek, and yet was totally unprepared for spoken Mongolian. I got the 'Learn Mongolian' CD by TalkNow!, and even with lots of listening still couldn't really begin to make out the sounds. If you're going to visit the country, any travel agent there can help you find a tutor for something like $3 or $5 an hour. I had someone whip my pronunciation into pretty good shape in the 10 days I was there, now I feel like I can go back to the book and master the grammar.

The dialogues in this book are helpful, and the content is wonderful if you are going to be spending any time in Ulaanbaatar. In fact I used the map in the book to show my cab drivers where I wanted to go. Yes the language is a little formal, but it's always easier to go from formal to casual rather than back again. And the locals will be tickled. The grammar is tough, but you have to decide whether you actually want to learn the language, or if you just want a phrase book. Really, this is not a phrase book kind of language.

What a book! The author takes a grammatical approach that ought to have made things easy for the language learner. Instead, he has not thought to explain terms to readers less familiar than his students at SOAS. Worse, he introduces tenses and does not try to give the user a clear idea of their range and use beyond the name he's given them. However, the book appears comprehensive and is very valuable. But why didn't he look at Lewis's old Turkish intro in the Teach Yourself series, which manages to convey an equally complex language in an equally grammatical way without tears. DO BUY THE CASSETTES - the sound descriptions are inadequate. Still, I am persevering with it - it seems the best book in English.

If you're interested in really learning the language, including the details of grammar and pronounciation, this is a great book. It comes with audio CDs and cassettes, and the book has practice questions. It will teach you to read, write and pronounce Mongolian. The only caveat is that it's written by a British man, so you have to pronounce the Mongolian words using the British-English accents when transliterated, athough not a big deal.

First off, this is a fine book, with thorough explanations of a language very different from English. If you've studied other languages, then you shouldn't have any problems. If this is your first "second language", then it may be very technical for you ("accusative tense", "genitive tense" etc.). Also, it goes at a pretty quick pace. Spend good time learning the alphabet as having a good base of Mongolian Script will protect you from feeling overwhelmed as the exercises become more complex. (But this is a tip for anyone learning a new language in script that is totally unrelated to your native tongue.)

Before purchasing this book and CD, I was very confused by the difference in different versions (Paperback vs. Audio Book vs. Audio CD).
I purchased the boxed set and the CD (thinking that the CD was a PC version of the lessons and exercises, but it's just the audio CD of the exercises included in the boxed set. So now I'm stuck with two copies of the same CD's).

ISBN-13: 978-0415167147 = Paperback book of conversation lessons, vocabulary and grammar lessons, explained in English but Mongolian is only in Mongolian script (not phonetic English spelling)

ISBN-13: 978-0415289498 = Accompanying Audio CD with recordings of dialogues and other exercises.

ISBN-13: 978-0415431644 = A boxed set of the two above.

There seem to be cassettes available also, but I haven't purchased them so I can't speak to that.

This book is generally okay. I reccomend that you purchase the tape/CD aswell (I didn't) so you can listen to the dialouges and hear the Mongolian language. The only problem is that it jumps into using the cryillic alphabet straight away, which makes it a bit hard, at first anyway. It also seems to get straight into complex grammer, which although neccasery and great to have, is pretty full on for a book that claims to be for 'complete beginners'. If you want something quick and useful, the lonely planet phrase book is great for beginners because it spells the words out and has a great section on grammer.

I was disappointed with this approach to teaching the language. The book goes from explaining grammar and pronunciation right into dialog, with no pronunciation or sentence structure breakdown accompanying the dialog sentences. Unless you take to the cyrillic alphabet right away, there will be a lot of flipping back and forth to try to figure out the words. The pace presented was just not a beginner's pace. The spoken words on the tapes are not always clear and unless you have the book in front of you in a quiet room, they're difficult to follow. The overall contents of the package may be thorough but for someone truly starting from scratch, this set was not a good first step. I couldn't get past lesson one without giving up in frustration.

This is a really good book to get a feel for Mongolian, but I would not use it alone. The text is surprisingly packed full of grammar and vocabulary. But in regard to the grammar, I found the explanations not all that great. There is great divergence in regard to the grammar explanations throughout the book. Some of them are clear, and give you all that you need to use a particular grammatical form. Yet others are far from through, and they lack any thing but basic explanation of usage, and is not enough to use it on your own. The book does not even give you a good idea of how to get the stem of verbs. You need to look at the imperative and then the form used in the dialogue and hope you can get the right form.

However the vocabulary, dialogues, readings, and audio are really great. Thus I would recommend this book to anyone who know any Mongolians that can help with the grammar. Or, lacking that, who can find another text to help fill in the gaps left by the grammar explanations. There are some better textbooks and grammars found at the Mongolia Society [through Indiana university] or one can be found on Amazon here on occasion, Mongolian Grammar Textbook. I personally recommend the Sain Baina uu? series by L. Tserenchunt and Sharon Luethy, available through the Mongolia Society (mongoliasociety.org).

Sanders was lecturer at Mongolian at London's SOAS, and this is a thorough and well written course. Includes information on both scripts. As this is published in the UK you may be able to get it faster via Amazon.co.uk

I have a BA in Mongolian Language (old script) and wanted to find a book to review and bring it back. I saw that this book was rated as difficult and fast moving by most reviewers so I figured it would be great for me. I ordered the set with a book and CD. The book is indeed hard to follow and lacking in a lot of clarity and missing needed explanations. The CDs are sadly read very monotone, which for a language that is full of excitement in intonation is a pity. If I were to use this book as a true beginner with Mongolian I can see that it would be quite frustrating.

If you have a background in Mongolian language this book will help you to review the language. Mongolian and Japanese are very similar in their syntax so maybe it will be easier to learn if you speak Japanese, but there is still a lot of lack in clarity and ease of use in this book. It doesn't seem to grasp the true essence of the language.