Customer Reviews

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

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Dennis Deletant has written an outstanding guide for the independent student of Romanian. Any amateur linguist with a flare for picking up foreign languages will fly through this book and have an excellent grip on essential Romanian grammar. There are plenty of useful exercises with adjacent answer keys for quick, easy reference. All grammatical rules are presented clearly, comprehensively, and painlessly. The rules are rubbed in by repetition in model sentences. Pronunciation is described accurately in the book, but purchasing the accompanying set of tapes would probably help avoid confusion. For the price, it is a wonderful and thorough introduction to the study of Romanian. Highly recommended.

Dennis Deletant has provided an invaluable resource for anyone who wishes to truly learn the language, especially in self-study. The book enables you to learn how to conduct many affairs in Romanian daily life.
I recomend that you purchase the the book and cassette pack, the cassettes are definately a great aid. They will increase your comprehension twofold.
There are several versions of the book available, the complete course (ISBN 0415129001) is the best buy. It includes the tapes and costs about 30 to 40 dollars.

I enjoyed doing the course. The author claims that you will be able to use Romanian as used in daily life. This is true for the most but do not expect to be able to translate poems or read specialist articles. Depending on your language background you have to learn a lot more words. This can not be expected from a short course. I am however able to go around in Romania, do my shopping, make myself clear in conversations and not feel totally helpless. This book does not waist time on useless practices. In fact every excercise is usefull and should be taken. It also serves as a very good reference guide on Romanian language after completion of the course. The accompanying tapes have been a great help.

Before my first visit to Romania, I purchased this book along with its accompanying cassettes and thus began my study in the Romanian language. My goal then was to learn a bit of the basics before my arrival in the country. With this book, I was able to do just that. By carefully making my way through the exercises and listening to the tapes for the pronounciation, I not only learned some key phrases, I gained a decent foundation in grammar and vocabulary. In fact, I was able to surprise my Romanian hosts with my ability. Of course, for an in-depth understanding of the language, there is nothing that can take the place of a real live instructor. But now, after living for several years in Romania, immersed in the language, I can look back and know that I had a pretty good head-start because of this course. The only real problems I can report are that this book does use an older spelling system with regard to certain vowels that was changed a while back, but this is nothing that would damage your pronounciation or understandability. I do strongly advise that you get the cassettes to go with the book so that you don't have to rely on the written explanations of pronounciation, which, though correct from a British standpoint, are a bit awkward.

I found that the tapes are very helpful and teaching is carried out in a slow and systematic manner. I have been listening to the tapes while driving and they are very easy to follow. However I feel that since some of the words are different and difficult to follow by merely listening to them, having the paperback edition will help. But I will highly reccommend these.

When I read that "a" was similar to the Standard English vowel sound in "bud", "come", "done" and "put", I needed not go further! The vowel in "put"??? Does this fancy author know any English?
So hard to find specialists in teaching foreign languages...