Colloquial Slovene (Colloquial Series) [Paperback]

Andrea Albretti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 4, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0415306256 | ISBN-13: 978-0415306256 | Edition: Pap/Com/Ca

Colloquial Slovene is easy to use and no prior knowledge of the language is required. These cassettes are recorded by native Slovene speakers and will play on any audio system. The material can be used on its own or to accompany the book, helping you with pronunciation and listening skills.

Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; Pap/Com/Ca edition (April 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415306256
• ISBN-13: 978-0415306256
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,513,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #25 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Slovenian

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars How not to write a language course, January 23, 2006

By 

Gwilym - See all my reviews

This review is from: Colloquial Slovene (Colloquial Series) (Paperback)

Of all the language courses produced by Routledge, this one is probably one of the least helpful. This is all the more unfortunate as there are no other courses in Slovene available. Routledge has published some excellent Colloquial courses on Slavic languages, such as Colloquial Czech, Colloquial Russian and Colloquial Ukrainian. Unfortunately, all the Colloquial courses from the former Yugoslavia leave much to be asked for. Colloquial Slovene, Colloquial Croatian and Colloquial Serbian are all below the usual "Colloquial-standard".

For a total beginner looking for a phrasebook, this course might be of some use. It does include some basic expressions and words. However, if that is all you're looking for, you will be better served the Slovene phrasebook published by Berlitz. Not only is it much cheaper, it also includes a better pronunciation guide and far more vocabulary than this course.

If you're interested in acutally learning Slovene, this course won't be able to help you. I have listed the major problems you will face

Pronunciation

Slovene pronunciation is not easy. Stress can fall on any syllable of the word. Get it wrong, and you might say another word than the one you intended. Every phrasebook or course in Slovene I've come across shows the stressed syllable of each new word. Colloquial Slovene does no such thing, you have to guess.

Another problem is that the vowel "e" can be pronounced in different ways in Slovene. Again, phrasebooks such as the one published by Berlitz or courses published in German show the pronunciation of "e". In short, you cannot know how any word in this course is to be pronounced. The recordings will help you, but it's not always easy for beginners to pick out the right syllable to stress.

Grammar

The grammar part is what could set this course aside from a mere phrasebook. Unfortunately, the grammar part is very limited. The concept of aspect is almost totally excluded. If you speak any Slavic language, you will already know how crucial aspects are. If you're a beginner, know that you will never be able to speak a Slavic language without mastering this quite complicated feature. Ignoring the whole thing makes this course easier. It also renders it almost worthless for anyone interested in learning to speak Slovene. The conjugation of nouns is dealt with, but that's almost all there is. If you have access to Colloquial Czech (the grammar is very similar), pick it up and compare it's detailed and user-friendly approach to this course. It is astonishinh that two courses with such a variation in quality are published in the same series.

Vocaulary

Complete Colloquial Czech and you will know well over 2.000 words. Complete Colloquial Slovene, and you will not know even 900 words.

In short, this course is too little of everything. Too little help with the pronunciation, too little explanations of the grammar and way too few words.

Routledge, the publisher of this course, has also published a very extensive Slovene grammar, written by Peter Herrity. When the time comes for the next edition of Colloquial Slovene, I hope he is given the task of writing it, that he starts from scratch and takes his guidelines from Colloquial Czech rather than from this book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Must get it with the cassette tapes, January 10, 2004

By 

Moonchild "humble" (Detroit, Mi. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Colloquial Slovene (Colloquial Series) (Paperback)

This book is quite basic and should give the reader a good introduction to the slovene language, but it is only that. The small glossary at the end of the book helps with gender and conjugation, and most of the general rules for grammar are introduced. If you really want to learn Slovene, I suggest you start with this book, then get a dictionary like Komac's (which wont tell you anything about conjugation or gender) and finally an extensive grammar guide like Peter Harrity's book (which fills in the complex gaps left behind by the other two books). I suppose if you don't want to spend so much money, just buy this book, but do get the audio tapes so you can understand the pronunciation and get some good practice in.

The book is very readable, but contains exercises at the end of each lesson (with answers at the end of the book). It is set up much like a textbook and includes some penned illustrations to keep the mood light. Don't expect it to take you long to make it entirely through the book, though. Actually this book will get you through all of the essentials for a ski trip or a short holiday. Enjoy!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good overall, but one major weakness, August 6, 2005

By 

Mauno Peltonen "Reader" (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Colloquial Slovene (Colloquial Series) (Paperback)

The book is well organised, well written and accessible. It covers all the basic vocabulary you need as a tourist and provides a good introduction to the language. It is largely jargon-free and you don't need to know any complicated grammatical terminology to use the book. The tapes/CDs are excellent - don't order the book without them if you want to get the most out of this teach-yourself course. The one big weakness - and it is a very big weakness - is that the book does not contain any information about word stress. Since there are no clear rules for word stress, the learner encounters many new words in the text (often not included on the tape) but without knowing how to pronounce them properly. Adding accents to denote the word stress would transform this from a good to an excellent book.