Colloquial Vietnamese: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) [Paperback]

Tuan Duc Vuong (Author), John Moore (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415092051 | ISBN-13: 978-0415092050 | Publication Date: December 6, 1994 | Edition: 1

Colloquial Vietnamese is easy to use and completely up-to-date. Specially written by experienced teachers for self-study or class use, this course provides a step-by-step approach to written and spoken Vietnamese. No prior knowledge of the language is required.

Colloquial Vietnamese is:

• interactive - with lots of dialogues and exercises for regular practice
• clear - providing concise grammar notes
• practical - with useful vocabulary and pronunciation guide
• complete - including answer key and special reference section.

By the end of this rewarding course you will be able to communicate confidently and effectively in a broad range of situations.

These CDs, recorded by native speakers, are an invaluable component of the Colloquial course. They feature dialogues and texts from the book, and lots of interactive exercises to help you perfect your pronunciation and listening skills.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

University of Texas University of California, Berkeley

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (December 6, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415092051
• ISBN-13: 978-0415092050
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #685,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Tool for Someone Serious about Learning Vietnamese, January 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Colloquial Vietnamese: A Complete Language Course (Colloquial Series) (Paperback)

I disagree with an earlier posted negative review of this material. I feel that this book and 2 CD set is excellent. I have searched for many books to help me learn to communicate with my wife's family in Vietnamese in my annual visit to Vietnam. This is by far the most useful. This material is not designed for the traveller who wants to learn a phrase or two. It is designed for someone who truly wishes to learn to communicate in Vietnamese. The book and CD force you to think and learn to listen in order to comprehend real conversational Vietnamese. In real life, Vietnamese people speak quickly. One will never learn to listen and speak this language unless you are given a strong push. That is what this material does. This book and CD set will make you work harder, but in the end will give you practical speaking and listening abilities. Expect to make a serious time investment in learning this language. As an additional comment, except for a fortunate few, learning any language likely requires real life experience coupled with this material. The material teaches terms and grammar from the north. This is the official version of the language of the country and is understood everywhere.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tapes aren't that bad, November 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Colloquial Vietnamese: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) (Paperback)

I should start off by saying that I already spoke Vietnamese pretty well when I picked up this course. In general, I thought the book was a pretty good introductory text (a fair amount of typos in the first half dozen chapters though).

The one comment I did want to make was on the tapes. The hardest thing about learning Vietnamese is (by far) pronunciation. Some of the earlier reviewers complained about the tapes and I think that their complaints are somewhat unjustified. It took me (literally) years to be comfortable hearing and understanding Vietnamese -- it's not quite like learning Spanish. If the expectation was that the neophite could listen to these tapes (or any VNese tapes) in the car and start picking up words, then yes, these tapes (and any tapes) are going to be disappointing. On the other hand, the tapes follow the printed material very well, are professionally produced, and use speakers with good pronunciation.

I guess my point here is that you really need to be prepared to spend a fairly considerable amount of time if you want to hear and speak VNese well. If the previous reviewers didn't find these tapes useful, I suspect there are no sets of tapes (or any other audio aids) out there that would meet their expectations.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The book plus cassette seems a good idea, but is too hard., May 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Colloquial Vietnamese: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) (Paperback)

I'm trying to learn Vietnamese and have made several attempts to use this book plus the cassette. I usually learn languages rapidly, and I'm also an ESOL teacher. I would expect a Vietnamese speaker to be able to have a simple conversation after an 18-week course. Unfortunately, this book expects an English speaker to do this in Vietnamese after two lessons!

Vietnamese is very different from English, so a slow approach is needed with plenty of repetition and simple exercises.

The book and cassette are well produced, but they do not show an understanding of how languages are learnt.