Customer Reviews

Course in Nepali

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4 star:		(1)
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David Matthews's A Course in Nepali is a very well written textbook, it does not assume any previous knowledge of the language. The book starts with the Nagari script step by step into the complexity of Nepali grammar. Grammatical explanations are very detailed and thorough, readers are expected to take some time to patiently digest each lesson. The exercises are also well designed, closely correspondent to the content of each lesson. There are not only conversations (like the Teach yourself Nepali), but also reading passages from different genres, and translations of the passages are also given for readers for checking comprehension. But I have to say, this book is not an easy textbook, it tends to cover all important grammatical points of the language, making the book very dense, without previous experience of Indic languages, this book will appear to be difficult(I have background in Hindi, Urdu and Sanskrit, this book is just perfect for me) . If you are not serious about studying Nepali, or just want to learn some phrases for a short trip to Nepal, this book is definitely not for you, in that case you should buy Lonely Planet's Nepali Phrasebook. That being said, I give 4 stars to this book, because the accompanying audio material is not readily available, making practicing listening comprehension difficult.