Customer Reviews

Creole Made Easy

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is not appropriate for learning Haitian Kreyol on your own - it's some way between a phrase book and a useful reference on the more important grammar. What's really good about it is the glossary, more like a small dictionary, which is more than enough for most everyday purposes, including a little on computers etc.
I'd say this book is best for someone visiting Haiti for more than a holiday and ready to put in more work - useful for phrases/terms and explanation when faced with a grammatical construct not obvious from listening.

I am a student of Haitian Creole, and I found this book to be an excellent supplement to a course or other methods of study. It has an extensive glossary and easy to follow lessons. The only thing is book is missing is a phonetic pronounciation key. Other than that, this book will definitely help beginning speakers of this language.

"Creole Made Easy" gives the reader every day words and sentences. I keep this book with me while at work either in the office or field in order to get a better understanding of what is happening around me. It gives you a base that you can start to "speak creole" the same day you pick it up.

However by learning these simple 16 steps and using them each day in some sort of converstion with the Haitian people, you can start to pick up on the meanings and uses that each word has. For example, most commonly used to refer to a person, place, or it, is li. This is spelled out and used in the first lesson.

I will say that one of the most important thing to remember to learn is tann isit, wait here, this will help you out when you want your cab (top-top), to wait for you while you are either shopping or asking information.

The dictionary in back of the book helps to explain different words and give you an idea of the English to Creole-Creole to English explaination.

I found this a very useful book to get an idea what Creole is all about. It is short and simple and each chapter makes you more eager to go on to the next. I had the advantage to have learned French in school. Without that I imagine it can be difficult to get an idea how the Creole words should be pronounced. A simple audio tape in addition to the textbook would be most welcome indeed.

Great book. A lot is covered in the 16 lessons, nice exercises to practice. The dictionary at the back is quite extensive and covers most of the words that I've wanted to look up, including some basic medical terms that I found lacking in other small dictionaries.
If you get the pronounciation guide as well, you won't have spent much and you will be much further along in your quest to learn creole. I rarely have to call for a translator now when dealing with my patients.

I have taken a face to face course in Haitian Kreyol and this book was an excellent supplement to it. Anyone could use this book and learn to speak Kreyol quickly. The glossary is in depth and includes all the most often used words and the lessons are easy to follow and do.

An excellent book!!

It is the only Haitian Creole translation book that I have found which makes sense of this difficult language. I would recomend to anyone who wants to learn casual Creole in preparation for travel to Haiti or while there.

I recently took a trip to Haiti, and in preparation for the trip I used the Creole Made Easy materials, including the Pronunciation Guide cd, and the Workbook. I used all three of them together, so I'll review them together as well.

Creole Made Easy is an excellent introduction to the Haitian Creole language. It provides the basic building blocks in terms of grammar and sentence structure from which to go further. This book is not an "emergency Creole" book, and didn't have anything by way of greetings, phrases to use while traveling, etc. Being in Haiti, those things were very easy to pick up, especially with some of the basic grammar under my belt. The Workbook is split into two sections, the first with exercises that correspond to each of the 16 lessons in Creole Made Easy. The second half of the workbook has more practical lessons like: numbers/time, months/days/seasons/weather, colors, family/friends, marketplace/food, around the house, and health and medicine. Indispensable to learning any foreign language is listening to it, and the Pronunciation Guide cd was excellent in that regard. I found that it was great practice for listening to the native speakers (though even then, I was listening too slowly most of the time) and great for understanding how to pronounce all of those nasal sounds. There were a couple of moments of frustration in using Creole Made Easy: there were a couple of misspellings; sometimes a word or phrase was used seemingly out of nowhere and wasn't listed in the mini-dictionary in the back of the book; a couple times a grammatical structure or phrasing was used and I had no idea why it was used that way, and it wasn't explained. This happened very few times, and can sometimes be a good problem-solving exercise that you need good practice for when trying to have actual conversations with Haitian people.

Of the eight people who went with me on my trip to Haiti, I was one of two who used Creole Made Easy, and the only one who completed all 16 lessons. I think some of the others used the Pimsleur cds (not any books). I was by far the best Creole speaker/listener and felt like I was in a perfect position to learn exponentially more while I was there. I was told over and over again "ou pale Creole byen!" ("you speak Creole well!") which I shrugged off for awhile until it began to sink in that this was true. Also, I wish I would have brought Creole Made Easy along with me instead of the Hippocrene Haitian Creole/English dictionary, because I think the dictionary in the back had a better selection of words and phrases I wanted to say. The Hippocrene has no phrases at all, and often didn't have the words I was looking for. All this said, I would strongly recommend the Creole Made Easy materials to anyone interested in learning Haitian Creole.

I just purchased the new edition of Creole Made Easy by Wally Turnbull. I must congratulate him for a job well done. The extensive dictionary is super and certainly long overdue for speaking Creole as a second language. I was tutored in Creole with the old 1945 book, the only one available when my husband and I went to Haiti 15 years ago. It is my humble recommendation that all new non-Creole speaking missionaries MUST have this book to get started on their road to learning the language. Bravo!

Haitian Creole is a fun language, especially if you know French and can see the correspondences. However, you'd be best served getting the entire package - this book plus the CD and the workbook. The workbook provides an excellent expansion on the meager detail in the book. No where does any of the books provide a section on greetings - these have to be gleaned from the dialogues (Bonjou, etc.). I guess that's what the Hippocrene phrasebook is for. Otherwise, it's a fun set of books that will give you the base you'll need if going to Haiti (or Miami) and want to start communicating in Kreyol.