Customer Reviews

Gagana Samoa: A Samoan Language Coursebook

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Talofa Lava
This book by Galumalemana Afeleti L. Hunkin (a University professor for Samoan Language in Wellington, New Zealand) is perfect if you want to learn the Samoan Language. With lots of exercises and good explanations it makes learning the language easy and enjoyable.
I recommend to order the audio cassette with it. It is useful to hear native speakers who know how to pronounce their words...

The audio samples are available for free on the University of Hawaii Press website.
Just search for gagana on their site and it will show you legitimate and free links to mp3 and realaudio recordings.

If you are going to learn this stuff you have to do the exercises. Recommend doing them on paper, not by typing them into a computer. You will learn faster that way.

As additional aids to study:

Flashcardexchange has online flashcards for this book. You can either review them on the web, or there is an iPhone app called Mental Case that will let you download the flashcards. Flashcardexchange also appears to have flashcards for the Samoan Word book that is also available on Amazon. Even though Mental Case can support audio samples in flash cards unfortunately none of the Flashcardexchange cards have them.

Also search on google for two documents:

- Gagana Samoa Mo Pisikoa. Peace Corps Samoan Language Handbook
- Samoa Language Program Guide John Mayer

To gain more experience learning from native speakers I recommend tuning into local radio stations that stream over the Internet.
In particular:

KSBS-FM Island 92
Radio Samoa 1593AM
V103 - Pago Pago - American Samoa Radio

Lastly, you have to get yourself a proper dictionary. The best one is by G. B. Milner- which is out of print in the US and therefore rather expensive from the Amazon merchants. But you can easily order one from New Zealand from Wheeler Books. Just google for the company.

There is an iPhone app but it is very limited and rather buggy.

All the above resources are collected at:
[...]

Soifua!

I ordered this book in 1993 and studied the language solely based on this book. This was a FANTASTIC book to use to start learning the language. I am a non-Samoan who has been speaking the language for over 17 years. Because I had my husband speak with me daily in Samoan, I had an extra advantage as I was able to practice the intricacies of the language.

One thing I noticed is that if you are NOT very good in English grammar (understanding what first person exclusive is, etc.), you will have a difficult time teaching yourself a language from a book! If you are not patient with learning and memorizing, you will also have a tough time! Some people learn better from visual sources (books) and others learn better through auditory means (orally)...I am a visual learner, so this book was a very successful tool for me.

Bottom line...learning another language takes time, patience, and practice. I highly suggest this book...it is a great tool for getting started with the Samoan language. Take it from someone who used it...successfully! :)

Great book it is very helpful and definitely what i was looking for the time it took to arrive was alot shorter then stated which is great.Definitely a good read for those tha are wanting to upskill there samoan speaking

I looked all over the web for a book that had the Samoan language and I couldn't find anything. I even called all the libraries in my state. So finally I contact a professor at the University of Hawaii and finally was able to get a name of a book that had just be revised. This book has both the proper and slang Samoan, which my husband (who is Samoan) was surprised that it offered, so now he is helping me learn the language with the help of this book.

The book is great but should have a CD to help in pronunciation. The way the book is written there are pictures of a CD at the end of each chapter for practice. In other words it appears that the book was designed to have a CD included. However no CD came with the purchase.

This is a great start to what I hope will be an effective way to learn the Samoan language. I realise that there are limitations and that the learning of this language will also involve much practice with other Samoan speakers. I would also think that other standard books like the Samoan Dictionary will be of use in conjunction with this one.

I have only just started using this book but so far it is easy to follow - coupled with the audio files, this is really easy to use.

Thanks for the prompt delivery - this product is very good value for money.

Wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless the audio cassette is available. It's impossible to try and learn without audio.

Perhaps this would work in an intensive class, but on its own this book is very difficult to use. Its grammatical explanations are minimal. Essentially you could use the book to memorize phrases and whole conversations, but you would not really be learning the language. I was disappinted with this book.