Customer Reviews

Intensive Course in Tongan: With Numerous Supplementary Materials, Grammatical Notes, and Glossary

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I found purchasing Eric B. Shumway's "Intensive Course in Tongan" tapes, very helpful as a student wanting to learn the Tongan language. Although buying the book with the tapes is a necessity. I found the readings on the tapes to be very clear and easy to follow along with. The reader gives you plenty of time to repeat after them, which is very effective in learning. Also the songs and readings are very entertaining. This is a good buy for a serious Tongan language learning student. Also these are the only Tongan language tapes I could find out there.

This is an excellent introduction to Tongan when used with the tapes. It introduces grammatical points and vocabulary in a well ordered format. It's a great book to use when learning "fakaTonga", the beatiful Tongan language.

A great book for absolute beginners. It has many examples of sentences in Tongan which helps a lot. I wish I had such books for other languages too

This Book and CD is the best way to Learn Tongan. It is straight forward and easy to study on your own. The CD allows the student to learn how to pronounce words and also be able to understand Tongan spoken at full speed. I would recommend then CD for anyone wishing to Learn Tongan!

I am so grateful for the book and audio cd's. I am now able to speak with those family members that were only able to speak Tongan. What a joy it is to be able to communicate in the native language of my ancestors and have a relationship with wonderful communication between so many more people now simply because of the tools I was given, The Intensive Course In Tongan book and audio cd's. A great investment!

When I first bought the intense course in Tongan I was not aware that it required a book to be read along with it. I received it in the mail and thought "how on earth do I understand the meanings of these sentences and words they're teaching me?"

With great luck, or divine intervention, my Tongan house-mate gave me a book, completely unrelated to the intensive course. The book happened to be the one that accomodated the course. What a coincidence.

4 stars because it is the only course available, but it is very good. Do it all and you'll be able to communicate with the Tongans in their language more formally. At this level you'll quickly pick up the local jargons and slangs and become a fluent speaker in no time at all.

I left off 1 star because it is not sold with the book....

This book should definetaly be used in conjunction with the CD's. The two items cover the exact sam ematerial, just not in the same sequence. Highly recommned.

I am Tongan but was not fortunate to learn the language. The Intensive course in Tongan book is easy to follow and learn. What I also found helpful was the full sentences with questions and answers that Shumway has provided. I do not need to travel back to Tonga for 3 months to learn the language which is a bonus. The intensive course in Tongan CD's will help for pronunciation and for auditory learners. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who like to learn the Tongan language.

I was hoping to use these tapes while driving in my car. There is no English Translation with these. This makes these useless to me

I thought this would be the perfect way to learn tongan, upload these to my ipod and listen at work all day. I start to listen and realize that theres no translation! The woman says each tongan word then moves on to the next. This would be great if you want to memorize Tongan words, but not if you want to actively use them in conversation.