Customer Reviews

Lakota: A Language Course for Beginners

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

 

 

This book was a part of a set of tapes and the book. The information posted did not reveal this, and I only received the book. The pronunciations and grammar are impossible to learn without examples. The tapes are not available on Amazon.com. The book is of no use.

This book is of very limited use in regard to correctly learning the language without the audio cassette tape series with which it was dsigned to be used.

I did not order the accompanying tape. I have some failiarity with the Lakota language, so the book would suffice for me. The Lakota language is a beautiful language to hear. Men and women converse with different words as well as when you are addressing different sexes. Without someone to practice with, this could prove difficult to master. There are nasal influctions that must also be learned that you cannot learn from a book. If you are serious about learning the language I would suggest that you also order the audio tape as well. This is most definitely one of the best Lakota language offerings available. Wastay!
Grant Yellowhawk Brickner

This is not a bad material, I have had it for some time. But there isn't a whole lot in it. Another thing is the writing system - one can't figure out the pronunciation from it. I wish the book used the standard Lakota spelling as it is used in the New Lakota Dictionary, that would make is so much better and easier to learn from.

There is a lot of clearly presented information about the Lakota language in the book, including a nice introductory essay about the different Lakota speaking tribes. Grammar is explained satisfactorily and systematically, and a fairly large vocabulary is presented, though often with a one-word English translation that would be well served by some commentary on usage.

The CD's are necessary to learn the sounds of Lakota, but are disappointingly merely a monotonous reading aloud of the book, with some repetition. Also, the dialogues are of the Jane and Jim variety, having no cultural content.

I'm working through the book because I have a strong desire to learn the language, but I wish there were some more lively materials around.

This textbook is great if you want to get a taste of the Lakota language. Unfortunately I did not get the tapes either, but still this is a good text if you are familiar with the sounds of the language. Overall I do not find this text as bad as others have. It does go into some good vocabulary and grammar. It really does pack a bit into this thin volume. Then only thing is that it does not give a ton. It obviously is limited as the size does not allow a lot of expansion on the vocabulary or grammar that is introduced. Thus I will not use this text myself, as I wish to learn more then just a taste of Lakota. However if you don't want to learn a ton of grammar or vocabulary this text is pretty good.

This is a very slender volume and virtually useless as anything but a very general introduction. Pronunciation is not discussed, as the book is designed for use with cassette tapes which are seemingly no longer available. The method of teaching is parrot fashion, with no explanations as to actual functioning of grammar, and the sentences are simply constructed, so even reverse engineering of the examples can yield only limited results. Here are some sample sentences from the end of the book:

"Do you want a bird?"
"Yes, I want a bird."
"Who wants a cat?"
"My daughter wants a cat."
"The girl wants a cat."

We are strictly in Dick-and-Jane-Land here. This book has been completely outmoded now by the appearance of the New Lakota Dictionary, an excellent dictionary with an extensive grammatical section which by itself is longer than this textbook, in addition to a thoroughly up-to-date two-way dictionary - click on the link above to see some sample pages from the dictionary and read the many positive reviews.

A very thin book with not much of anything in it. It doesn't discuss pronunciation and there are no tapes. The inconsistent spelling doesn't help with pronunciation either. None of the sentences is set to a broader context, there is not explanation of grammar.

i hoped i could have found the tape ( mentioned in the text book) to order as well it really would help to learn the language better

This is exactly what I needed to really learn the Lakota language. It provides phrases, words, translations and pronunciation guides for them while also explaining the applicable grammatical rules.