Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Mediterranean Europe Phrasebook

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I used two different editions of this phrasebook in Macedonia, Greece and Bulgaria (western part, where Macedonian is spoken). Not only did I find it extremely easy to use, but everyone I met wanted to buy it off me. Albanians suggested that the Albanian section was nice; Macedonians suggested the Macedonian section was good. A Serbian friend of mine found the Serbian section useful for learning English phrases. Several people in Greece were delighted to see something that had Macedonian and Greek and Albanian all in one phrasebook but suggested that the Greek section was spotty. A member of the Turkish minority in Macedonia said she was irritated that Turkish was not included as a Mediterranean European Language but _even so_ tried to buy the phrasebook off me.

This is the single most useful phrasebook I have ever used on trips and made a nice gift to Balkan people there and here when it was available, along with the American colloquial phrasebook, , the "Lonely Planet USA Phrasebook : English, Native American Languages & Hawaiian (Lonely Planet : Language Survival Kit)", another inspired Lonely Planet phrasebook.

This book is a good resource. I'm slightly uneasy with the Serbo-Croatian section, which seems to contain some errors. I also wish the system for presenting varying levels of formality or various genders could be more standardized throughout the series, across languages. Also, Americans should keep in mind that these pronunciation rules were apparently designed more for British (and Australian?) readers. The effects of that mainly show up in vowel pronunciation, especially with o's and a's.