Customer Reviews

Oxford Take Off in Greek: 4 Cassettes

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

 

 

If you expect instant gratification, Take Off in Greek is not for you. This course crams an immense amount of material into one small book and only four CDS. Expect to be confused and frustrated, at first. And, if you are a true beginner at written and spoken Greek, it is advisable to start with Pimsleur or another more conciliatory program. If you already have a foundation, however, Take Off in Greek richly rewards patience and determination. As you slug along, you will eventually discover an extremely well-crafted, useful, and entertaining course. The text excels at "real life" usages, and the cryptic method of instruction, which focuses on dialogues, demands intuitive learning. It took me 10 months to get through this course. Shortly thereafter, I spent two months in Greece and was able to maneuver through a wide variety of business- and tourist-related situations, sometimes even gracefully. Several Greeks befriended my instantly, because they saw me as an anomaly - an American who, thanks to this course, could actually speak and read the language reasonably well. I highly recommend Take Off in Greek, but only for those who are serious about learning the language.

This book comes with 4 CDs, so it is a very good value. However, if you are a complete beginner you can't possibly learn to speak Greek from these CDs because they progress too quickly. You need to start with Pimsleur Greek 1 because it progresses very slowly and teaches you phrases you can really use. Then you can use Take Off in Greek or the Rosetta Stone course for your second course.

I've decided to bring my Modern Greek back up to speed, and read the reviews of different products to decide where to start. This set looked promising from previous reviews. It's lived up to my hopes, and I'm very pleased with my choice.

I found this to be a very good set. It teaches you the alphabet, gives you stories to listen to (people talking in everyday situations), teaches you numbers, teaches you how to order, and does so in conversations. The narrarator is good and it helps you learn gradually. It is a great deal for the money.

It is very surprising, when you stop and consider the incredible historical extent of Greek or the popularity of Greece as a destination for foreign visitors, just how few resources there are for learning the modern spoken language- or how bad most of them are. 'Colloquial Greek' (the Routledge course) and 'Teach Yourself Greek' are sloppy, badly edited and full of undefined words. 'Teach Yourself Beginner's Greek' is so dumbed down as to be practically worthless. 'Mastering Greek' a pricey reproduction of the old Foreign Service Course (most of the foreign service courses were excellent and are still useful today) teaches a very formal and bookish form of the language called Katharevousa, which lost its official status in Greece some forty plus years ago and has been systematically de-emphasized in the educational system there ever since, in favor of Demotic, which much more closely tracks the language actually in everyday use.

So what to do? Well, this little book, which comes with several hours of excellent audio, comes into the picture as a savior. All of the books in the Oxford 'Take Off' series are excellent and well-prepared, and this one lives up to that high standard very well. The dialogues that start the lessons are well-thought out both in terms of the vocabulary they introduce and in the grammar that is explained in the body of the lesson. The accompanying exercises match up very well with the material already introduced and review lessons and self-tests are provided so that a student can see exactly where they are- what they have well-mastered as well as what they will need to go back and review before moving on. Most of the lessons conclude with a dialogue based on an ongoing story of daily life in a taverna- the interactions of the owner and his wife and their regular customers. Almost any student who works conscientiously with this book could advance to the point of being able to have everyday interactions with Greek speakers, and even to make use of the much more flawed works that are its only competition in this surprisingly small and limited marketplace.

This book crams a lot of information into a few pages. It gives a general overview of items and information, but goes over it very very quickly. The grammer sections in the chapters need more explanation and examples. However the grammer reference section is useful assuming you know what you're looking for. The tests are OK, but there are not many examples. Also there is only a Greek to English dictionary in the back. This would be a nice book when supplemented by a dictionary and additional reference material or person.

This is a pretty good introduction for someone who wants to get to grips with the Greek language properly. It may be less useful if you just want to learn a few key phrases. It begins with an introduction to the Greek alphabet, used throughout. In my opinion this approach is far superior to the Greek/English hybrid used in some other books. The learning curve is steep, but not unreasonable, the listening activities are quite entertaining and reward multiple listenings. My criticism is that the dictionary at the back is frustratingly incomplete, and the binding glue is not strong enough for someone who wants to carry this book around with them.