Customer Reviews

Panjabi with Book (Teach Yourself (McGraw-Hill))

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

The text and the tapes do not go well together. Worse, there is no progression in the teaching of the language. It is all disconnected chunks and there may be some mistakes. It is not good for communication either; too unpractical in approach. I felt I wasted my money and have bought another one since. I would recommend Punjabi Made Easy by Nagra instead.

This course looks pleasant, with nice pictures, but is not nice to use at all. I could point out several faults, but the worst is that dialogues and language information are disjointed. You go through a dialogue, then you read the grammar trying to learn how the language works, but you get little or nothing. The language information comes in rigid blocks that have little or nothing to do with the more practical sections of the book. A logical link is missing between the two. It is very difficult to learn the language with this course.

Basically I find this course very difficult to follow. You don't get the assistance you need. Some things do not match, I don't know whether they are right or wrong. Some sections look like they may have been written by someone who is still trying to learn the language.

This book provides one with a good introduction to the grammar and vocabulary necessary for conversation in panjabi. It uses the typical gurumukhi script, though transliterations of the dialogues accompany all but the very last lessons. Those who have studied Sanskrit or Hindi before will find the punjabi letters slightly familiar but slightly dissorienting, rather like cyrillic appears to English readers. Nonetheless, it is simpler than Sanskrit/Hindi nagari and easy once one gets used to it. The only shortcomings of this book for me were the lack of reading sections (only conversation is taught), and not so much as an appendix showing the perso-arabic script used to write the language in Pakistan. Nonetheless, the dialogues include Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim usages so the book is still useful if you're only interested in Pakistani panjabi (though it could be more so.) All in all, language books tend to be either sufficient to learn the language or total wastes of money, and happily this one met my needs admirably.

I bought this book several years ago and I thought this book was excellent at teaching Punjabi. I learned letters, vocabulary, and conversational punjabi which was perfect for the time I spent in India. It was perfect for a beginner because it included tapes to get the feel of how the language sounds before going to India and it included plenty of practice exercises, however it is more for independent learners who have time to practice what is taught (it took me 8 months to work through the entire book on my own). Visiting India, everyone was amazed I could speak and read the language so well. I have found very little that was incorrect in the book (some of it can come across as slightly stiff and formal after years of speaking the language and picking up variations on how to say these formal phrases) but it is perfect for the beginner who needs to start somewhere. And the script is exactly what is used in Punjab (newspapers, billboards, menus). The only drawback is that there are no lengthy reading sections to help practice reading more and to develop more complex vocabulary.