Customer Reviews

The Slangman Guide to Street Speak 1 (2 Audio CD Set) (Slangman Guides)

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

 

 

I purchased this book so that I could help one of my high-intermediate students understand American slang. I have been nothing but pleased with this book and have used it with several of my students. THE GOOD: Each chapter has about 10 new slang words (or phrases) to really concentrate on. The pictures are hilarious and help the students to relax and have fun as they get started on each chapter. After introducing the words, the book then incorporates them into a delightful dialogue. Each chapter also has a section entitled "A closer look at 'real speak'." This is my favorite feature and helps students to understand how American slang is really produced. For example, it explains when a "T" is really pronounced like a "D" (or flapped). The rest of the chapter then has TONS of practice for the students in all four skills - reading, writing, listening and speaking. THE BAD: There really isn't too much to say here. If anything I would say that the book doesn't cover a lot of slang words. There are only 10 chapters, so students really only learn somewhere around 100 new words and phrases, but they really learn those 100! The only other bad thing that I have noticed is that my more advanced students seem to pick up the slang more quickly and then find the remaining practice to be redundant. But hey, it could be worse! OVERALL: A wonderful book of current and useful American slang that I would recommend to anyone - teacher, tutor or student! I would suggest that you buy the cassette tapes if you are going to use this book as a self-study guide.

I recommend this book "BIG TIME"!! It's the most useful book I have found on American slang and idioms. I have spent a lot of money of other books to learn how Americans REALLY speak (what they teach us in school is not the real language). They are more like dictionaries, and use old terms that Americans don't use any more. David Burke, who calls himself "Slangman," has created a series of books that are really great for ESL students who are
trying to learn American English. I showed Street Speak 1 to an American friend and he said that the words in the books are very popular. In the book, Slangman gives many examples of the everyday slang words and expressions using dialogues in context. One of the BEST things about it is that he also shows you the dialogue on the next page rewritten as it would actually be spoken by a native!! This is so important because American pronunciation is very strange to non-native speakers. For example, instead of "We are going to have a blast at the party," the rewritten dialogue shows "W'r gonna have a blast 'it the pardy!" The audio CD follows the books exactly which I thought was really important. It's the only way to speak like a native. The exercises in the book were also very useful. It only takes about an hour to finish a chapter and after doing the exercises in the book, you really remember everything. The exercises were really fun too and the illustrations are very funny. They help you to remember the words. It's just a really fun book. I'm "HAVING A BLAST!"

It's a very good book.It teach you not only the words but it teach you how to use words. You can learn the correct grammar, the accent and most important the context.
Advice: Buy also the CDs( not included with the book) or you have to order again !!!!!!

This series fills a vital niche in the ESL world where too many teachers and professors continue to act as if English were a static language stuck in the past. I've had several young college students, often in IEP programs, approach me for advice on how to learn "real" slang and modern idioms. The Slangman Guide works - although it will not help students on TOEFL exams or academic essays.
Yet we, and I speak as an ESL instructor at a private university, need to recognize the diverse desires and needs of our students. While I would never use this book as a textbook for a wide variety of reasons, the casual and hip tone encourages, even cajoles, many young students into studying more and living better inside the English language. Better for the 15-25 year old crowd than the older adult population, David Burke deserves far more respect than he has been given in the ESL world.
Good job!

I would like thank Slangman David Burke for his wonderful books. Actually, this series helped me a lot to understand American culture and daily conversations , especially with its comical pictures.May be the main attracting feature of this book which also has differentiated it from other similar idiom books is its nice division of slangs into some daily topics with pictorial format.
Now when I listen to radio or watch TV, I feel like hearing something new I couldn't have heard before.

Ali
Montreal,Canada

Bottom line is, Americans don't talk like the stuff you see in 99% of English classes and books. Our speech is saturated with slang, puns, contractions and the like. Most English courses for internationals do not address this and also lack conversation practice. International people therefore feel lost and afraid when put into conversational situations with Americans.

This series closes that gap by miles! I have used it myself in teaching ESL classes and it is incredibly helpful. The material uses fun exercises and pictures to teach American speech. The chapters are also broken down by real-world situations too. There are also special sections on how Americans actually say things in the real world. The process of learning how Americans talk therefore becomes fun and engaging with this series.

I cannot believe that so many English book authors have missed what this book offers.

I would not recommend this series for English "absolute beginners." This is better for advanced English students who already know the "book English," but lack conversation skills with Americans.

Great slang content for middle America: I found the health section to be extremely useful, for both advanced & beginning students eg.Sick as a dog!
I started using this immediately in a Conversational English class & it really got the students' attention. I thought the CDs were helpful, to illustrate different voices, but the conversations are perhaps a little too fast.
But overall - a resource that's helpful to the teacher & useful to the student.

Lo que diferencia a este libro de otros semejantes son sobre todo las transcripciones fonéticas. Si bien éstas ayudan, están transcritas desde el punto de vista de un anglosajón, con lo cual nunca tienen un cien por cien de utilidad para un hispanoablante. Junto a los cd's ayudan sobre todo a convencernos de que lo que oímos es lo que pronuncian, lo cual es difícil dado que en las escuelas nos enseñan un inglés completamente ficticio.
Los abundantes ejercicios y demás ayudan a fijar bien los significados de los idioms. En resumen, el libro está fenomenal pero sin cd's sólo le sirve a quien ya entienda inglés a la perfección.