Customer Reviews

Spoken Maya for Travelers and Students: An Audiocasette

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This is a very short audio program, just one 30-minute tape, and it is focused more on teaching travelers how to pronounce place names and exchange pleasantries with the locals rather than truly teaching the language. On the other hand, it was recorded by a native speaker and it is clear and easy to follow. It's also a good bargain--more extensive three-cassette audio courses generally set you back $75, so you're not being overcharged for the amount of material. I wish this audio course had been more in-depth, but for what it is, it does a good job.

If you are interested in learning Yucatec Maya, you really need to purchase Professor Bevington's book "Spoken Maya for Travelers and Students." If you also want to learn the pronunciation, then you really need this tape.

The reason for this is that this book and tape are the only thing in town, at least for the moment. The book has its drawbacks as a grammar for Yucatec, although it is undoubtedly an interesting read (see my review under the book). The tape is a bit of a disappointment - it is 30 minutes long, it runs through some pronunciation drills which do not seem to be related to any particular section in the book, and then runs through some standard phrases used in just one chapter of the book. The audio is not very good.

After waiting several weeks to get the tape (it can be difficult to obtain - this was the second time I ordered it through Amazon), re-reading the book for the umpteenth time and even putting together my own sentence patterns to work with based on the book's examples, I can't escape the feeling that while like any academic Professor Bevington feels the need to share his knowledge with others, he does not want to make it too easy for just anybody to learn Yucatec. Perhaps he wants to discourage fundamentalist missionaries from learning it - a sentiment which I can appreciate, but I don't see how it would be possible in the long run to avoid this eventuality.

If you're committed to learning Yucatec, there's no other good study material available to date, neither in Spanish nor in English. Some of the available Spanish material can be useful as a supplement to this book and tape; the problem is, you'll have to go to Merida to find it.