Teach Yourself Bulgarian Complete Course (Teach Yourself Books) [Paperback]

Michael Holman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Bulgarian

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (January 11, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0844237531
• ISBN-13: 978-0844237534
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,247,669 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars below average "Teach Yourself", November 25, 2002

By 

John Koen "cellist" (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Teach Yourself Bulgarian Complete Course (Teach Yourself Books) (Paperback)

I'm pretty familiar with the Teach Yourself series, owning 9 of them. Of course, there are different authors for every language, so you can't judge them by the series. I find this one below average in some aspects. I find the grammatical elements are poorly explained, with the explanation (if any) usually coming a bit too far after the concept is introduced. This results in a fair degree of confusion, and I'm a fairly experienced language student, speaking 3 languages with a moderate level of fluency, and varying levels of familiarity with about 8 others, including Russian and Czech. I also have a Bulgarian friend who I get to help with pronunciation, etc., and he laughs at the book about 90% of the time. I do find that the attempts to make the book interesting and colloquial help keep the learner going. Once I got to the middle of the book, I felt that I had finally gotten enough basic grammar to have some idea of what they were trying to explain (or forgetting to explain). The book includes answers to the exercises, about half of which I found useful. There are examples of handwriting, which I think is really necessary if you are trying to learn the language to visit the country, since it differs markedly from typed, but they are small and a bit difficult to see. Overall I recommend this as a supplement to "Colloquial Bulgarian" by George D. Papantchev. Unfortunately, I have not yet encountered a self-teaching Bulgarian book yet that I would give 5 stars.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good way to start., November 10, 2000

By 

Mark Wood (Stuttgart, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teach Yourself Bulgarian Complete Course (Teach Yourself Books) (Paperback)

As a Russian and Serbian/Croatian linguist in the military, I would like to say that this book, the Teach Yourself Bulgarian, is a very good way to pick up the basics/fundamentals. You will need the tapes however, if you dont already have the sounds of the alphabet down. All of the Teach Yourself books are really good for beginners, and if you want to get the basics down solid, use this book. Because of these books, I was able to obtain proficiency in Serbian and Croatian, awarding me foreign language pay. What more can I say, really??

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good contemporary book on conversational Bulgarian, December 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Teach Yourself Bulgarian Complete Course (Teach Yourself Books) (Paperback)

The book emphasizes conversation over grammer and is pretty easy to use independently. It can be purchased with or without the 2 tapes. The tapes are not as helpful as one would like. But the book is easy to use and has good exercises with answers. As one who has been to Bulgaria recently, I can attest to the fact that the language taught in the book is contemporary and useful.