Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Dutch Complete Course Package (Book + 2 CDs) (TY: Complete Courses)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I have this course (book plus cassettes), and it is good. However, I've found the "Colloquial Dutch" set by Bruce Donaldson to be a much better choice - especially if you're only planning to invest in a single self-study course. I found that the supplemental casssettes in the Teach-Yourself course are VERY short and provide only a meager amount of the kind of active listening exercises necessary to acquaint your ear (and tongue) to the idiosyncracies of Dutch pronunciation. And believe me, it is impossible for an English speaker to learn proper Dutch pronunciation with a book alone - and the cassettes in this set don't offer much more. A good back-up course, but I wouldn't be first on my list.

I moved with my family to the Netherlands five years ago. Both my wife and I worked hard on this book before we left the USA, and it turned out to be time well invested. The amazing thing is that the dialogs we encountered (supermarket, neighbors, job search) were extremely close to the ones in this book, so we were really prepared. The grammatical explanations help without being too cumbersome, and the practical tips were right on the mark. It's hard to see how the book could be better for its purpose. The lessons are in manageable chunks and give plenty of useful pratice. There is nothing in those book I haven't used!

I've studied four foreign languages and used all kinds of learning methods: audio-only, audio and text, high school and college courses, and immersion. The Teach Yourself Dutch Complete Course with CD is the absolute worst learning tool I've ever encountered. I have to assume the reviewers here who gave it good marks either haven't tried any other method/product or they reviewed an older (different) version. Dutch is a difficult language to learn. It resembles a highly irregular mish-mash of German, French, and English with lots of slurring, idiom, and colloquialisms. Spoken Dutch also often doesn't resemble written Dutch (or vice versa) due to pronunciation. Combine a difficult language with a poor learning tool and you will get nowhere fast.

Try to imagine you're in a room with strangers, one who speaks English with a British accent and Dutch, and several others who speak only Dutch. You think you're there to learn Dutch. Unfortunately the others think they're there to engage each other in casual conversation while you sit there listening, unable to understand a word. That's what these CDs sound like to me. The audio lessons move entirely too fast and simply cannot be used without the accompanying text, plus the native speakers speak too fast without the enunciation needed for a non-speaker to hear and repeat adequately. Definitely unsuitable for learning in your car.

If you want or need to learn Dutch you should NOT start out with this set. It might work for you after you've gotten familiar with some basic spoken and written Dutch and can understand native pronunciation at typical conversational speed. If you haven't got that much knowledge or confidence in Dutch, I recommend you start with the Pimsleur course. Pimsleur doesn't try to teach you to swim by dropping you into the ocean like this Teach Yourself course does.

The cassette was great - essential for me in trying to figure out how to pronounce Dutch. But the book was very frustrating - there were many errors which I found myself, and my Dutch friend found even more when he took a look at it for me. Overall I found the book and cassette very helpful, but when you're trying to learn a language, errors in the textbook from which you are learning are the last thing you want to see!

I had bought this book with audiocassettes last year before moving to Belgium, together with the ones of Berlitz. I am actually taking Nederlands (Dutch) lessons and I can assure you that if you are going to live (even just to travel) in Nederland (Holand) or in Belgium, this will be the perfect set to buy. It has everything, from conversation, comprehension, grammer, exercises,... it can not be better. The Berlitz set is just for traveling. When I go to my Nederlands lessons, I also take with me the "Teach Yourself Dutch : A Complete Course for Beginners (Teach Yourself)by Lesley Gilbert, Gerdi Quist". Buy it; you will never regret it!

I've tried using this book to teach a Dutch 101 class and while the basic information is good and the cultural commentary and illustrations are interesting, there are too many errors which require additional class time to explain and correct. The students are frequently confused by the book's errors and it has made teaching an otherwise delightful language more difficult than necessary.

I recommend this book for anyone looking to pick up Dutch from scratch. There are sixteen chapters, each with varying themes. The vocabulary is presented in chunks, most often alongside audio dialogues. The grammatical aspects of the language are presented one at a time clearly and concisely. The dialogues never get ahead of themselves in this respect either. Overall, this is an excellent book. I would prefer that there were more written exercises (the later chapters will become much more useful if you learn with a partner), but with an active imagination, this is not an issue.

For a person beginning to learn dutch, I found this book to be extremly frustrating at times. Ive learned a forgien language before and I know this is not the way to learn a language. Learning a language is not about memorizing phrases and then repeating them by hearing them by some silly dialogue. The excercises seemed like the authors were really lazy and wanted you to make up your own excercises instead of practicing sentence syntax and structure. I would suggest the colloquail series too. (although ive only done the second series so far..and not thefirst) I did this series twice (because i didnt really know where to go to find an inexpensive dutch beginners book) and i cant say it vastly improved my dutch skills. If youre looking for a book to help you speak conversationally on a trip to the netherlands, this might be a book for you. If youre serious about actually learning dutch, get something with more substance!

I spend six months as an exchange student in Amsterdam - I got hold of this book two months before I went and worked through it thoroughly. It is absolutely excellent. I was prepared for all the basic everyday things very well, and Dutch people were surprised but delighted at how well I could speak the language. The dialogues on the CD are very good practice, particularly since some speakers speak in the Belgian (Flemish) accent, so you can also get used to that. The pace is fast, and I had to listen to some dialogues several times before I could understand every word, but that's no reason not to get it. I've just bought the TY Spanish book which is equally great.

While not the best language course in the world, it is surprisingly good for its value. In less then a week I have found myself understanding very basic conversations in Dutch, thanks to the program's easy yet complete lessons. So even if you can buy better programs, I dare say this is definitely the best you can get for such a low price.