Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Hungarian (Teach Yourself (McGraw-Hill))

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

 

 

Insufficient exercises and shallowness in the explanations of grammar are the biggest problems with this book. Use it as a supplement to a more thorough text, though, and it is very useful. The dialogues have very good content and the recorded versions are excellent--easy to listen to and not at all dry or stilted. The tapes also have question-and-answer sections where you can practice your spoken Hungarian. It's better than the average Teach Yourself books, so if you like that style you can expect satisfaction from this.

Teach Yourself Hungarian could do a little better. It's great if you're going to visit Hungary and not gain full proficiency, but it seems to fail being an effective grammatical text. First mistake--it starts off with dialogs, afterwards giving you a lengthy vocabulary list. The book may be for you if you can learn off of phrases alone, rather than taking apart each phrase and looking at a language word-by-word. If you are truly looking to 'teach yourself', may it be suggested to try something else

I found Pontifex's text the best Hungarian language course on the market. The first five chapters focus on the necessities of the traveler (numbers and shopping, eating, bus and train travel etc.), while the others are more focused on a progression of grammatical concepts. She does give a large amount of vocabulary words per lesson (ca. 100) which may intimidate the beginner. I found the exercises useful and entertaining. If you work your way through this book and actually learn the material, you will be able to talk reasonably well when you go to Hungary. I did!

Nick's problems with the Hungarian language stem from just that; the language. It is one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn, up there with Russian and Japanese. People who come here as children still need seven years to master the language.

The book is a wonderful aid to the person living in Hungary and struggling to understand the language. For anyone else, it won't be that big of a help, simply because Hungarian is just so difficult. Don't knock the book or the author; she did the best she could. And she did a good job.

Though Hungarian can be daunting this course is quite good, especially for anyone with a bit of knowledge of the complexities of Hungarian and a bent for languages. But it is not an easy ride. The CD's are quite helpful & contain 13 & 11 tracks respectively, when copied to a player. Pontifex knows her stuff as a professional educator and presents it pretty concisely & with precision. Accompanying illustrations & socio-cultural tidbits add to the mix rather well. The course is designed to progressively move the traveler/businessperson learner to reasonable fluency. Her school and experience lean more toward Hungarian for the English-speaking business & gov't. communities than the casual learner. Since other reviews have delved deeply into the course's contents, I'll stop here and add...

The serious student should be motivated to search for other sources, of which there are many, especially on the web: Webforditás, Sztaki Szótár, Hunglish Korpusz, Hungarotips, My Language Exchange to name a few. Google 'em.

Correct pronunciation of this vocalically & consonantally rich language requires practice, as all letters, including doubles, are pronounced, with nothing truncated- ever. Syntax & grammar are exotically different- & tough, as a single 'word' may be 5 in English (Felprobálhatom? 'May I try it on?') which in such cases are more strings of meaning than single words. Hungarians are very economical with words. Hear it spoken and sung on Youtube (Heti Hetes, Gálvölgyi, Hol Vagytok Székelyek?, Crystal, Márta Sebestyén, Zámbó Jimmy, Kistehén; etc). They've had a difficult & tumultuous past, but the upbeat Magyars' big party town Budapest, music, food & wines are the best of eastern Europe, imo.

Except for Chinese & Arabic, Hungarian's the most difficult I've tackled, yet it's the most fascinating.

Armed with this program, Miklos Törkenzcy's concise grammar (both if you can get them), 'Lonely Planet Hungarian', 'Culture Shock! Hungary', & Hudoba's lessons thru Hungarotips I'm confident I'd be able comfortably to party hearty in Budapest & travel about Hungary for months.

These cassettes and this book have honestly got to be the worst investment that I've ever made in language-learning. It constantly skips around from one section to another, without even telling you! They hardly "teach" you anything. In fact, they only let you hear a dialogue once, and from that you are expected to know everything about what was said. As I'm teaching myself my third language, I feel that I can say that it was terrible compared to other purchases. Don't throw away your money on it like I did, try another one instead