10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
en god Norsk bok, April 19, 2004
This review is for the 2003 edition with the language cd's, ISBN 0071414401. There are about 5 or 6 different versions listed on Amazon (the differences aren't always clearly specified), but this is by far the best edition.
Now, as for the book itself: It's really the only, affordable, in depth Norwegian language book currently available, and in that respect --assuming you have to or want to learn Norwegian--you've lucked out, because it also happens to be very good. In fact, the average college textbook costs about 5 times as much and is only, maybe, half as good as this book.
The goal of this book is to teach you a couple thousand of the language's most common words and the basics of Norwegian grammar. I haven't had the chance to try what I've learned, to talk with a native speaker, but, after a couple months of study, I can read the Norwegian tabloids on the internet (slowly, occasionally reffering to a dictionary and holding my nose all the while) and understand probably about 90-95% of a given article. I appreciated, I have to admit, that the author doesn't assume you're entirely up on grammatical matters and briefly goes over the basic concepts that apply to any language as they are introduced specifically in Norwegian. The only real problem I had with this book was it's exercises. There are not quite enough enough of the them and I didn't always feel they effectivly reinforced what I'd just learned.
The cds that come with the book are definitely helpfull, but inconsistent. The female actor speaks the way you'd expect Norwegian to sound, given the pronunciation guidelines. The male actor, though, has a rolling, bouncing accent that I find impossible to imitate(he sounds kind of like the Swedish chef muppet). The CD's narrator has an unbelievably bored, pompous sounding British voice -he acutually sighs between his lines!
A few of the other reveiwers have complained about some of the vocabulary being out of date. That may be true. (I don't think it's very important because vocabulary is the comparitivly easy part of learning a language. Also, you can't really expect to pass as a native speaker after reading just one book, anyway.) Regardless, I thought the Norwegian text readings were well written (for a text book)and gave me a little motivation to get to the next chapter. The texts follow the lives of two characters, John and his girlfriend, Bente, throughout the book.
They have fights (de krangler) with each other, motorcycle accidents, finally they get married and move into a trailer park (actually, I have a couple chapters to read yet, but I am hoping for some sort of a happy ending for them). It's all a little soap opera-ie, but I do appreciate that the author tried to make the whole thing a little less monotones than the average text book.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book for anyone interested in learning the language, December 30, 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: Teach Yourself Norwegian Complete Course (Teach Yourself Books) (Paperback)
This book is the best book published by anyone to learn a scandinavian language. It's very concise and besides this language is very easy for an English speaker to learn, so you make rapid progress. You'll be conversationally fluent in Norwegian in three months, I promise!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Teach Yourself Norwegian makes the grade, June 15, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Teach Yourself Norwegian Complete Course (Teach Yourself Books) (Paperback)
I selected this book at random, on the advice of my friend to "get a norwegian course-book if you really want to learn" and it was the best chance i took. the layout of the course is excellent, and the dialogs are very interesting. I like the way the book tells the story of John, an British student, and Bente, a Norwegian au pair. Hey, how bout a follow up: "Teach Yourself Advanced Norwegian" :)
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