18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Inadequate, June 1, 2007
This review is from: Teach Yourself Slovene Package (Book + 2CDs) (Teach Yourself Language) (Paperback)
PRO:
- Accessible dialogues
CONS:
- Inadequate treatment of grammar and phonology
- Glossary doesn't show verbal aspect / aspectual pairs of verbs
- Barely an hour's worth of audio on 2 CDs (other Teach Yourself courses include closer to 2 hours of audio on 2 CDs)
- A few spelling mistakes in Slovenian and a couple of times the dialogue's transcript doesn't quite match the recording.
Compared to other "Teach Yourself" courses for other Slavonic languages (in particular the Czech, Russian and Serbian ones), this one for Slovenian is surprisingly poor. Even though the book mentions that one of the salient features of Slovenian is the dual, its presentation in the book is haphazard and there is no particular emphasis on teaching students on how to use it properly. Moreover, it doesn't help much in teaching students on how to pronounce Slovenian properly. Slovenian has unpredictable stress, short and long vowels, and in certain cases pitch/tone. While the Slovenian alphabet doesn't mark such features with diacritical marks, it would have been helpful if the authors had marked them in the textbook so as to accelerate the learning process. As it is, the book's advice is to merely listen closely and repeatedly to the dialogues. In my experience, that's a cop-out and a disappointing attitude from someone who likes to think that he/she can design a useable self-instructional course in a foreign language.
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
One of the worst language courses I've read - out of more than 500..., August 31, 2007
This review is from: Teach Yourself Slovene Package (Book + 2CDs) (Teach Yourself Language) (Paperback)
Unfortunately, Slovenian continue as the only official language of the EU that lacks a decent course for English speakers.
The two old courses, Teach Yourself Slovene and Colloquial Slovene are both written by the same author as this book. Given the very low reputation of these books, I was worried when I learned that she would write the new book and had my suspicions confirmed when I saw the book. Here are some of the main reasons that you should not buy this book, as it will not help you learn Slovene.
1. Compared to other Slavic languages, Slovene share all the complex grammar as well as some additional featurel (the dual system). Despite Slovene being one of the most complex European languages, this book is one of the thinnest in the Teach Yourself series. The reason is that the grammar is hardly dealt with at all. This is a serious flaw, as you will end this course without the slightest idea about how such a crucial thing as verbal aspect works. If you're familiar with Slavic languges, you know that this means that in practice you won't be able to speak.
2. Inadequate pronunciation and no displaying of stress. In Slovene, the stress might fall on any syllable on the word and the accent is the only difference between many words. The same goes for long and short vowels and the schwa-sound spelled 'e'. In short, you'll have no clue about how to pronunce the words you learn. If you see the word 'svet', should you pronounce the 'e' as a long vowel or a short vowel. That's the difference between the word 'holy' and the word 'advice' Slovene is full of words that only differ in this regard, and this course won't help you with it.
3. The vocabulary is way shorter than in almost any other course I've seen. Compared to most other Teach Yourself courses, you'll end up knowing a fraction of the words in those courses.
Slovene is one of the official languages of the EU and it's a disgrace that there isn't any decent Slovene course in English on the market. Both the Colloquial Slovene and Teach Yourself Slovene have been written by the same author, and I'm sorry to say that she was not suitable for the task. All the errors listed above are found in both books. What is even more extraordinary is that she was enlisted for the updated version as well. Let up hope that when it's time for updating Colloquial Slovene, Routledge will select an author who is up to the task of at least providing a course that equals the quality of other Colloquial and Teach Yourself courses.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Teach Yourself Slovene, November 28, 2007
This review is from: Teach Yourself Slovene Package (Book + 2CDs) (Teach Yourself Language) (Paperback)
I now live in Slovenia. The two books by the same author are ALL there is to learn from unless you can afford a teacher. I was a teacher in England and both books are quite adequate learning resources for someone living in the country, so do not be put off if you are a complete beginner with little gramatical knowledge. These books are definately useful! In my circumstances they do exactly what they are designed to do - introduce you to a vastly complex language gently, so that you can gain confidence and begin to communicate. Thank you to Andrea Albretti for really thinking about how a student in a new land and culture needs to address learning the language and stepping into a new world.
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