Teach Yourself Xhosa [Paperback]

Beverly Kirsch (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0844201774 | ISBN-13: 978-0844201771 | Publication Date: March 1, 2000 | Edition: 1

A course for adult beginners of Xhosa, one of the eleven official languages of South Africa and spoken by more than 43 per cent of the population. Xhosa is the native tongue of Nelson Mandela and the primary language of the ANC.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0844201774
• ISBN-13: 978-0844201771
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,040,734 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!, June 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Teach Yourself Xhosa (Paperback)

It's great! If you want to learn this graet language that book is for you. Well written, good coursebook. Every unit contains dialogue, vocabulary for everyday conversation, even idiomatic exspressions. Tha pack contains also two cassettes with pronunciation guide and dialogues from the book (of course with mother tongue speakers). So if you want to teach yourself this beautiful language you have to buy it. But remember that Xhosa is a tone langage so if you just want to speak a new language so maybe you should start from, for example, Teach Yourself Swahili from the same publisher (it's even better! ). And if you need to know Xhosa buy also Teach Yourself Zulu and you will find it very useful, because both, Zulu and Xhosa are Bantu languages so you will find many similarities.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great, but get the one with the tape!, August 12, 2005

By 

Pamela Sersen (St. Paul, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Teach Yourself Xhosa (Paperback)

This book is awesome. It offers dialogues and gives cultural references to help you understand all the amazing ways that Xhosa is structured. For example, it is common in Xhosa to use the plural form of how are you: "Niphila njani?" in place of the singular. This implies that the health of one's whole family is tied into their own wellness.

However, don't make the mistake of thinking you can pronounce Xhosa without a tape like I did. Another important thing to know about this book is that it was originally published in the U.K., so the pronunciations are written to reflect U.K. pronunciation.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars really well done, June 15, 2009

By 

perekladach (Carbondale, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teach Yourself Xhosa (Teach Yourself Book & CD) (Paperback)

This was a course that gave me a great deal of pleasure as I worked my way through it. Xhosa for an English speaking learner is about as different and exotic as it is possible for a language to be, both in terms of its structure and its pronunciation.The accompanying CD is essential, of course, but these authors actually give the beginning student a good idea of how to make the unfamiliar sounds- the clicks, the tones and the implosives. Grammar is covered very systematically and there are lots of good exercises, particularly valuable for developing a comfort level for the noun classes and the way that other parts of the sentence have to agree with them, which is probably the most dauhting aspect of Xhosa (and other Bantu languages) for someone is starting out.These authors have a deep feeling for Xhosa culture and history as well, and for South Africa at a time of great historical change. The dialogues that accompany each chapter are particularly lively and interesting. This has to be one of the best African language textbooks ever produced.