Customer Reviews

Travelwise Czech

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Berlitz Czech phrase book and dictionary is well organized and easy to follow. The Table of Contents does a good job of dividing the sections and phrases into an amount that is easy to find, and important to a visit to the Czech Republic. It also covers almost any situation that might be encountered from "hello" to the Czech names for parts of a car; ordering in a restaurant and visiting a doctor. The given pronunciations are easy to follow and with a little effort, able to be done fairly clearly. The English-Czech/Czech-English dictionaries also contain lots of familiar words that would be needed on a daily basis. I look forward to trying it out in the Czech Republic!

(Note, the other review of this item is actually a review of a Berlitz package.)

The audio tape in this package is the most bizarre and useless example of the genre I've encountered. It consists of extremely long and complex dialogs which no beginner could possibly follow, interspersed with relaxation exercises (?!?). Maybe the whole thing is a practical joke.

The book is an excellent reference, and came in handy more than once when I found myself at a small czech pub, trying to deal with waiters who don't speak English, and menus entirely in Czech. However, I would have liked to see more words and detail, especially in the food section. Once I thought I was ordering a typical czech fried pork steak--it turned out to be liver!
The tapes were a joke for the most part. But I was able to get some use out of them as a supplement to the "Colloquial Czech" course by James Naughton I was taking at the same time, and as a very handy sleeping aid. The relaxation exercises will knock you out every time.

It is similiar to other Berlitz phrase books but the phonetics were hard to follow because Czech sounds so different from English.

We didn't use it - we managed to find enough english speaking Czechs (waiters, etc)