Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Afrikaans Complete Course Package (Book+ 2CDs) (TY: Complete Courses)

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

 

 

This course definitely isn't lacking in content -- in vocabulary alone it provides more than most other Afrikaans self-study courses. (Note : a good number of the words used in the course aren't found in the short dictionary at the back of the book, be it either because they're loan words or because the meaning should be obvious to English speakers. Consulting an online dictionary should suffice.) Much of the grammar and word order is taught through example sentences alone for the first few units of the book, mainly to give learners a "feel" for the language. As the course progresses, grammar is steadily introduced, much of it already linking back to something already taught.

The audio accompanying the course is a must. Conversations, reading passages, and even a number of the word lists -- most of which aren't listed as being on the CDs at all -- can be found on the recorded material. The pronunciation of the language can be tricky at certain points; to provide an example, several of the nouns in the language undergo a vowel shift when they become diminutives (like turning "dog" into "doggy" : hond > hondjie), something which is reflected on the CDs but which is not covered in the text ("hond" is pronounced something like "hund", while "hondjie" is straight out "hoin-key"). The native speakers on the recordings throughout the course speak more slowly than everyday speech allows, and there are only a few passages where the rhythm is picked up to sound more authentic. This might hinder some learners, but on the other hand it can just as well be a blessing in disguise -- knowing to pronounce words correctly and enunciate clearly is the very first step to being understood.

This course is sufficient and well worth the money put toward it. If I were to give my own personal advice to a perspective buyer, though, it'd be to purchase the "Colloquial Afrikaans" course prior to moving on to this one. "Teach Yourself Afrikaans" in some respects is more exhaustive in terms of vocabulary, but the "Colloquial Afrikaans" course is easier to follow and is overall a better starting point for people just beginning studies in the language.

This is mostly a good course and I would, on the whole recommend it to anyone interested in learning Afrikaans. Afrikaans is a relatively easy language to pick up for English speakers. I already speak reasonable Dutch so I found the language insanely easy to absorb (notwithstanding the fact that, from the Dutch perspective, Afrikaans really does look like "baby talk" or "Tarzan speak"!)
I was happy with the book but I didn't feel as good about the audio CDs. The opportunity to hear correct pronunciation is, of course, welcome and the speech is all very clear. It is however, frustratingly stilted and unnatural. The book warns that the first chapters are unnaturally slow, the problem is, the pace never picks up! By the end of the course, the dialogues are still being read with the speed and intonation that patronising people use when they assume they're speaking with someone deaf or feeble-minded!
Some people may be happy at this word-by-word delivery as it does indeed, give a very clear view of pronunciation. The problem is that real Afrikaans is spoken much more quickly and it does no one any favours to get them too used to snail-speak when, in real life, they will be faced with the rapid, almost breakneck delivery most Afrikaners and Afrikaanses use when they speak.
For a successful audio course, delivery must be clear but close to natural speed, otherwise learners are never going to be able to deal with authentic speech.

Considering that there aren't many products out there for learning Afrikaans on your own, Teach Yourself does pretty well. The book is full of vocabulary and interesting cultural tidbits, and the CDs are essential for getting the pronunciation down. Only thing I dislike is that I think there's too much spoken English on the CD tracks, and it's more like learning in school rather than conversation practice. I've used the Pimsleur method too for languages, and I think it's the best method (although I haven't used Rosetta Stone and friends rave about that). I'd feel comfortable walking out into Italy after using Pimsleur Italian, and speaking with people. TY, not so much--you really need a native speaker to practice with for the best results. Also this isn't a method for tourists, it's for actually learning Afrikaans, so if tourism is your plan, this isn't the book for you. Good luck and geniet dit!

I have had this book and CD's now for a year and worked hard with them.. When I started I knew NO NOthing in Afrikaans.. A year later I learned 4 words from this book. It is a disorganized program.. Some of the program is only on the CD and some are only in the book.. So confusing.. Then I met another US friend and she told me she had the same experience. This is not a program for a beginner this is a program for an advanced person.. Even my husband who is Afrikaans said this was way to hard for a beginner. Now my friend is going to lend me her new program.. Thank goodness

The fun of learning a new language is seen in this series the book follows the CD's well and id quite clear and well explained. My challenge is to remember what I have learned. Value for money is first class and the service from Amazon excellent to Australia.

The Afrikaans learning program is well-presented and well-written. The dialogues are concise and aidful enough to allow the learner to understand the language much easily. The audio CDs is a must for the program as this is a language which requires careful listening and imitation of the sounds.
Overall, the vocab. is sufficient and the grammar tools provide a great feedback on allowing the learner to either have a thorough knowledge or the language or learn it all together.

In my haste to take the first CD out of the packing, I irrepairably cracked it! I initially emailed the British office (which was listed in the book) to see if I could obtain a replacement. Ginny Catmur at that office immediately put me in touch with the American office, which could better address my concerns. Garret Lemoi was the picture perfect example of quality customer service. On the same day I emailed him, he not only responded, but he put a new CD in the mail! My total turnaround was 5 days (from the day I cracked the CD to the day the replacement arrived). This is quality customer service, and I could not be more happy with the response! Thanks so much to Garret and the helpful people at McGraw-Hill for being so helpful! I will absolutely be purchasing products from them in the future!

Teach Yourself Afrikaans is a very good course that had me flying through the pages. For a native English speaker (I'm not) Afrikaans is without any doubt the easiest language to learn. The grammar is simplicity itself, the pronunciation is easy compared to many other languages and many of the words are very similar to English ones. If you already speak German or Dutch, you'll probably manage to understand written Afrikaans without even opening this course. Afrikaans is very similar to both languages, but with a grammar that is so much simpler that it's probably the easiest of all the Indo-European languages.

This course in particular deserve a high rating for the relaxed but still competent approach it takes to Afrikaan grammar. The vocabulary is very extensive, and that is something I always look for in a language course. The one star off is for the disastrous recordings and dialouges. They are stereotypichal beyong belief. In the 21th century, I'm not really interest in reading dialouges about the happy family where father goes off to work, the well-behaved kids are pleasant all the time and mum stays home to do the housework. And all of this expressed. at. the. slowest. rate. you. have. ever. heard. If the dialouges would have been natural, this would have been a 5* course.

It's especially nice that the CD came with this book. It is almost impossible to larn a new language, without being able to hear it.

If I Compare this book with teaching yourself arabic this latter is much better structured. For example, in afrikaans' book, in its first unit the examples are not translated to english, the cd doesn't explain how to pronounce the pronouns, and so on. So is a little complicated to advance clearly.