Customer Reviews

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

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Teaching any foreign language by book and recording has got to be an awesomely difficult task. Kudoes to the authors for attempting to teach this complex language in this format -- the attempt itself is noteworthy.

However, if you're like me and prefer more of a grammarian's approach to learning new languages, this book is not the best one to choose. It contains a great deal of conversational Bulgarian, and just enough grammatical structure to keep you from getting completely frustrated. If you can find a book/CD set that delivers the lessons based on grammatical structure it will probably be a better choice.

The book is arranged in chapters that cover "conversational areas." Chapter 1 begins with how to ask for names, and it goes on from there. You don't find out how to ask if someone speaks English until Chapter 6. Concepts are introduced pages (or even chapters) before they are explained, which is confusing and frustrating. One helpful feature is that the answers to the exercises are in the back of the book. Another is that the appendix contains lots of useful and well-organized information about the grammatical structure of the language itself.

The two CDs were disappointing. They contain only one dialogue from each lesson which is followed by a question and answer section, and only one or two exercises from the book itself. It would have been much more helpful if they contained both dialogues in each chapter and LOTS of pronunciation tips. If you're looking for CDs that will "immerse" you in the language, these aren't it.

All that said, there aren't that many books that teach Bulgarian available on the market, and if you do buy this one it will do as it promises and teach you how to converse in Bulgarian -- at least well enough to get around in-country.

If you are a serious student of Bulgarian, this book and CD set will undoubtedly teach you some Bulgarian. If you want to casually pick up some Bulgarian phrases while listening during your daily commute, if you are nervous about learning another alphabet, if you just want a lot of hand-holding, look elsewhere.

The book starts by going through the Cyrillic alphabet. From this point on, all Bulgarian words are written only in Cyrillic. The only transliterations are of English names transliterated into Cyrillic. To progress through the lessons, you must read Cyrillic.

Each lesson is a conversation in Bulgarian followed by questions for you to answer concerning your comprehension of the conversation. The book has a translation of each phrase or sentence in the conversation. The book also expands more on the subjects and situations introduced in each lesson. The lessons progress logically through many situations that business travellers and tourists are likely to encounter.

The CD's start with pronouncing the Cyrillic alphabet with sample words. It then jumps into the conversations, speaking at close-to full speed. There are no phrase-by-phrase translations, so for the first few times (at least) of listening to the CD's, you must follow along with the book. If you want to listen casually without the book, your learning will be minimal. If you want a recording that slowly and repetitively pronounces words and phrases, look elsewhere.

This is more of an immersion into the language, requiring you to work at it. If you only want to pick up a few polite phrases without working very hard, this is not the book or recording for you.

"TYB" is a very good course. In summer 2005 I lived in Blagoevgrad and found the course to be the best preparation for a lesser-studied Slavic language. It provides dialogues that you will actually find useful everyday when in Bulgaria. Learning to read the Cyrillic is facilitated by the orientation at the beginning and then the gradual exposure to it throughout the 20 lessons. My advice is to work at a steady pace, i.e., a dialogue and grammar exercise each day. All essential grammar is covered admirably without reaching that eyes-glazed-over point. I was in Bulgaria for 8 weeks and only completed up to Lesson 12, but it provided me with the skills needed to converse on all essentials and even some more abstract conversations. In summary, if you work seriously with this book and the 2 CD's, then you'll be at an intermediate level in about 3 months -- what better praise can you give for a course?

There are very few courses on the market teaching Bulgarian, as demand is obviously not very high. Depending upon your reasons for learning the language, this one may well be as good as it gets.

The book is organized into chapters based on central concepts - introductions, directions, the weather, numbers, how you feel, discussing the future and events in the past, etc. It is by no means a linear progression through Bulgarian grammar and vocabulary, and depending upon how you personally are most comfortable learning languages, that may be good or bad. The concept approach does allow one to focus on specific areas and save time and effort by skipping the parts deemed less necessary; if you are driving from Sofia to Plovdiv you need to know how to ask for directions and not have to appreciate the difference between 'like' and 'love' or abstract philosophy. If you want to become fluent enough to carry on at least a light conversation of small talk in Bulgarian, you will be jumping all over the book and gaining insight and grammatical understanding more by osmosis than by design.

As such, for tourists this approach could work well. For business people who intend to stay in country for longer periods or indefinitely, it is not the best or most effective way to learn the language.

The CDs help with pronunciation (the book starts right off in cyrillic and stays there, so proper pronunciation and intonation would be tough to learn off the printed page alone) but the native speakers are speaking at pretty close to normal conversational pace, which will be hard to follow at first.

Finally the dictionary in the back is very skimpy. It will not be enough to use for reading or writing letters, or for much else.

I had a very basic understanding of Bulgarian from some other courses from several years ago and had quit using them because they were not very good. This was a major improvement both in the CD and the book layout compaired to earlier things I tried. I recommend it for beginners. The only weakness is innumbers which are not taught in a very helpful manner.

i prefer the style of michael thomas - but with a little effort this can be rewarding e.g. the aphabet and english phonetic's - effort required - once accross that it gets better. I'm at it with my wife - it helps !!!

It's great because you can learn at your own pace, and it really helps with pronounciation. However, it's frustrating because the CDs don't include the English translation, so when starting out, you have to frequently look at the book. This is a pain if you're trying to learn the language on the go - for example, when driving.

I purchased this directly from Amazon on December 26, shipped on December 27, and received on December 28 at Standard Shipping. WOW! I bought this for my son who lives in the UK and is home for Christmas and it was vital that it arrive before he leaves in six days.

My son has several conversational and phrases Bulgarian books and says this is the absolute best. He works in the UK with trips to Bulgaria and is thrilled that I found this on Amazon after not being able to find in a local Borders or Barnes and Noble without going to another area of town (Atlanta). Receiving it in two days is FIVE BIG GOLD STARS for Amazon. Also, this is much cheaper on Amazon here as opposed to Amazon UK, about half the price. I bought NEW directly from Amazon. It comes well packaged in a hard plastic case which makes it good for travel.

I have used books to learn 2 foreign languages, Spanish, Italian and a little Dutch all with sucess. I find this book absolutely useless, you need to know some bulgarian to start with and then it teaches you a bunch of useless phases which are only useful in a particular situation. There is also no [english sounds] pronounciation guide with the Bulgarian words, so advance knowledge of the alphabet and phonetics are needed. A complete waste of time and money.