Customer Reviews

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

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

 

 

well, if you are planning to live or travel in catalan-speaking spain or france, mallorca, menorca, or sardinia, i would highly recommend it if you are looking to have a deeper, more authentic, more fulfilling experience. likely if you're interested in this book and reading this review, you are. of course, most everyone who speaks catalan also speaks spanish, and if you do too, you'll be able to get by. but if you have any aptitude for languages at all, it's a good idea to learn both catalan and spanish. the catalan language is an important source of cultural and national pride for the catalans, made even more so by its having been heavy-handedly suppressed during the franco dictatorship. learning catalan (and a bit of catalan history), even if you don't need or manage to become fluent, will make you a lot of friends here and take you much further in a way that just speaking castilian spanish won't.

i have been reading and using this book for the 3 months since i have moved to barcelona, and i can tell you that it's almost all you need to get a good solid footing in the language, especially if you already have some knowledge of another romance language or even just experience in learning any other foreign language.

the book is well-organized, practical, and intuitive. it combines a lexical approach (learning by focusing on phrases and chunks of authentic language spoken in context) with practical grammar and vocabulary, which is highly effective. you really will be able to speak and understand a little bit of catalan after the first lesson. each chapter starts with a dialogue that focuses on the general theme of the chapter (for instance meeting and greeting, talking about where you live or come from, going shopping, etc, etc) which is read by native speakers on the accompanying cds followed by a text box detailing the new vocabulary and phrases covered with english translations. the importance of the accompanying cds cannot be underestimated; when teaching yourself another language, especially if you're starting before having the opportunity to hear native speakers in context in person, it's crucial not to have to rely on written pronunciation guides (unless you're a total geek and have some unusual aptitude for this :) ) and to be able to hear native speakers pronouncing the words.

some constructive criticism for future editions of this set: the accompanying cds are good, however i would have found it beneficial if there were clips of a native speaker slowly pronouncing all of the words in the vocabulary lists with appropriate time given for the student to repeat the words. there could be a little more focus on this. also, the activities are excellent and well thought out (i think i already mentioned that they are very practical and straight to the point!), but the ones which are accompanied by the cd go a bit too fast, so you will have to pause, rewind, and play quite a bit. everything on the cd is nearly at native speaker tempo, and there's not enough time for you to fill in or repeat your answer comfortably. also, i think there could be more activities. it would be really great if there were an optional activity book companion to the book that went into a little more depth.

things you can do besides getting and using this book:

1) if it's an option for you, get a catalan tandem (language exchange) partner or two (or a boyfriend or girlfriend!). if you're here in catalonia, this is really easy as a native english speaker. i got mine (tandem partners, not boyfriend!) by placing an ad on loquo.com, which will be really easy for you too, if you're in barcelona. if you're not, try putting up flyers or meeting people through some kind of activity or at a bar and expressing interest in meeting regularly for language exchange (if you meet someone who interests you and speaks a bit of english and would like to improve it).

2) get a good english/catalan dictionary. the dictionary in the back of the book is good but limited to the scope of the book.

3) if you're here in catalonia and have access to television, regularly watch movies and programs with the subtitles for the hearing impaired turned on, or dvds with the catalan subtitles turned on. it's really helpful. you'll catch a lot of words that you already know but didn't recognize in context and you'll learn new words that you wouldn't have caught if you hadn't seen them spelled out at the same time you heard them.

4) start reading in catalan as soon as possible. newspapers or novels. a good first novel is la plaça del diamant by mercè rodoreda. just read as if you were reading an english novel, don't spend much time looking up words. you won't get everything, but you'll be surprised at how much you do get. you could also get the english version and read them side by side, and there's a really excellent movie of this book.

5) a couple of other books i highly recommend (that are in english) are barcelona by robert hughes which gives a lot of fascinating historical information about barcelona and does a particularly good job of covering the modernista (art nouveau) period and catalan cuisine by colman andrews which is not just a cookbook but like a culinary history of catalonia. he takes you through the methodology of catalan cooking, the recipes are absolutely delicious, and the original catalan names of the dishes are provided, so you'll know your way around the menu in a restaurant.

bona sort i que vagi bé!

I fully share the other reviewer's high opinion about the Catalan language, but I cannot share the very high opinion about this book. The main problems become apparent when comparing this book to the older Teach Yourself Catalan, both written by Alan Yates in the same series.

This book, the new one, seems to be a "little bit less" in every regard. The number of words taught in the course is somewhat lower than than in the old course. The amount of grammar taught is considerably lower and is much more unstructured and confusing in this book compared to the old one. In short, the level of your Catalan will be lower after completing the new course than after completing the old one. Needless to say, you would expect a new course to be an improvement.

Having said that, if you cannot find the old version and hesitate between this book and Colloquial Catalan, you should definitely go for this one.

I really like this language course, even though the previous edition may have provided more detail. Each chapter gives several practical dialogues, followed by grammar points and exercises. The CDs are very useful, following the text, but also include plenty of listening comprehension exercises with questions to answer in the book. As someone who is already advanced in Spanish and intermediate in French, I appreciate the way this book allows for rapid progress and presents useful phrases from the beginning. I also find the content engaging, never boring. For example, one chapter includes some useful Internet vocabulary, and another gives "personal ads" like you'd find in a newspaper, with an exercise to match the people up based on who they are and what they're looking for. So it's more of a colloquial language course, rather than an academic grammar book. It gives good suggestions at the end for where to find further resources for learning Catalan on the net. With this book and accompanying CDs, I feel very confident that I'll be able to speak and understand enough Catalan in time for my trip to Barcelona in a few months. I've already learned a lot in just a couple of weeks.

I have studied several languages and wanted to learn a little Catalan before a recent trip my husband and I took to Barcelona. This book helped. The CD is absolutely necessary because Catalan pronunciation is very different from English, Spanish and French although related to the latter two. My biggest complaint about the CD was there was rarely enough time to repeat phrases and sentences after the speakers.
I would recommend this course mainly because there is little else out there about Catalan. For this reason I gave it 4 stars. If there was more choice of programs the rating would probably go down to 3.

You can "get by" with Castilian Spanish in Catalunya, but it's sort of like seeing a movie halfway through. As far as I'm concerned, Catalan is indispensable in Catalunya if you want to get to know the country and the people. Really. It's liable to become even more important in the years to come.

This review is primarly directed to those who already speak Spanish (and I'll bet that covers 99% of the people who buy this course). If do you speak Spanish, consider learning Catalan in a way that's a little different from what the coursebook recommends.

This may not be the recommended approach, but it has certainly worked for me.

I recommend you use the book sparingly at first. The CDs are this package's real strong point--use them! Listen to both of them straight through. Then do it again. Spanish speakers will find they have already absorbed a great deal of grammar and vocabulary.

Then, as you continue to listen to the CDs, refer to the book at those places in the audio where you're not sure what's going on. Don't try to learn all the grammar by rote yet! Once you're confident you understand everything on the CDs (it'll only take a month or two), go through the book lesson by lesson.

By now, speaking and understanding basic Catalan using this package only, your curiosity will be stoked, and you'll want to listen to some "real" Catalan: go to http://www.catradio.cat/reproductor/audio.htm?ID=CATRADIO, and listen to streaming Catalan radio free!

Ready to go for the gold? Sign up free at http://pelc.uib.es/recursos/index.html, and get a world-class course online (Balearic Catalan, which has a few differences from what you'll use in Barcelona, but well worth the effort.)

But by all means start with this package. Highly recommended.

Winter Laite is the author of SKEE.

If you have spare time, this language is unique and interesting, and full of culture. Spanish background is incredibly helpful, especially since this book came without an audio cd.

Good course, but definitely not the best. It works if you already live in Catalonya or if you have a close friend to practice.

Catalan is a difficult language to find audio lessons. I'm going to Barcelona in a couple of months, so I wanted a disc to learn some basics while I drive in the car . Apparently, the only way to use this audiopack is to read the book at the same time. It is not concise. It does not repeat basic information like numbers. It is truly not for the beginner. I suppose I'll use it to hear the ambiance of the language. I've looked into purchasing a different software pack from another web site.

I would like to find a teaching book that could put me in Catalan idiom immersion. As it changes constantly from English to Catalan (and vice-versa), it took more difficult to assimilate the idiom.

Too few audio media. Need more do learn the idiom.

This course is designed for study WITH THE BOOK. I purchased this course in hopes of learning Catalan while driving. It is not intended for this application, and it doesn't work while driving. Without the book, it's a long slew of Catalan, no English, and no repetition. By contrast the Pimsleur system (they don't have a Catalan course that I could find) builds language skills slowly, repeating all words in English, then the other language.

In some sense, this is an unfair review. I'm not reviewing the product for it's intended use. So be it.