Teach Yourself Zulu Complete Course Package (Book + 2CDs) (Teach Yourself Language) [Paperback]

Arnett Wilkes (Author), Nikolias Nkosi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0071434437 | ISBN-13: 978-0071434430 | Edition: 1

Vacation on the veldt? Teach yourself Zulu!

With Teach Yourself it's possible for virtually anyone to learn and experience the languages of the world, from Afrikaans to Zulu; Ancient Greek to Modern Persian; Beginner's Latin to Biblical Hebrew. Follow any of the Teach Yourself Language Courses Audiopackages at your own pace or use them as a supplement to formal courses. These complete courses are professionally designed for self-guided study, making them one of the most enjoyable and easy to use language courses you can find. Audiopackages include an instructional paperback book and two companion 60-minute audio CDs.

Prepared by experts in the language, each course begins with the basics and gradually promotes the student to a level of smooth and confident communication, including:

• Step-by-step guide to pronunciation and grammar
• Regular and irregular verb tables
• Plenty of practice exercises and answers
• Practical vocabulary and a bilingual glossary
• Clear, uncluttered, and user-friendly layout
• An exploration of the culture
• And much more

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (April 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071434437
• ISBN-13: 978-0071434430
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,392,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some niggling peeves, June 11, 2008

By 

Shayn Mccallum (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Teach Yourself Zulu Complete Course Package (Book + 2CDs) (Teach Yourself Language) (Paperback)

Overall, this is not a bad course but, unfortunately, I do have a couple of niggling peeves I'd like to get off my chest that will hopefully be of some help to others considering purchasing it.
Generally the TY series is very good at balancing its presentation of functional language (phrase-book style "chunks") and grammatical explanations. This course however, leans too much in the "phrasebook" direction. It teaches a lot of good and useful language but too much of the structure of the language is explained in too cursory a manner or not at all. I am an experienced learner of languages with some linguistics training so I found myself able to "read between the lines" and deduce some of the rules from context but a beginner learning a foreign language for the first time would surely get lost.
The other matter, that I would consider an especially important point for a book teaching a South African language, is the illustrations. The illustrations invariably depict white, European-looking people who for some bizarre reason, chat with each other in Zulu. Is it really that hard to draw black people, or, if you want a more "rainbow nation" feel at least make fewer whites than blacks!
Some people may see this last point as "politically correct niggling" but anyone who knows anything about the history of apartheid in South Africa and the struggle of the black majority for basic human rights will surely see my point. Zulu is a native, black language not the everyday idiom of whites who mostly speak English or Afrikaans among themselves, and to depict white people going about their daily lives in Zulu is just plain misleading if not offensive.