Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Croatian Complete Course Audiopack

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My husband and I are planning a trip to Croatia this fall so I bought three different courses to learn the language. This course is BY FAR the best of the three. Of course, there are a few things that you need to remember. Croatian is a difficult language to learn because it is very different from English. Also, there are not a lot of good Croatian courses out there since Croatia is just starting to get tourists to visit.

Each chapter has a dialogue, some key phrases to learn, some grammar information, practice exercises (generally not on the tape, but written) and a comprehension passage. The tapes/CD's are of minimal use because they do not leave a pause for you to repeat. However, I just pause my recorder. It is necessary to use the tapes because it is important to hear the correct pronunciation. Speaking the language out loud (not just hearing it) is of utmost importance. The answers to the exercises are all in the back of the book and there is a comprehesive glossary at the back of the book. I know this doesn't sound like much, but one of the other courses does not provide this luxury!!!

I have a couple of negative things to report about the program as well. As I mentioned, there are not pauses on the recordings. Also, there are not translations of the dialogues. There are definitions of new words and phrases below the dialogues, but previously learned words are not listed. Therefore, if you have forgotten anything it is frustrating. I have written the translations in my book. A needless headache!

Although there are some less-than-perfect aspects to this course, it is definitely the best bet if you want to buy an inexpensive complete course for learning Croatian. Give yourself some time to master each chapter before moving on to the next one and be patient with yourself! Learning a language is rewarding, but never easy!

This review refers to the book with accompanying two CDs. These CDs, which contain short dialogues, are essential for accurate pronunciation. The dialogues are short, realistic, and contain the sort of vocabulary that is helpful for the new speaker.

Prior to studying Croatian, I learned Czech. This was helpful because anything is probably easier after Czech ;-)

The Czech (a western Slavic language) also prepared me for issues such as case endings and declensions in Croatian (a southern Slav language).

The book provided enough depth to make be comfortable in generalizing beyond the dialogues presented in the textbook. I found the spoken dialogues helpful and clear. In general, this was a well-packaged and helpful book that provided a good way of starting to speak Croatian. I enjoyed working through the exercises and found the textbook clear, uncluttered, and helpful.

There are two points that might be helpful for potential purchasers. First, this audio presentation moves (to me at least) at a very fast rate -- breathless at times. The best strategy is to carefully review all of the grammar and "how it works" sections in the text before moving on to another chapter.

Second, I was disappointed with the meager coverage of Croatian culture and customs.

However, all in all I consider this to be a very helpful language program.

Why do I get the feeling that Mr. Eyster is reviewing a totally different book? He claims that lesson 2 (out of 40) is impossibly difficult for a beginner. Well, MY copy of the book has only 18 lessons, not 40, and lesson two has a simple dialogue about where people live and what they like to drink, and some fairly basic grammar.

Croatian is a difficult language, no doubt about it. Stuff like noun cases and verbal aspect is difficult for an English speaker to understand. But of all the books I've looked at, this one treats the grammar with about the most clarity, and takes things as slowly as possible.

Prior to having received the book, I was a little worried that it would be too easy. I had previously studied German and found that the books I had been using for that were too simple and very limited.

When I started using "Teach Yourself Croatian", however, I was pleasantly surprised. The book starts out at a fairly simple level, using easy dialog with good grammatical explanations. When used in conjunction with the included CDs, there is not much room for error because the pronunciation is clear and concise. It then gets progressively more difficult, but simultaneously provides the appropriate level of explanation. There are good exercises at the end of every chapter which help solidify one's understanding of the concepts taught. There is also a very handy English-Croatian and Croatian-English dictionary at the end of the book.

I've written a small computer program which I use to test my progress, particularly with the dialog. I've found it to be invaluable in my grasp of the obviously difficult Croatian language.

I'm far from having completed the book, but so far I think it is absolutely brilliant and would highly recommend it to anyone wishing to learn Croatian effectively.

I agree with most reviewers here who note that Teach Yourself Croatian is full of useful information and interesting dialogues.

The recordings are also clear and give you exposure to hearing native speech (unlike a few courses which use advanced speakers who nonetheless speak with a slight but detectable non-native accent)

The biggest failing of this course is that it doesn't have enough exercises for practice. There are usually between 4 and 7 sets of exercises for each chapter (15 chapters in total). Each set has between 3 and 5 questions. In my experience that is insufficient if you're learning the language for the first time. You should consider using another course (e.g. Ronelle Alexander's and Ellen Elias-Bursac's new course "Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian") in order to provide yourself with extra practice/reinforcement with the language.

I'm moving to Croatia in a few months, and I found this book very helpful to give me the basics of the language. Several reviewers have commented on the speed of the CDs and the failure of the book to provide translations, but these are actually GOOD aspects of this course. Mentally translating one language into another is one of the WORST ways to learn another language...you have to learn to think in the new language, not just mentally translate. Also, when the audio content of a language course is too slow and accessible, the temptation for learners is to memorize the phrases instead of learning the grammar.

The worst aspect of this course (aside from the minimal cultural information) is the inadequate explanations of the grammar. For example, the book stresses that enclitics must be in a certain order, but it fails to even mention that the series of enclitics always comes in the second place in the sentence. If you really want to know Croatian, you'll need a grammar book like Ronelle's Alexander's _Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian: A Grammar_.

My husband and I have studied a lot of foreign languages. We found Teach Yourself Croatian to be one of the best organized texts we have seen. It was excellent for getting the "big-picture" structure as well as the details of grammar and vocabulary. We were at an advantage in that we had studied other Slavic languages before taking on Croatian. The text might be difficult for those without prior knowledge of another Slavic language and a firm grounding in Latin-based grammatical structure. Our main complaint: The CD's did not contain enough exercises nor did they leave space for us to practice. Nevertheless, it served us well in that the Croatians we encountered were impressed with our efforts to learn their language.

I am very happy with the book but doubt that I could caatch up with its pace if I had not had a little knowledge of Croatian prior to starting using it. For anybody who knows a Slavic language or who has some familiarity with the language the book is of very good use.

So far it's working. The cd's help out alot, because you can go back over and over again. The book is writen so everyone can understand. I would recommend.

I just started learning Croatian recently and began this book with absolutely no background in the language. I'm not even half way through the course right now and yet have been introduced to enough vocabulary, verb conjugation, declension and sentence structure to be able to have some basic conversations in the Croatian language. The added audio is also very helpful for hearing naturally-spoken Croatian by native Croatian speakers. This is not an easy language for a native English speaker to learn by any means, but I feel this course is providing me with a solid foundation for everyday conversational Croatian and I look forward to making my way through future lessons.