Teach Yourself Icelandic Complete Course Audiopack [Paperback]

Hildur Jonsdottir (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0071418962 | ISBN-13: 978-0071418966 | Edition: 1

Learning Icelandic as easy as 1-2-3

With this book, Icelandic is attainable for any beginning student. You can use Teach Yourself Icelandic Complete Course at your own pace or as a supplement to formal courses. This complete course is based on the very latest learning methods and designed to be enjoyable and user-friendly.

Prepared by experts in the language, Teach Yourself Icelandic begins with the basics and gradually promotes you to a level of smooth and confident communication, including:

• Up-to-date, graded interactive dialogues
• Graded units of culture notes, grammar, and exercises
• Step-by-step guide to pronunciation
• Practical vocabulary
• Regular and irregular verb tables
• Plenty of practice exercises and answers
• Bilingual glossary

Package includes two 60-minute CDs and a book.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Hildur Jonsdottir has taught beginners' courses in Icelandic for two years at the University of Cambridge.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071418962
• ISBN-13: 978-0071418966
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #842,669 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An up-to-date introduction to modern Icelandic, March 16, 2005

By 

Kieli-ja-Musiikki "Scott" (Sumter, SC) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Teach Yourself Icelandic Complete Course Audiopack (Paperback)

If you're traveling to the land of glaciers and geysers and want to learn practical Icelandic before the trip, this book/CD set is just what you need. Unlike other many other Icelandic courses that tend to throw tons of declension and conjugation paradigms at their readers, Jonsdottir's work presents all grammatical material in immediately-useful and up-to-date structures (conversations and exercises). Noun and adjective declensions are presented gradually, and tons of serviceable vocabulary pervade the book's 16 chapters. Although perhaps not as grammatically rigorous as some other English texts on learning Icelandic, the book covers all the necessary grammar for correct modern speech, and the set serves well its purpose of teaching basic-to-intermediate communication in Icelandic to speakers of English. The accompanying CD's are indispensable, and the actors' voices and their pronunciations thereon are perfectly clear.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent resource!, May 6, 2006

By 

Ash H. Duncan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Teach Yourself Icelandic Complete Course Audiopack (Paperback)

This is an excellent resource for those who want to learn the language of the Icelanders. I am very impressed at the tight relationship between the book and the CD's. Lessons on the CD follow exactly those in the book.

After only using this course for a month, I already have a greater understanding of the cases of words (nominative, accusative, dative and genitive) than I ever had in 3 years of studying German. The course materials naturally flow from basic conversation (What is your name? My name is....) into more and more complex sentences, and explain in-depth the case changes as they become relevant.

If I had one recommendation for this course, I would suggest more time within the CD lessons to repeat what has been said in Icelandic. There is very little space given to practice saying the words on your own, and you may find you need to manually pause the CD in order to say the words. Since the CD lessons are conversational, this can become frustrating over time.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Recommended only for weekend travellers..., September 21, 2006

By 

Jae "Jsenpai" (KY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teach Yourself Icelandic Complete Course Audiopack (Paperback)

My husband is Icelandic, and unfortunately this book was NO help at all... It's perfectly fine for the traveller, but in trying to live everyday life, conversing with new family members forget it. I would have liked to have seen a more comprehensive grammatical section, something that was laid out in something easy to look at and understand. If you are quite serious about learning this language I would honestly recommend saving the 20 bucks and buying the bit more expensive Colloquial Icelandic. For me at least, it's quite easier to understand, has complete grammatical charts in the back, as well as a fairly decent dictionary... Again, if you are only learning for business trips and such, then this would be a good option... For those of us actually moving there, her book is not so good...