59 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
3.5 stars: pros and cons of the Indonesian book/CD set, July 18, 2006
This review is from: Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course Audiopack (Paperback)
I'm a professional and personal linguist, and decided to teach myself Indonesian as my ninth language, mostly out of curiosity to learn something totally different. I've completed this book/CD lesson kit, having studied with it for about 3 months, and I'd like to offer some pros and cons for future students to make an informed decision (and thanks to previous reviewers whom I thought were quite accurate).
PROS:
-Set follows an expected progression of knowledge. You start with the main character Ken's arrival in Indonesia for an extended stay and progress up through working, eating, living, going out, shopping, hobbies and finally an excellent, useful final chapter revolving around a typical Indonesian phone call, complete with slangy, coloquial terms for common words. This is great, because so many language kits are afraid of slang...but think about how silly English would sound if you didn't learn ok, gonna, can't, won't, no way, what's up, etc.
-Speakers' voices are clear, and they speak at a fair pace throughout. That is, maybe not as rapid as two actual young people might talk in reality, but not sloooooooow either.
-Vocab lists offer lots of great words.
-Highly affordable price for a full kit that will essentially give you a strong baseline of the language.
CONS:
-A lot of these are linguistic peeves, please bear with me...First, the ONLY lesson on pronunciation you get is a blurb at the beginning that "Indonesian is USUALLY stressed on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable." WOW! This is highly misguiding! First off, the speakers on the CDs do not sound like they're stressing the words there. In fact, about 75% of what they say is clearly stressed on the last syllable. After a little googling, I discovered the rule is actually: stressed on the penultimate syllable UNLESS that syllable contains the short-e sound. And indeed, about 60-70% of the words DO have that, so they really need to expand their explanations!
-Be careful American learners! The alphabet lesson equates Indonesian sounds to BRITISH English ones...make sure you know what those sound like! For instance, if they say that the A's in the word "bagaimana" sound like the -or at the end of the word "doctor" an American might get thrown for a loop, not realizing that the Brits pronounce doctor "dok-tuh." Also, some words in the vocab are British. Remember, a biscuit=cookie and smart=handsome.
-My biggest gripe is that they do not offer word-for-word pronunciations of the vocab. You just have to read them and figure it out from the dialogs! One extra CD would have allowed this important feature.
-The audio lessons are comprised of two things: dialogs (2 per chapter usually) and "Over to You". I personally hated the Over to You. It's an exercise that goes on and on repeating the same sentences over and over. In them, you listen to a speaker, and then the English guide says "Now you reply, blah blah, etc." But they do not give you a pause! You have to keep pausing it yourself if you need more than 3 seconds to reply (which learners WILL, trust me). This makes it impossible to listen to them in the car.
-As previously mentioned by reviewers, the book randomly chooses to omit vocab from the glossary, and leaves many words in the actual dialogs OUT of the vocab lists associated with them. But then it will sometimes give you the same vocab word in 3 consecutive lessons, as if you never learned them before. Bottom line: YOU DEFINITELY NEED A DICTIONARY.
Well, all in all, this was a positive experience for me. I believe the affordability of this kit combined with being a FAIR language kit makes this a pretty good buy. Note: if you go on eBay there is a seller who offers his own Australian company's Indonesian kit for about $25 US. I have that too and am using it now.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Guide to the Indonesian Language, December 17, 2005
This review is from: Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course Audiopack (Paperback)
To reiterate what the previous reviewer had pointed out, the "Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course Audiopack" includes both the text book and compact discs; there is no need to purchase this item along with the "Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course."
I purchased the "Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course Audiopack" several days ago, and after having had the opportunity to peruse the material for a bit, I must say that I am very impressed with what I have seen thus far. The material is presented in such a way as to make learning Indonesian effective and effortless.
For example, each chapter begins with a dialogue in Indonesian that pertains to everyday activities, such as eating out or asking for directions. Below the dialogue is a box filled with pertinent vocabulary words from the preceding dialogue. Next is an English translation of the dialogue to ensure that the student fully understands the meaning of the Indonesian dialogue. Succeeding that is a section entitled, "How the language works." Here, grammatical concepts and contexts of the vocabulary words relevant to the dialogue are discussed. Finally, several exercises are included in each chapter to reinforce the lessons taught. Do not worry, the answers are in the back!
The compact discs mesh perfectly with the material in the chapters. Native Indonesian speakers act out the chapter dialogues, thus providing the student with the opportunity to practice their listening skills and learn how to properly speak Indonesian. The speakers on the compact discs clearly enunciate, and there is plenty of time for the student to practice their Indonesian out loud if desired.
Overall, the "Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course Audiopack" is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in learning Indonesian. As a student of Indonesian myself, I highly recommend this product for its exceptional effectiveness.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Better than Pimsleur, July 14, 2006
This review is from: Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course Audiopack (Paperback)
My wife and I are being transferred to Indonesia in a few months. One of the first things we did was purchase the Pimsleur and Teach Yourself audio cd sets to get a head start on language training.
I realize that every person absorbs this information differently, but I would not recommend the Pimsleur method. The conversations on the five discs provided - "I like the color of your baby kagaroo" (not really on the disc - though it may be buried somewhere in the 4th hour of useless conversations:-) were more like listening to a foreign radio station than actually being taught a language.
The ever more useful "Thank you very much.", "Where is the bathroom?", "Do you speak English?" found on the two "Teach Yourself" discs and accompanying paperback have proven to be much more learner friendly.
Regardless of your choice, I hope you have fun and enjoy the experience.
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