Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Panjabi Complete Course Package (Book + 2CDs) (Teach Yourself: Language)

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

 

 

I was able to use this book because the language so closely resembles Hindi, which I know. If I were a completely new learner, I would have found the book very difficult to learn from. All of the main aspects of grammar are presented, but the order is very random and the book contains no summary of the grammar (i.e. an appendix with a summary of verb tenses and noun forms). Everytime a question arises I am forced to flip through the entire book to find the answer. Perhaps this design to a language book (light on grammatical terminology and methodological presentation) is better for students that have never learned a foreign language, but if you have, the format tends to be frustrating. I have given the book 3 stars for its lack of organization, but I still haven't mentioned its most serious drawbacks which are: it ignores the tonal aspect of the Panjabi language, nowhere does it give a full list of the forms of "hona" (to be), it does not give the full conjugation of most irregular verbs: jaana and rahina are represented but "laina", "dena", and "karna" are not. The meanings of these words (which ought to illustrate their importance and the gravity of their absence in the book) are respectively, "to go," "to remain," "to take," "to give," and "to do." The book gives a skeleton of the language, but its full form still eludes the reader.

This book is extremely difficult to follow if you are an absolute beginner. If you have prior knowledge of the punjabi language, then it's useful. But, if you're like me, then this book will be a complete waste of time and money. The dictionary is written in Gurmukhi, so you can't even look up a word in english to find the phonetic pronunciation in punjabi. I regret making this purchase.

It looks like this course was initially written by someone who knows the language and then reworked by someone who does not. It is not consistent, there are overlaps, and contradictions. It is very difficult to follow and has left me with too many unanswered questions. I am now using another book, actually two other courses. I would not recommend this course to anyone.

This is not a bad course and is good for beginners. Some parts are better than others and I wonder whether there are not some mistakes in some words. One feels that it would be better if the course could be written only by people who know the language. An European interference may be a good idea but only if it does not affect the course. Perhaps the next edition will be a genuine native speakers course.

I bought this book, and upon first flip through it made my brain go fuzzy. The book is far to overwhelming, and not for people who are trying to just speak conversational Punjabi. However, if you put your mind to learning the Gurmuki alphabet, then you will find it FAR easier to move forward in the book. Punjabi is a phonetic language, so you need to start by learning the sounds. My primary complaint is that the CD exercises do not match up w/ the book. The recordings and print do not go in the same order which makes things very confusing.

There are a few problems, which some of the other reviewers mentioned -- like that the content is somewhat disorganized, and that the Roman transliteration is eventually phased out completely to use only Gurmukhi (my fiance, who is Punjabi, told me just to focus on learning how to speak it but I explained to him that I had to learn Gurmukhi in order to finish the book).

They mention the tonality of Punjabi in a somewhat passing fashion; that should be given more attention. As a linguist especially I understand just how important this aspect is in a tonal language -- it's very important to grasp it at some level, at least, if you don't want to become completely frustrated.

But despite the drawbacks I wasn't disappointed like some of the other reviewers here. The book is chock-full of information; the main problem, as I mentioned before, is that it's somewhat poorly organized. I did like the CDs; there are so few resources available, offline at least, for listening to Punjabi that I found them very useful.

Overall I would say that if you would like to learn Punjabi, go ahead and make the purchase.

The reading exercises, at the crucial beginning, do not match the order of the text that you would expect to follow accordingly. It is not user friendly. It is absolutely terrible if you want to learn to speak the language. It may only be useful if you are in a classroom with a professor.

This course starts with the Panjabi script and sound system which good and bad. It prepares beginners but it may also be intimidating. It is a lot to learn at the beginning, not an easy introduction at all. But that is not the worst. What is really negative in this course is its poor organisation and there are also some mistakes here and there. Unit 1 starts with How are you? which makes sense. Then unit 3 deals with food, What does it taste like?, unit 6 moves on to Did you study in Jalandhar?, but unit 7 goes back to the basics of food with What will you have to drink? On the positive side there is good input of native speakers in this course. What this course needs is good advice from a good consultant who really knows the language.