Colloquial Vietnamese (The Colloquial Series) (Loose Leaf)

by John Moore (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Colloquial Vietnamese takes you through such practical situations as checking into your hotel, telling someone about yourself, offering an invitation, talking business, and dining out. The alphabet and tone system are also broken down for the beginner.

About the Author
University of Texas University of California, Berkeley --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Loose Leaf: 314 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (December 22, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415092078
• ISBN-13: 978-0415092074
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,204,544 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Tool for Someone Serious about Learning Vietnamese, January 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Colloquial Vietnamese: A Complete Language Course (Routledge Colloquials) (Paperback)

I disagree with an earlier posted negative review of this material. I feel that this book and 2 CD set is excellent. I have searched for many books to help me learn to communicate with my wife's family in Vietnamese in my annual visit to Vietnam. This is by far the most useful. This material is not designed for the traveller who wants to learn a phrase or two. It is designed for someone who truly wishes to learn to communicate in Vietnamese. The book and CD force you to think and learn to listen in order to comprehend real conversational Vietnamese. In real life, Vietnamese people speak quickly. One will never learn to listen and speak this language unless you are given a strong push. That is what this material does. This book and CD set will make you work harder, but in the end will give you practical speaking and listening abilities. Expect to make a serious time investment in learning this language. As an additional comment, except for a fortunate few, learning any language likely requires real life experience coupled with this material. The material teaches terms and grammar from the north. This is the official version of the language of the country and is understood everywhere.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The book plus cassette seems a good idea, but is too hard., May 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Colloquial Vietnamese: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series (Book Only)) (Paperback)

I'm trying to learn Vietnamese and have made several attempts to use this book plus the cassette. I usually learn languages rapidly, and I'm also an ESOL teacher. I would expect a Vietnamese speaker to be able to have a simple conversation after an 18-week course. Unfortunately, this book expects an English speaker to do this in Vietnamese after two lessons!

Vietnamese is very different from English, so a slow approach is needed with plenty of repetition and simple exercises.

The book and cassette are well produced, but they do not show an understanding of how languages are learnt.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tapes aren't that bad, November 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Colloquial Vietnamese: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series (Book Only)) (Paperback)

I should start off by saying that I already spoke Vietnamese pretty well when I picked up this course. In general, I thought the book was a pretty good introductory text (a fair amount of typos in the first half dozen chapters though).

The one comment I did want to make was on the tapes. The hardest thing about learning Vietnamese is (by far) pronunciation. Some of the earlier reviewers complained about the tapes and I think that their complaints are somewhat unjustified. It took me (literally) years to be comfortable hearing and understanding Vietnamese -- it's not quite like learning Spanish. If the expectation was that the neophite could listen to these tapes (or any VNese tapes) in the car and start picking up words, then yes, these tapes (and any tapes) are going to be disappointing. On the other hand, the tapes follow the printed material very well, are professionally produced, and use speakers with good pronunciation.

I guess my point here is that you really need to be prepared to spend a fairly considerable amount of time if you want to hear and speak VNese well. If the previous reviewers didn't find these tapes useful, I suspect there are no sets of tapes (or any other audio aids) out there that would meet their expectations.