Colloquial Malay: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series (Multimedia)) (Paperback)

by Sut Atmosumarto (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
With this complete language course, you are just a few easy lessons away from gaining the confidence and ability to communicate in contemporary Malay. Let yourself be guided through the Malaysian culture, customs, politics, and trade while developing expert pronunciation. As Malay is spoken in some areas of Indonesia, this makes a perfect companion to Colloquial Indonesian.

Language Notes
Text: English

Product Details

• Paperback: 298 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; Bk&Cassett edition (August 10, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415110149
• ISBN-13: 978-0415110143
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.8 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,211,796 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Large Vocabulary; Clearly Spoken Examples on the Cassettes, May 8, 1998

By A Customer

This book and the 2 cassettes with it provide a good, solid beginner's course for native English speakers to learn Bahasa Malaysia. It is set up in a textbook-like way, and the cassettes are somewhat like a language lab, in the sense that they re-inforce the written work; the cassettes are not meant to teach on their own. I would reccomend this course for someone who is willing to sit down with a notebook and do some written exercises every day. If, on the other hand, the goal is to learn by listening and repeating (in the car, for instance) try "Survival Malay"; less comprehensive, but teaches chunks of useful language in the "listen and repeat twice" format.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but not perfect, July 11, 2007

By	Alain MARIE "Grumpy Bear" (Malaysia, Taiwan, etc) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Considering that the Malay language is one of the simplest language in the world for English speakers, you would expect this method to be close to perfect. It is far from it. There are a number of mistakes. Some new words are not explained. Some exercises are simply impossible given the vocabulary of the preceeding lessons. It looks like it has been made of bits and pieces put together but not necessarily connecting with each other. That being said, it will still achieve its goal of teaching you a fairly decent level of Malay quickly.

2.0 out of 5 stars Could really use some proof-reading, April 20, 2007

By	K. Tansley (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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

The exercises expect the student to know grammar and vocabulary that hasn't yet been covered, which makes it frustrating and unnecessarily difficult. Sometimes a word is given in the chapter vocab notes, and then a different word (synonym) is used in the exercises. That should have been fixed by a proof-reader prior to publication. The authors have tried hard - successfully so - to make the exercises interesting, relevant and modern but a beginner who has no experience of learning a foreign language will struggle with this book.

I only bought the book, not the companion CDs/cassettes.