Beginner's Vietnamese (Beginner's (Foreign Language)) (Paperback)

by Robert M. Quinn (Author)
Key Phrases: phi không, phi khóng, phi khong, Miss Lien, New York, Give Vietnamese (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Up-to-date language instruction guide for students with little or no background in Vietnamese. This book also teaches about the country's history and culture, including social customs, dining out and other daily issues. Also provided are basic language skills, vocabulary, grammar and phrases to move about freely in the country.

About the Author
Robert M Quinn

Product Details

• Paperback: 515 pages
• Publisher: Hippocrene Books (October 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0781804116
• ISBN-13: 978-0781804110
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #70,115 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Only disappointing if you're a snobby linguist, March 20, 2001

By A Customer

I have to take issue with the reviewer who panned this book, presumably because he wanted some kind of Chomsky-esque government-and-binding-theory-like book on Vietnamese. If you're really into linguistics (I'm a PhD candidate in linguistics myself) and want to gain some deeper insights into the form and structure of Vietnamese then yes, this book will be a big disappointment (of course, so will any in-print book in English).

If, on the other hand, you want a clear introduction to basic Vietnamese with form and pattern drills (which the previous reviewer also seems to hate), then this is one of the better books out there.

Bottom line : if you're interested in learning to speak or read Vietnamese (as opposed to writing journal articles about obscure aspects of VNese syntax), this is really a good introductory work, especially for the price. The only reason I gave it 4 stars is the lack of audio tapes and the typical mediocre typesetting of Hippocrine books.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 Stars!, May 2, 2000

By	xczczx (Lisboa, Portugal) - See all my reviews

The title says much of it: it is for beginners. If you start with this book (and if you're studying by youself), you will not get lost or desmotivated like you probably would (i did) with "Colloquial Vietnamese: A Complete Language Course".

B.V. is a very step by step book; starts introducing words, with words make sentences, with sentences make dialogs, and with dialogs make texts. It is a complete book. Each lesson (out of 30) provides a dialog that is the core if the lesson; this dialog is supported not only by the vocabulary, but also with notes on usage, grammar, and plenty of drills to make us comprehend better what we were just thaught and retain it. It has also exercises and questions about the texts.

After 3 lessons, what we learned in the dialogs becomes a text without translation (all the dialogs have translations); it is like a review lesson.

Being of 1972 (1995 is the reprint date) doesn't harm this book at all. Very good!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Vietnamese Language, January 24, 2002

By	"major709" (NJ, USA (Hanoi, Vietnam)) - See all my reviews

Great book and helps for beginner Vietnamese. Some of the lessons are not useful and the glossary only goes from Vietnamese to English, but great anyway. Book recomended. ..