Croatian: Lonely Planet Phrasebook (Paperback)

by Gordana Ivetac (Author), Ivan Ivetac (Author), Lonely Planet Phrasebooks (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"...Lonely Planet phrase books have long taken a hip, streetwise approach." -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 27, 2004

"Lonely Planet Phrasebooks. Portable, pocket-size, cheap, and available for almost any country you might want to visit..." -- National Geographic Traveler, September 2006

National Geographic Traveler, September 2006
'Lonely Planet Phrasebooks. Portable, pocket-size, cheap, and available for almost any country you might want to visit...'


Product Description
Lost at a train station? To buy a ticket, turn to page 40.
To find a hotel, go to 55.
Hot day, blue sky?
To hit the beach, turn to page 141.
To meet a local, open page 93.
Take this phrasebook and choose your own adventure.

Our phrasebooks give you a comprehensive mix of practical and social words and phrases in more than 120 languages. Chat with the locals and discover their culture - a guaranteed way to enrich your travel experience.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Lonely Planet (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1740599969
• ISBN-13: 978-1740599962
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 3.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #484,460 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #22 in	Books > Reference > Foreign Languages > Instruction > Serbo-Croatian
  #23 in	Books > Reference > Foreign Languages > Serbo-Croatian
  #29 in	Books > Travel > Europe > Serbia & Slovenia

• This item is part of The Lonely Planet Phrasebooks Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Full of errors, June 29, 2005

By	Slavic World (Zagreb) - See all my reviews

This should be a good phrase book. All new phrase books from Lonely Planet are modelled on the same base, and that base is modern and extensive. So why is this Croatian phrasebook so bad despite being modelled on the same base.

Silly mistakes:
To take one funny example, the Croatian phrase "I'm here with my boyfriend" is translated by the English phrase "I'm here with my girlfriend". Of course, the Croatian phrase "I'm here with my girlfriend" is translated as "I'm here with my boyfriend". Needless to say, this could make for some funny situations.

Confusion with Serbian:
Despite being a Croatian phrase book, this book often uses the Serbian form of a word instead of the Croatian one. Although the scars of the wars are healing, this is not the best way to make friends.

Outdated words:
Many of the words and phrases used are correct, but very outdated and never used in normal speech.

Grammatical errors:
Now and then, you see things like "poslati cu", even a beginner would know that it's "poslat cu".

The silly mistakes and the grammatical errors are not very common, but the confusion with Serbian and the use of outdated words is much too common. The language used often sounds stilted.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly good for a pocket book, April 3, 2006

By	SW (California) - See all my reviews

This book covers the basics in a way that is simple and useful. Three topics are covered in the book: the basic grammar, useful phrases and a 2000 word dictionary. The book is small enough to fit in your pocket and covers each of these topics with an efficient layout.

For the grammar, first of all its usually missing from most phrasebooks and dictionaries. But, when you find a grammar section, its usually not useful for travel because its too much detail. For example, in "Barron's TravelWise Croatian" book, four standard verb endings (-am,-jem,-em,-im) are described for present tense conjugation. What that book lacks is information to figure out which ending goes with which verb. In this book, a "rule of thumb" way to add a single ending to all verbs is described. Its simplier to learn and works well with the format of the book. Its not prefect so maybe language experts cringe but its practical.

For the phrases, it is a majority of the book. A couple things I liked were that for phrases that begin with the same words, the words are not repeated. The other is it includes an English pronunciation hint for the Croatian phrase. Both might seem like common sense but several books don't do this.

My main criticism with this book is the English pronunciation hint seems strange. The stressed syllable uses italics instead a bold font. And the transliteration use combinations of english letters for one sound. Compare these "ya ne go-vorim" and "ya ne gaw-vaw-reem". Which is easier to use?

For the dictionary, it is not huge but its a two way dictionary with gender and pronunciation. Its more words than you can memorize for a trip anyway. There is also a separate culinary reader for looking up food dishes. If there were a second edition to this book, the author should fine tune the vocabulary in this book. Its kind of funny seeing "Tequila" as a drink but not finding "Lobster" or "Squid" for food. Why go to Croatia to drink tequila? And of course its translates to "Te-kee-le".

This book is not prefect so it gets 4 stars not 5. For a Croatian language reference book that fits in your pocket this is the best book out there. If you have more time to study, review the "Teach yourself", "Colloquial" and "Barron's" Croatian books.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good, especially for a Croatian book, July 23, 2007

By	T. James "Putovnica" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've lived in Croatia and I've studied the language for about 5 years, so I know it to a reasonable degree of fluency. This book is great for communication, and as a reference for phrases, questions or comments that one might be a little lost on otherwise, even as a speaker of the language. I would agree that there are mistakes (like the mixing up of the words "boyfriend" and "girlfriend"... did they do that on purpose?) but honestly, I've gone through tons of Croatian language-learning, grammar and phrase books, and this is by far the most useful for its purpose. An earlier review cited the use of Serbian words as a problem, but while I think a revision wouldn't be a bad idea, this product still is completely worth it in that anyone who actually needs to use this, i.e. not a native speaker, will probably be forgiven and/or totally appreciated for attempting to speak at all. As far as grammar goes, yeah, there's not much in it, but if you're looking for grammar, use Thomas F. Magner's Introduction to the Croatian and Serbian language, and for conversation, Teach Yourself Croatian. However, with both of those being so much larger, you wouldn't want to take them on a day trip, so for light travel, this is a must-have.