Rating: 
Summary: I agree - the tape doesn't follow the book
Review: After reading through the book, then listening to the tape I found myself very confused. The tape starts out following the layout of the book, but quickly starts moving around to different sections (some even on other pages) and then returning without any warning. I had to have a native speaker assist me in figuring out where the tape was reading from, and make marks in the book. I also felt this went to fast, and didn't cover basics such as syntax. This book also jumps into full dialogue much too fast, and doesn't give proper instruction. This is my first attempt at learning Vietnamese, and if I didn't have a native speaker to help me I would probably give up after trying this book.
Rating:
Summary: The tape doesn't follow the book
Review: After reading through the book, then listening to the tape I found myself very confused. The tape starts out following the layout of the book, but quickly starts moving around to different sections (some even on other pages) and then returning without any warning. I had to have a native speaker assist me in figuring out where the tape was reading from, and make marks in the book. I also felt this went to fast, and didn't cover basics such as syntax. This book also jumps into full dialogue much too fast, and doesn't give proper instruction. This is my first attempt at learning Vietnamese, and if I didn't have a native speaker to help me I would probably give up after trying this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Still a good purchase if you're learning Vietnamese
Review: By Edward Trimnell, author of "Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One" (ISBN: 1591133343) I agree with some of the points listed in the negative reviews of this book. Nonetheless, this course contains a lot of valuable information for the beginning student of Vietnamese. Although some of the recordings do not match the book exactly, they contain the same vocabulary as the written text; so most students should be able to figure them out.Vietnamese is not a commonly studied language, and the author may have struggled with the question of how much preliminary information about the language should be included. (This is a common difficulty when writing courses for learning Vietnamese, Korean, Arabic, etc.) I would also suggest purchasing the "Colloquial Vietnamese" course,written by Tuong Duc Vuong and John Moore.
Rating:
Summary: Good for beginners, though with quite a few careless mistake
Review: Good for beginners, though with quite a few careless mistakes. Cassette tapes use the Northern Accents and not clearly recorded so they are pretty useless. The pronunciation section at the beginning (with some mistakes again) is not clearly written so you have to find a Vietnamese firend to help you on this. The context is written in Northern Vietnamese (with almost no reference or hints of Southern Vietnamese), this can be frustrating if you're in the South. Lessons (18 in total) are quite well designed, with some cultural notes. This book is so far the most popular learning material for foreigners, and even the HCMC Publishing House (Nh?xuất bản TPHCM) got a license to produce this book (blue cover with a big Tiếng Việt, costs 28000 ?#7891;ng). You may also consider the Colloquial Vietnamese (published by Routiledge) and it seems to be better than than the TY one.
Rating:
Summary: I agree - the tape doesn't follow the book
Review: I agree with the previous reviewer that the tape is terrible. It infuriates me that a publisher can get away with distributing a tape that does such a terrible job following the book. If a publisher distributed a book with several chapters missing, people wouldn't stand for it. But the book/tape interface here is the equivalent - whole sections of aural instruction referred to in the book are missing from the tape. It's also worth noting fully half of the first side of 1 of 2 tapes is taken up with the basic introductions - the vocal equivalent of a title page.
Rating: 
Summary: Needlessly hard and difficult to use
Review: I consider this book a major disappointment. Much of the material is well-presented, but too many words are used in the exercises (and in the dialogues of each lesson) that do not turn up in the glossary in the back. I find the book really heavy going even with a dictionary. Some of the grammatical explanations are good, but there are many idiomatic usages in the lessons and no real guidance of how to use them. Even after working through the book and tapes I don't feel at all confident in even simple conversation. Coverage of phonics is very skimply and the differences between different phonemes are not explained. The recorded dialogues on the tapes are spoken very fast and are extremely difficult to follow. I feel that the author could have used much more input from would-be users- a book that purports to be a "teach yourself book" should be much more self-contained. It should not be necessary so often for the user of it to have to consult outside references.
Rating:
Summary: Needlessly hard and difficult to use
Review: I consider this book a major disappointment. Much of the material is well-presented, but too many words are used in the exercises (and in the dialogues of each lesson) that do not turn up in the glossary in the back. I find the book really heavy going even with a dictionary. Some of the grammatical explanations are good, but there are many idiomatic usages in the lessons and no real guidance of how to use them. Even after working through the book and tapes I don't feel at all confident in even simple conversation. Coverage of phonics is very skimply and the differences between different phonemes are not explained. The recorded dialogues on the tapes are spoken very fast and are extremely difficult to follow. I feel that the author could have used much more input from would-be users- a book that purports to be a "teach yourself book" should be much more self-contained. It should not be necessary so often for the user of it to have to consult outside references.
Rating:
Summary: Standard Vietnamese, but not as useful as Saigon dialect.
Review: I totally agree with the reviews by the reader in Oakland, California and the reader in Portland, Maine. I want to point out that this book (actually all those books teaching Vietnamese) teaches Standard Vietnamese (defined as the language spoken by an educated person from the Hanoi area), which has six tones. But the fact is most Vietnamese living overseas speak Saigon dialect (it is at least true in Sydney), maybe because of the a large percentage of the refugees were from Saigon area and Saigon has been the most important city in Vietnam. Saigon Vietnamese has only five tones (thanh sac and thanh hoi are pronounced the same way), and most of the tones are pronounced somewhat differently from the Hanoi standard. Some of the consonants (like 'd' in 'da', 'r' in 'rat') and some of the vowel-consonant combinations (like 'in' in 'xin') are pronounced differently. Some of the usages and expressions are different too. So if you want to learn the language in order to speak to overseas Vietnamese instead of going for a trip in Vietnam, you'd better find a native speaker to teach you the pronunciation and help you with the expressions as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for the average learner
Review: I travel to Vietnam quite a bit for my firm, and I decided to pick the book/tapes up and see what I could learn. I spent about 30-45 minutes a day going over the material for about a month and a half before I had to go back to Vietnam. I had only gotten past a few lessons and had no confidence in my abaility (espicaly with the tones). However, once there I was able to get people to understand me for basic things such as hotel, resturant and so on. I think the book does a good job of introducing usefull grammar and vocabulary. I think if you really want to study the language for more than travel, you should find a native speaker to help practice the tones. Although the tapes provide time for you to repeat or speak, if your alone you can't tell if a Vietnamese would actualy understand you. Also, the size of the book makes it easy to take with you and there are lots of drawings to break up the text.
Rating:
Summary: Forget the tape ... use the book
Review: I would agree with all the comments made by the reader in Oakland, California. I am planning a trip to Viet Nam to visit friends, and I bought the book & tape hoping to get a basic introduction to the language. My biggest frustration came in constantly being instructed to "listen and repeat" and then not being given a chance to repeat before the speaker went on with the next sound! In particular, there is a section in the first part of the book where it lists "difficult sounds" that are very similar to one another ... but on the tape, the speaker reads them so quickly that it is nearly impossible to hear exactly how they are different or to match the sounds you're hearing with the words in the book. One important thing lacking in the book itself is a table explaining how the various letters are pronounced and giving examples in English ... for instance, "a - as in 'father'" or "a - as in 'at'". The tape does give good examples, but there is no place in the book to go back and just refresh your memory. I haven't gotten all the way through the book yet, but overall I have learned quite a lot of vocabulary and grammar. I could write out some basic sentences to get my point across if I had to, however, I have no real confidence in my pronunciation or tones. I use the tape very sparingly, because when I do try to listen to a dialogue I end up feeling very frustrated and discouraged.
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