Rating: 
Summary: Good as your second textbook
Review: (Japanese) CD de setumei-yaku o tutomeru John Moore sensei no eigo wa Nihonzin ni mo kikitori yasui Igirisu-kei no eigo desu. Syoho sae sunde ireba, Betonamu-go no iwayuru natural speed ni nareru ii rensyuu ni narimasu. Tada, hoka no kata mo kaite'rassyaru toori, syoho no hatuon rensyuu ga zyuubun de wa naku, mattaku Betonamu-go o siranai hito ni wa tottuki nikui kamo. Kono CD dake kara seityou (koe no age-sage; tones) no meikaku na imeezi o tukamu no wa hakkiri itte muri. Ta no kyouzai o riyou suru ka, sensei ni tuku ka site, syoho no syoho o mananda ato ni kono kyouzai ni torikakaru no ga yoi desyou. Torikumi-gai wa arimasu.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for a second course of study only
Review: For a true beginner this course is not truly user-friendly. I have been to Viet Nam and was married to a native in Ho Chi Minh City. This series did nothing to prepare me to communicate in the language. The tonal system is not explained, practiced, or heard in the attempts given. Vietnamese without true tonal understanding is unintelligible. The audio version leaps into full conversation with little to no preparation. It was necessary to take another course in a classroom type setting to understand what this series was trying to get across. The book is fine, but one would need a native speaker to record the lessons in lieu of the audio portion.
Rating:
Summary: Good for a second course of study only
Review: For a true beginner this course is not truly user-friendly. I have been to Viet Nam and was married to a native in Ho Chi Minh City. This series did nothing to prepare me to communicate in the language. The tonal system is not explained, practiced, or heard in the attempts given. Vietnamese without true tonal understanding is unintelligible. The audio version leaps into full conversation with little to no preparation. It was necessary to take another course in a classroom type setting to understand what this series was trying to get across. The book is fine, but one would need a native speaker to record the lessons in lieu of the audio portion.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Tool for Someone Serious about Learning Vietnamese
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: too difficult to hear pronunciations
Review: I have bought this book with 2 CDs and I found that this book is good if you have good ears. The people on the CDs speak too fast and it is very difficult to be able to repeat the correct pronunciations. Although it is a good book if you have more than enough time and more than enough patience to learn Vietnamese when using this book, it's not a very practical book if you want to learn just the basics when having a conversation when speaking witha Vietnamese speaker. I don't suggest buying this unless you are absolutely stranded and do not have a choice of selection.
Rating: 
Summary: Beginners view
Review: I have studied foreign languages formally and on my own. The book I found useful. However, the tapes are virtually useless to me because I only have time to listen to them in my car and the tapes offer no english translation. In other words, since I am a beginner, I do not know what I am listening to on the tapes. Thus, as a package, I felt I paid too much.
Rating:
Summary: Tapes aren't that bad
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Do not buy
Review: I would discourage people from buying this book if they are interested in learning Vietnamese. Vietnamese pronunciation is not readily apparent from the spelling system and the book gives little help in explaining the sound system of Vietnamese. Without this, it is almost impossible to learn spoken Vietnamese from the tapes, since most of the sentences in the book are not recorded on the tapes. The Vietnamese book in the "Teach Yourself" series looked more plausible for self- instruction.
Rating:
Summary: Book good - tapes bad
Review: I'm afraid "Colloquial Vietnamese" is not one of the better lessons in this series. The book is quite good in the sense that it introduces the student to basic phrases that one might use in real life situations. Unfortunately, the content on the tapes is quite minimal and their relationship to the book is rather haphazard. As a result, the student gets some Vietnamese sound practice but has to guess the sound and tones on many sections. I compensated for this by having a native speaker read parts of the text alound into a tape recorder, but if this lesson had been better designed, I would not have to do this. You can definitely learn Vietnames from this book but it is not as good as others in this series.
Rating:
Summary: Book good - tapes bad
Review: I'm afraid "Colloquial Vietnamese" is not one of the better lessons in this series. The book is quite good in the sense that it introduces the student to basic phrases that one might use in real life situations. Unfortunately, the content on the tapes is quite minimal and their relationship to the book is rather haphazard. As a result, the student gets some Vietnamese sound practice but has to guess the sound and tones on many sections. I compensated for this by having a native speaker read parts of the text alound into a tape recorder, but if this lesson had been better designed, I would not have to do this. You can definitely learn Vietnames from this book but it is not as good as others in this series.
|
