Rating: 
Summary: Een erg goed boek!
Review: A very good book if you want to learn "real" Dutch. The conversations are more realistic and they use real words that people actually say. It's a good book to learn from if you want to learn Dutch how it's really spoken. I think it's easy to use and understand. Ik hoop dat u hebben een goed tijd lernend van dit boek als ik gedaan!
Rating: 
Summary: Descent
Review: Diffucult to understand and the layout could be a lot better. To complicated needs to be simplified.
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Summary: Great Jumpstarter to Dutch...
Review: I emigrated to the Netherlands two years ago from California, an English-monolingual culture. I was familiar with Afrikaans, since I was born in South Africa. This made learning Dutch a lot easier for me, so I very quickly came up to speed. However, it was the book by Donaldson which was the vehicle that brought me up to speed. I know this because after I rapidly moved forward as I used the book, I recommended it to an American who also found the book useful. I had a number of other texts, but I quickly abandoned them and concentrated on Donaldson's book.After settling down to life in Amsterdam, the things that REALLY helped were the "colloquialisms" mentioned by Donaldson, and the little "culture points". They were enormously helpful. Dutch has a lot of idiom, and you need to understand what is happening in the syntax and delivery and the culture points also help clarify why things are being said the way they are when they are by whom under what circumstances. But any language is that way, including English ! Of course you need a dictionary ! You cannot rely on the word list in the book. Of course you need a verb conjugator (like 201 Dutch Verbs). And I would add, that after you get serious, you will also need a specialist idiomatic reference and dictionary. The book was not all I needed to learn Dutch. I had to go to courses to get better, and you must also force yourself to use the language and to hurl yourself deep into a Dutch-only environment. English is pervasive and you can end up in an English universe in the Netherlands. A Dutch live-in partner would also help. Watching TV (cartoons are a great help), subtitling, listening to the radio (online too), reading the newspaper and magazines and web pages all add as an addendum to the book and daily usage. This is a very good, serious first-level starer, folks ! The tapes too !
Rating: 
Summary: A great course - especially the cassettes!
Review: I have all of the Dutch-for-English-speakers books published since the 80's, and this is my all-around favourite. It really focuses on SPEAKING the language, and has the most (and most useful) "culture points" of them all. The cassettes are a boon, with listening exercises and questions that force you not just to repeat words, or learn patterns, but to actually THINK in Dutch. If you want more grammar & vocabulary to supplement this course (and you will unless you're just a short-term traveller to the Dutch speaking countries), I recommend Dutch:An Essential Grammar by the same publisher.
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Summary: Essential in Amsterdam
Review: I'm in the Amsterdam airport right now. The announcements over the loudspeaker for gate changes and such are all in Dutch...which is very scary because I don't speak it. If you plan to spend some time in the Amsterdam airport you should get this book first. Granted, they make the announcements in English eventually but the first burst of Dutch sure can scare a guy. Save yourself the pain and grab this book first. Oh...they are talking in Thai now...better buy that one too.
Rating:
Summary: Essential in Amsterdam
Review: I'm in the Amsterdam airport right now. The announcements over the loudspeaker for gate changes and such are all in Dutch...which is very scary because I don't speak it. If you plan to spend some time in the Amsterdam airport you should get this book first. Granted, they make the announcements in English eventually but the first burst of Dutch sure can scare a guy. Save yourself the pain and grab this book first. Oh...they are talking in Thai now...better buy that one too.
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Summary: colloquial series
Review: I've tried many other language/phrase book, and I think the Colloquial Series are the best for beginners who plan to learn and pursue to a higher level.
This book explains every details on grammars and usage...and the cultural points are interesting as well.
The explanations are very clear and you'll find the learning process with colloquial series is very smooth, you'll hardly feel lost...
The audio CD mainly focus on conversations in every chapters, I like it because the native speakers talk as they are in everyday life (kind of fast for beginners), which is good cuz it's realistic...Just listen to it over and over until you're able to understand everything.
The only thing I don't like about the audio CD is that I wish it can provide more recordings on how to pronounce some important phrases rather than just numbers.
Hope you'll enjoy learning w/ this book
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Summary: Companion cassettes...
Review: These are a companion item to the "Colloquial Dutch : A Complete Course for Beginners" book. You will most likely want to buy the book as well, or the set of both.
Rating:
Summary: Companion cassettes...
Review: These are a companion item to the "Colloquial Dutch : A Complete Course for Beginners" book. You will most likely want to buy the book as well, or the set of both.
Rating:
Summary: good for students with a little Dutch knowledge
Review: This book is perhaps a bit too intense for an introductory text (for that you should try Dutch in Three Months), but if the reader has already studied the language a little and wants a good discussion of some of the subtle nuances of Dutch, this is a good bet. The companion audiocassettes are excellent.
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