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Rating: 
Summary: Great for review
Review: I have studied swahili for over two years and this course was a lot of help recently. It is the perfect tool for someone who is looking to review or brush up on their skills. It might move too fast for someone who lacks any previous experience in a Bantu languge.
Rating: 
Summary: Ninaweza kusema Kiswahili!
Review: I learned Nepali with the help of the Teach Yourself series, and I liked the book so much that, after I left my copy in Kathmandu, I bought a new one here in the states. Now I'm working on Swahili with the Teach Yourself Swahili book and CD.The book is really nice. It's laid out in a pretty good way. Each chapter has a topic (eg. "How are you?" and "invitations"). Within each chapter you will find:
+Intro Dialogue
+Vocab used in the dialogue
+Word usage explanations (which gets into the relevant culture)
+Grammar explanations
+More dialogues with vocab lists and explanations
+Finally, a nice variety of practice exercises The pronunciation guide is pretty good (and the CD makes up for its limitations). There are lots of pictures, which help me to have something visual with which to associate words and phrases. The S-E/E-S dictionaries are not massive, but cover all the words in the book (I think, I didn't check them all). Also, there is a nice section at the end that has a bunch of useful phrases for the traveler that, even if it's not the Lonely Planet Swahili, covers the important basics. There are also some handy grammar appendixes. The CD is very well recorded. The readers are native speakers. Each dialogue and a few questions and answers is a one track. I wish that they would repeat some of the dialogues slowly, because the syllables seem to fly by when you are still new to the language. Overall, great series and great book & CD!
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