Rating: 
Summary: Save This Endangered Text; It's The Best You Can Get
Review: Save this text! As a non-Vietnamese speaking Vietnamese-American born at the end of the war (and ambitions to get involved in business in Vietnam in the future) this course has been a savior. It's the best you can buy for learning the Vietnamese language. Other Vietnamese language `courses' found on Amazon aren't even in the same league with this one. Before getting this I ordered Language/30's Vietnamese and Vocabulearn's Vietnamese. In comparison these ones are jokes (the readers who gave them good reviews obviously haven't seen this course). One caveat however. For this text to be useful the accompanying CD set also needs to be ordered. Unfortunately, I'm lead to believe this text is endangered of being put out of print because the publisher (Tuttle Publishing) doesn't even make the CD set anymore. To get the CD set (7 CD's for $135) you have to mail the author directly (Tuttle's number is given in the back of the book. Call them, they'll give you the author's address). Fortunately the author's very quick to mail the CD set- it took 3 business days to get from Cambridge, Mass. to Santa Clara, CA. If you are interested in learning the Vietnamese language buy this text (with the intention of later buying the CD set). This course deserves to thrive and become the standard for learning the Vietnamese language. It should be the "Elementary Chinese" (a standard Chinese learning text) for the Vietnamese language.
Rating:
Summary: Save This Endangered Text; It's The Best You Can Get
Review: Save this text! As a non-Vietnamese speaking Vietnamese-American born at the end of the war (and ambitions to get involved in business in Vietnam in the future) this course has been a savior. It's the best you can buy for learning the Vietnamese language. Other Vietnamese language 'courses' found on Amazon aren't even in the same league with this one. Before getting this I ordered Language/30's Vietnamese and Vocabulearn's Vietnamese. In comparison these ones are jokes (the readers who gave them good reviews obviously haven't seen this course). One caveat however. For this text to be useful the accompanying CD set also needs to be ordered. Unfortunately, I'm lead to believe this text is endangered of being put out of print because the publisher (Tuttle Publishing) doesn't even make the CD set anymore. To get the CD set (7 CD's for $135) you have to mail the author directly (Tuttle's number is given in the back of the book. Call them, they'll give you the author's address). Fortunately the author's very quick to mail the CD set- it took 3 business days to get from Cambridge, Mass. to Santa Clara, CA. If you are interested in learning the Vietnamese language buy this text (with the intention of later buying the CD set). This course deserves to thrive and become the standard for learning the Vietnamese language. It should be the "Elementary Chinese" (a standard Chinese learning text) for the Vietnamese language.
Rating:
Summary: Elementary Vietnamese is EXCELLENT!
Review: So far, this is the best book I have seen teaching the Vietnamese language. The first section deals with a highly comprehensive description of the sounds and syllable structure (based on Hanoi dialect). The description includes charts with IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet used by linguists) and linguistic terminology. Don't let this frighten you, because it explains what it means. The lessons, which are themed, are arranged in an easy-to-follow format: Dialogues, Vocabulary, Grammar Notes, Drills, and Excercises. There are also boxes which show you how to formulate sentences. This is definitely for serious students of Vietnamese. Also, since Vietnamese is a tonal language (like Mandarin and Swedish) it helps if you obtain the CD. The CD will also greatly help out in the pronunciation section of the book. Good Luck!
Rating: 
Summary: missing pieces
Review: Upon reading the introduction, I discovered there was an audio CD to accompany the book that was not provided (standard). I wrote to the author and was informed that, for [money](+... shipping), I could buy the audio CD's directly from him.
As far as a textbook quality goes, I cannot rate it accurately because I have not used it fully. Upon first and subsequent impressions, it is much more complex than texts in the romance languages, which probably should be expected. It seems to offer very little support for slow learners like me.
I rate the book with two stars because I desire to give it the benefit of the doubt (due to all of it's other wonderful reviews).
Rating:
Summary: missing pieces
Review: Upon reading the introduction, I discovered there was an audio CD to accompany the book that was not provided (standard). I wrote to the author and was informed that, for [money](+... shipping), I could buy the audio CD's directly from him.
As far as a textbook quality goes, I cannot rate it accurately because I have not used it fully. Upon first and subsequent impressions, it is much more complex than texts in the romance languages, which probably should be expected. It seems to offer very little support for slow learners like me.
I rate the book with two stars because I desire to give it the benefit of the doubt (due to all of it's other wonderful reviews).
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