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Rating: 
Summary: on "Teach Yourself Afrikaans"
Review: Afrikaans, the author writes, is a phonetic language. This book has a pronounciation guide at the beginning, but there are inconsistencies. So, I think it would have been useful to dispel all doubt with an english phonetic symbol equivalent (ala 'Berlitz', others.)
Rating:
Summary: on "Teach Yourself Afrikaans"
Review: Afrikaans, the author writes, is a phonetic language. This book has a pronounciation guide at the beginning, but there are inconsistencies. So, I think it would have been useful to dispel all doubt with an english phonetic symbol equivalent (ala 'Berlitz', others.)
Rating: 
Summary: A 'must buy' because you probably won't find anything else.
Review: Before I purchased my plane ticket to Cape Town, I decided to purchase a book that taught Afrikaans. After searching local bookstores to no avail, Amazon.com suggested the selection of Afrikaans books and tapes that almost everyone reading this review has found en route to bumping into the period at the end of this sentence.'Afrikaans (Teach Yourself)' is a decent book. It provides a chunk of vocabulary, and some peripheral grammar notes. Vocabulary and grammar are good enough, I suppose; but self-instructed language methodology isn't very successful without sufficient drills and answers (and a cassette tape wouldn't hurt, either!). Yes, there is a pronunciation guide. No, a native speaker of English will not be able to pronounce Afrikaans by reading it. Don't believe me? Just try! (: Americans in particular must also be aware that most (if not all) Afrikaans textbooks present Afrikaans pronunciation through English words as pronounced by an Englishperson. As I had no native speaker of Afrikaans on hand here in California, I decided that I would pronounce Afrikaans incorrectly, but at least keep my inaccuracies consistent, as written. In other words, I made up my own pronunciations, guessing as well as I could. After my arrival, my Capetonian friends pointed out my *gross* verbal discrepancies, and generalizing their corrections to the rest of my mispronunciations became easy. I strongly recommend this book, as I have not found anything better.. I would purchase a more comprehensive book in a heartbeat.
Rating:
Summary: A good book if you also have access to a native speaker
Review: I feel uniquely qualified to review this book as an American who used it to develop a basic knowledge of Afrikaans. I was able to become quite proficient in Afrikaans, but without the help of my Afrikaans speaking wife in the areas of pronunciation and grammar, I would have probably been able to develop at best a reading knowledge of Afrikaans. Teach Yourself Afrikaans is a reasonable attempt to provide a basic knowledge of Afrikaans to someone who knows only English. (Native Dutch speakers will not benefit from this book.) There is a section on pronunciation which is intended for *South African English* speakers, so some of the examples won't make sense to Americans. For example, the Afrikaans "stap" (meaning: walk) sounds just like the American "stop" to my ear, but is explained as a soft "a" as in "fat". If you are an American, then language tapes are an essential supplement to this book. Otherwise, the sections are broken down into learning things that you would need to know to navigate situations such as restaurants, banks, business calls, etc. These are at least moderately interesting, but there is too much emphasis placed on vocabulary and not enough on grammar. You really must read most or all of the book before even a reasonable idea about how to form sentences is imparted. In short, understanding the entire contents of the book will not allow you to have more than rudimentary conversations with people in Afrikaans, but it will teach you something about communicating in certain situations. If you really want to learn Afrikaans and you know someone who speaks it and will help you, this book gives a great starting point. (If you don't know anyone who speaks Afrikaans, then why in the world would you want to learn it?)
Rating:
Summary: Good for vocabulary, but not the best for conversation
Review: It helps to have strong German instruction prior to purchasing this book. Once a year of German is under the belt, this book will enable you to master Afrikaans in 3 to 4 months, if you read it diligently every night. The pronunciation is difficult to master, as the book attempts to give examples of the many strange vowel combinations found in Afrikaans. The vocabulary, however, is simple and the verb tenses even simpler. I made friends in the Johannesburg area and continue to write in Afrikaans after studying this book. The lessons are relevant and the short stories enable the reader to learn new words quickly. Do NOT study Dutch and think you will be able to get by in Afrikaans, as Dutch has bizarre gender differences and strange verb tenses. This language is easy to learn and fun to practice.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Yet There
Review: The entire Teach Yourself series can be very hit or miss, and TY Afrikaans is more of a miss. The book presents grammar and vocabulary in reasonable amounts, and is generally pretty good about introducing them in situations the reader can realistically expect to find him-/herself in. However, there are no culture notes (a great feature found in newer editions in this series), and some of the language presented can be bizarre ("Ek gaan saans eiers uithaal vir tant Dora" - "In the evening I'll collect eggs for Aunt Dora" - how often would you even say this in English?). The main drawback is the fact that there are no tapes to model prounciation. Unlike languages like Spanish, where there is a strong correspondence between written and spoken language, Afrikaans is much less predictable. There is a pronunication guide at the start of the book which is utterly useless. The only remedy I could suggest would be to see if you can track down some old Language/30 Afrikaans tapes. While there won't be much overlap with the book, it will still help you acquire an ear for the sounds of the language. Should the publisher ever include tapes with it, it would be a great set. In other words, if you're really fired up about Afrikaans, give it a shot, but if you want to learn speak it with any degree of certainty and confidence, then you should either hope they put out an edition with cassettes or find other Afrikaans tapes yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Good for vocabulary, but not the best for conversation
Review: The main differences bewteen this book (TYA) and Donaldson's Colloquial Afrikaans (CA), is that TYA (a) doesn't have cassettes available, (b) TYA introduces a much broader vocabulary (almost too much at times), and (c) CA is more modern, both in terms of vocabulary presented and dialogs. If I wanted to learn to speak Afrikaans, I would go with CA. I think a good combination is to get both CA (first) and then TYA as a reinforcement/vocabulary builder. Even given that there aren't many books on learning Afrikaans out there, TYA isn't bad. One thing that some (esp. female) readers might find amusing or insulting (depending) is that many of the dialogs cast characters in very traditional gender roles : men play/watch sports, women shop and worry about their hair and makeup. Sentences like : "As 'n dame mooi wil lyk, moet sy grimmer" (If a woman wants to look nice, she has to wear makeup) on pg. 103 might not make the author (a woman!) many friends in some circles. Still, not a bad book, especially if you're interested only in reading, but otherwise I would only use it as a supplement to TYA. (Incidentally, the (much) older edition of TYA is a very good book for the more linguistically-oriented learner who's not overly concerned with speaking Afrikaans, especially one that already knows Dutch or German. Unfortunately, it's also hard to find).
Rating:
Summary: Good book when coupled with other material
Review: This book teaches the fundamentals of Afrikaans. The dialogues and grammar notes enable one to begin using this language (both in oral and written communication). The pronunciation guide at the front is not enough to learn adequate pronunciation (nor is the pronunciation guide in any language book). Without the presence of a native speaker, one may get by with the tape "Afrikaans" from conversa-phone (also sold by Amazon). The Hippocrene Afrikaans-English/English-Afrikaans dictionary is a good first dictionary. Why learn Afrikaans? As the newest Germanic language, its relationship to the other members of this family is fascinating. With a good knowledge of German, Afrikaans may be learnt in a short time. One reason for learning Afrikaans may be as a stepping stone to learning Dutch, as the two languages are closely related. For English speakers with no prior foreign language experience, Esperanto is easier to learn but won't help you learn other Germanic languages to the extent a knowledge of Afrikaans will.
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