Colloquial Latvian : A Complete Language Course (Colloquial Series, Book and Audio Cassette)

Rating:
Summary: Not really for beginners...
Review: I did not find this course to be very helpful to an absolute beginner. There is little vocabulary building, and too few practical phrases presented. I don't speak any Latvian and I am about to leave for Riga for a year. I don't expect to be able to master this language in one year's time, but I would like to be able to ease my way into the culture by being able to communicate in some basic everyday situations. For example I would like to be able to hail a taxi, order coffee, or buy grocieries.
This course attempts to instruct by having you be an outside observer to situations, rather than having you learn as a direct paricipant. Furthermore, the cassette tapes have poor sound quality which makes them a bit difficult to understand.
I did find this course somewhat useful for listening to basic pronounciation, inflection, and sentence structure. Since the number of available Latvian language courses is extremely limited, I would recommend using this course in conjunction with the Lonely Planet Baltic Phasebook to give you a more practical and useful experience.

Rating:
Summary: only okay
Review: This book is too advanced for a beginner and too simple for anyone who is ready for its content. Latvian has a complex grammatical structure that is completely foreign to English speakers and this book makes that structure confusing. Furthermore, there aren't a lot of instantly accessible phrases that beginners would need to know in order to survive. The progression is too quick and can cause frustration.

The thing the book is good at is providing cultural information so that a newcomer gets a sense of the place and the people. The book follows a story of Latvian Australians coming to visit relatives and seeing the sights of Latvia and can, from this perspective, provide insight for those who don't know a lot about Latvia.

The problem is that there are precious few materials out there to assist one to learn Latvian. If Colloquial Latvian is all you can find, then it is better than nothing. But do not place high hopes on it helping you to conquer Latvian becuase it simply won't.

Rating:
Summary: Not useful for beginners
Review: This book was confusing for me, a beginner, and within ten days I returned it for a refund. It may be fine for a more advanced student, but beginners should avoid it and the frustration that it causes. I recommend instead the "Easy Way to Latvian" book and tapes set for beginners, which is a much more accessible course. Veiksmi!