Colloquial Croatian and Serbian : The Complete Course (Colloquial Series (Book Only))

Rating:
Summary: A complete course for beginners on Serbian and Croatian.
Review: Hawkesworth's book is a mediocre introductory book on Serbian and Croatian. First, the book leans toward Croatian in its dialogues and spellings without giving much explanation as to the Serbian forms of these examples. Additionally, words are used throughout the book which are not defined in the lessons, nor in the glossary in the back of the book. Often, words are defined multiple times, yet others are not at all. However, one can find an excellent table in the back of the book on all forms of nouns and adjectives-- a great resource for quick references, as a student or traveler!

Use this book, but only with a GOOD dictionary, and a Serbian tutor (if Serbian is desired). Otherwise, search elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Destroyed by lazyness
Review: This could be a very good book for learning Croatian. As said below, the idea with each chapter consisting of three dialogues concerning tourism, business and a soap opera is very good since it enables the learner to cope with different situations. On the whole, the grammar is presented in a clear way and after finishing the course the learner should have a good grasp of Croatian grammar. Still, somewhere along the line someone got lazy - either the author or the people at lay out.

-Of the three different dialouges only the first in each chapter (tourism) has got decent vocabulary tables. For the other two dialouges in each chapter you do get some words, but since they aren't arranged into tables it is much harder to read and learn them. Of course you can write your own vocabulary for each of them but it will take quite some time - Routledge are the ones who should have put down that additional time.

-Speaking of vocabulary, the general vocabulary at the end of the book is a bad joke. My estimate is that even less than half of the words in the book made it to the vocabulary. It's quite frustrating to do an exercise, find a word you don't know and then for the umpteen time have to realize than the author/Routledge didn't bother to include that word either in the vocabulary.

-The exercises are quite good, but now the laziness reaches extreme hights. Only about 20% of the answers to the exercises are included in the book! I've no idea why, in every other Colloquial book I've read all the answers are given.

-Word accent in Croatian is not predictable and for some few words the accent is marked. For most it is not.

To sum up, the lack of vocabulary tables after each dialouge, the much-too-short general vocabulary and the non-existent answers to the exercises hugely diminish the value of this book. It is sad that a book with such good potential should be destroyed because someone didn't bother to add the final touch. My advice to the author: look at other books in the Colloquial series, such as Colloquial Slovak or Colloquial Lithuanian and learn from them.

Rating:
Summary: Vrlo Dobro
Review: This is a great book for the beginner and those who need to brush up on their skills. Well organized, easy to follow with lessons/homework at the end of each chapter.