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Rating: 
Summary: Good for beginners, though with quite a few careless mistake
Review: Good for beginners, though with quite a few careless mistakes. Cassette tapes use the Northern Accents and not clearly recorded so they are pretty useless. The pronunciation section at the beginning (with some mistakes again) is not clearly written so you have to find a Vietnamese firend to help you on this. The context is written in Northern Vietnamese (with almost no reference or hints of Southern Vietnamese), this can be frustrating if you're in the South. Lessons (18 in total) are quite well designed, with some cultural notes. This book is so far the most popular learning material for foreigners, and even the HCMC Publishing House (Nh?xuất bản TPHCM) got a license to produce this book (blue cover with a big Tiếng Việt, costs 28000 ?#7891;ng). You may also consider the Colloquial Vietnamese (published by Routiledge) and it seems to be better than than the TY one.
Rating:
Summary: Standard Vietnamese, but not as useful as Saigon dialect.
Review: I totally agree with the reviews by the reader in Oakland, California and the reader in Portland, Maine. I want to point out that this book (actually all those books teaching Vietnamese) teaches Standard Vietnamese (defined as the language spoken by an educated person from the Hanoi area), which has six tones. But the fact is most Vietnamese living overseas speak Saigon dialect (it is at least true in Sydney), maybe because of the a large percentage of the refugees were from Saigon area and Saigon has been the most important city in Vietnam. Saigon Vietnamese has only five tones (thanh sac and thanh hoi are pronounced the same way), and most of the tones are pronounced somewhat differently from the Hanoi standard. Some of the consonants (like 'd' in 'da', 'r' in 'rat') and some of the vowel-consonant combinations (like 'in' in 'xin') are pronounced differently. Some of the usages and expressions are different too. So if you want to learn the language in order to speak to overseas Vietnamese instead of going for a trip in Vietnam, you'd better find a native speaker to teach you the pronunciation and help you with the expressions as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Sure, it has a few flaws, but
Review: so does any language course. The key is whether or not a course, should you have enough time to study it, will cut the mustard during travel (or a local Vietnamese establishment). I gave myself a shade under three months to finish this course, brought it with me along with one phrase book / tape combo, and had spectacular success. No one said language learning was easy, and this isn't - but if you actually put the effort into this course, it will pay off in a big way.
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