Shona-English/English-Shona Dictionary and Phrasebook (Dictionary and Phrasebooks)

Rating:
Summary: Good Dictionary--One of the few Shona learning texts
Review: This is a great book for anyone headed to Zimbabwe. I used it for a linguistics course and it proved very helpful. For those familiar with the Bantu languages of Africa, this language is not very difficult to learn. Trying to find a book on Shona is very difficult. Would be better if the author made this into a complete course in the language, rather than just a phrasebook for travellers.

Rating:
Summary: Best book available outside Zimbabwe
Review: Until this book was published there was no decent introductory guide to learning Shona available outside Zimbabwe. I run a website teaching basic Shona ( www.shonalanguage.fsnet.co.uk ) and used to get large numbers of requests for such a book - now here it is!

For a very reasonable price, it provides: - pronunciation guide; - introduction to grammar; - basic but adequate vocabulary; - sections on various everyday tasks, each with a useful set of words and phrases;

If you are planning to visit Zimbabwe and are at all interested in learning Shona you should definitely buy this book.

My only slight criticism is that the Grammar section is quite dense, you may need to be familiar with some grammatical terms. On the other hand it is /much/ more accessible than earlier Shona grammar books available outside Zimbabwe.

Overall, a great buy.