Berlitz Greek CD Pack

Rating:
Summary: Not as useful as I had hoped...
Review: The Berlitz book contains a lot of information, but it is neither organized nor readily accessible. It contains an abridged English-Greek dictionary, but lacks a Greek-English one. The tape has multiple problems. It does not follow the book verbatim. And there is a lot of filler on the tape ("Now let's repeat that whole bit and you take the part of the teller... Did you understand that part? We hope you don't need a doctor, but..."). At least one word, Oreeste, is used in a dialogue and never defined! I have used the Barron's "Now you're talking" series for German, Italian, and French, which has a cassette tape, miniscript, and book. They are superior, and cover much more useful material on the tape. I have gotten by well in Europe using nothing but their tape and phrasebook. Unfortunately, there was no Barron's Greek program.

Rating:
Summary: A new edition of an old standby -- not necessarily improved
Review: This is a completely revised edition of the Berlitz Greek Phrase Book and Cassette Pack. The earlier edition dates back to 1973. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear that the new edition is an improvement over the older one. The new phrase book is a bit longer -- 224 pages vs 192, but the very useful summary of Greek grammar is no longer present, nor is the index of Greek words that appear in the text. The sections are still color coded, but the names of the sections are no longer given along the righthand margins of the pages, having been replaced by rather cryptic icons in the corners. As a result it is no longer possible to find sections quickly by thumbing through the pages. On the positive side, two sections have been added with the Greek words appearing in large type -- one as a guide for reading restaurant menus, the other to help in identifying words and phrases that might appear on signs and public notices.

Even more drastic changes have been made in the tape cassette. The new cassette is longer, a little over 90 minutes compared to a little less than 90 minutes for the old one, and it covers more ground. But in the old cassette most Greek phrases were spoken twice -- first slowly and then at normal speed. There is no such repetition on the new cassette, making it much more difficult for novices to grasp the unfamiliar language. And the old edition came with a "Miniscript," in which the text of the cassette was given verbatim. This greatly assisted the user in following along with the tape, and it is entirely absent from the new edition. Although the new tape does track the text of the phrase book fairly closely, this is not at all the same as having a verbatim text available to work with.

All in all, this new edition strikes me as a distinct step backward from the older one. The old phrase book can still be found in the used book market, but it will probably be much harder to lay hands on the old tape cassette

Rating:
Summary: Berlitz Greek
Review: This is a good guide for learning Greek. It has a simple format, and the c.d. shows exactly how to pronounce words. It was easy to use, and can be used for quick reference.