Lao for Beginners: An Introduction to the Written and Spoken Language of Laos

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: As the only teach yourself Lao book I have been able to trace it was a great disappointment. It's very unclear. In the end I resorted to learning Thai and using a Lao dictionary.

Rating:
Summary: not very good
Review: I am Laotion and wanted to be up to date on my language skills, so I purchased this book a couple of years ago to expand my Lao vocabulary. I noticed that some of the words are wrong, not just spelled wrong, but are of a totally different subject! Also, the diagram for the different Lao tones at the beginning of the book are difficult and complicated to understand. It's not clear on how to pronounce each tone. For a language that is based on tones, I think it's better just to buy a book w/ a cd rom so you can hear exactly how the tones are pronounced. I was extremely disapointed w/ this book.

Rating:
Summary: It helped me...
Review: This is not a do-it-yourself book. The title even says it is an "introduction" to the language. I found it very helpful, and personally easy to use. Each section is purposeful, with an intro discussing how intonations and consonants can change the word, and how it is based on the closest English pronunciation as best as it could. (It has better phonetics than other Beginning Lao books out there, and there are not many options.) The sections are divided into basic conversational language, grammatical use, and reading/writing exercises. This book is not meant to be used alone, you definitely need a Lao/English Dictionary and probably someone Lao to fine-tune the pronunciation. My Lao friends were able to understand me after the first two lessons! As in many languages, there are sometimes differences in "casual" speech and proper speech, but they do say that you would use the examples given in the book for proper speech. This is more of a workbook a teacher would assign students given to support a Lao lesson.