Product Description

Colloquial Vietnamese is easy to use and completely up-to-date! Specially written by experienced teachers for self-study or class use, the course offers you a step-by-step approach to written and spoken Vietnamese. No prior knowledge of the language is required.

What makes Colloquial Vietnamese your best choice in personal language learning?
* interactive - lots of dialogues and exercises for regular practice
* clear - concise grammar notes
* practical - useful vocabulary and pronunciation guide
* complete - including answer key and special reference section

By the end of this rewarding course you will be able to communicate confidently and effectively in a broad range of situations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2166879 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

About the Author
John Moore is at the Diplomatic Language Centre, Foreign Office, UK. Tuan Duc Vuong is at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University College, London, UK.

Customer Reviews

Inappropriate content
I'm using this book and tapes/CDs under the guidance of a language instructor in a one-on-one situation and I find it woefully lacking. Both the content and the pace of introduction of new vocabulary are inappropriate. Why would one expect to be speaking with a diplomat in the second lesson of a language instruction series? There is no model for pronunciation at the start of the CD/tapes other than a very quick series of vowel sounds that are far too quickly presented and inadequately explained. I've asked my language lesson provider to find a different text to use.

Good for a second course of study only
For a true beginner this course is not truly user-friendly. I have been to Viet Nam and was married to a native in Ho Chi Minh City. This series did nothing to prepare me to communicate in the language. The tonal system is not explained, practiced, or heard in the attempts given. Vietnamese without true tonal understanding is unintelligible. The audio version leaps into full conversation with little to no preparation. It was necessary to take another course in a classroom type setting to understand what this series was trying to get across. The book is fine, but one would need a native speaker to record the lessons in lieu of the audio portion.

Book good - tapes bad
I'm afraid "Colloquial Vietnamese" is not one of the better lessons in this series. The book is quite good in the sense that it introduces the student to basic phrases that one might use in real life situations. Unfortunately, the content on the tapes is quite minimal and their relationship to the book is rather haphazard. As a result, the student gets some Vietnamese sound practice but has to guess the sound and tones on many sections. I compensated for this by having a native speaker read parts of the text alound into a tape recorder, but if this lesson had been better designed, I would not have to do this. You can definitely learn Vietnames from this book but it is not as good as others in this series.