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"Teach Yourself" or "Colloquial" | ||
Tags: Colloquial (program) | Teach Yourself | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| TKK Groupie ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5946 days ago 55 posts - 58 votes  | Message 1 of 8 17 November 2008 at 2:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I just found 2 websites (see below) by chance, to my surprise, one series of course books (Teach Yourself) actually contains 63 kinds of languages, and it involves much more languages than "Take Off In" that published by Oxford bookshop. I even saw some uncommon books such as "Gulf Arabic", "Modern Persian", "Modern Hebrew", "New Testament Greek", or "Brazilian Portuguese (rarer than European Portuguese)". Besides, the other series (Colloquial) also has a lot of kinds of languages, I searched by Browsing. Personally, I've really got a particular interest in a few of these 2 series, but I don't want to buy from both of them, If I make a decision, maybe I'll just buy my favourite books from only either of them. Which series are better? If you know something about these 2 series, please kindly give me some advice.Thank you!
Teach Yourself (Languages) Colloquial (Languages) Edited by TKK on 17 November 2008 at 2:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6901 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 2 of 8 17 November 2008 at 2:23am | IP Logged | ||
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Brasilian Portuguese is not that uncommon :), nor is Hebrew.
I strongly recommand searching on this forum, as there were lots of threads about books from the both series. Also don't forget Prof. Arguelles's reviews, as far as I remember, both series were covered (I may be wrong, though). Another important thing: the quality of books varies from language to another. Just be sure you read the reviews of the particular courses you're interested in. I wouldn't mind having TY books for some languages, and Colloquial ones for the others. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TKK Groupie ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5946 days ago 55 posts - 58 votes | Message 3 of 8 17 November 2008 at 3:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Exactly speaking, actually I can get a lot of excellent course books, grammar books, and various dictionaries of English, German, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, Korean,... in CHINA, so I'm just quite interested in those which are unavailable or infrequent in the bookshops of CHINA. As far as it goes, I'm inclined to think of learning "Gulf Arabic", Modern Persian, Modern Thai, Modern Hebrew, or Modern Italian (though there're abundant Italian course books in China). & the most important thing for me is to know something about the differences or nuances between "Teach Yourself" & "Colloquial", I believe that there must be some different advantages or disadvantages in their respective styles.
Edited by TKK on 17 November 2008 at 3:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6146 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 4 of 8 17 November 2008 at 4:58am | IP Logged | ||
ProfArguelles did reviews on both of those methods, they might be helpful to you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6009 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 5 of 8 17 November 2008 at 7:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't like either much, but I feel Colloquial is worse than TY. I just feel like I get swamped in too many unconnected words and phrases in Colloquial. I hate Colloquial.
I'd also like to point out that ProfArguelles is an academic bookworm. Many of his criticisms are well-founded, but his praise is only useful if you are a similar academic bookworm. He has learned to cope with dusty, dry material that you may not find interesting in the slightest. Edited by Cainntear on 17 November 2008 at 7:40am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 6 of 8 17 November 2008 at 9:11am | IP Logged | ||
Do you have to put it that way? I fully agree that people have different interests. I also agree that Professor Arguelles is an academic, and a lover of books. I don't consider any of this to be something to disparage, though. Professor Arguelles is quite open about his background, ideas, preferences in language learning material, etc. Taking that into account, I've found a number of his suggestions for materials to be quite useful. I don't see that lumping people into the categories 'academic bookworm' and 'not an academic bookworm' is particularly helpful. I doubt there's a single person on Earth who would like every single suggestion of any other person who gives a significant number of suggestions; on the other hand, I think a large percentage of learners could find at least some of Professor Arguelles' recommendations useful. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7154 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 7 of 8 17 November 2008 at 9:17am | IP Logged | ||
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It depends on the language and/or how well the author(s) put the course together. The structure of both Colloquial and TY is the same (dialogues/readings, notes, exercises, vocabulary lists, index) but Colloquial still offers more languages, with TY closing the gap in quantity over the last few years.
Do you have a certain language in mind? On Amazon you may find reviews for the Colloquial or TY course that you would like. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6009 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 8 17 November 2008 at 11:27am | IP Logged | ||
OK, I'll reword it. Arguelles grew up with a certain type of material. He learned how to learn from this type of material out of necessity. Now he believes that this is the "best" way to learn. Arguelles chosen method of learning assumes certain prior learning habits that are not very common. (Hence why the majority of courses he likes are no longer available.) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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