TKK Groupie ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5947 days ago 55 posts - 58 votes
| Message 1 of 6 17 November 2008 at 9:20pm | IP Logged |
Everybody. I'm trying to narrow down the list of favorite books to just 5 options (actually there're plenty of excellent learning materials for popular languages such as Japanese, Korean, Russian, English, French, German, Spanish (Castillan), Italian, European Portuguese. Especially, I just found it much more effective and convenient for Chinese to learn Japanese or Korean with our native language Mandarin). So I'm more inclined towards those which are unavailable or out of stock in China. As far as it goes, for example, as follows, please kindly give me some advice.
1, "Teach Yourself Gulf Arabic" VS "Colloquial Arabic of the Gulf", (which one?)
2, "Teach Yourself Modern Persian" VS "Colloquial Modern Persian", (which one?)
3, "Teach Yourself Thai" VS "Colloquial Thai", (which one?)
4, "Teach Yourself Modern Hebrew" VS "Colloquial Hebrew", (which one?)
5, "Teach Yourself Brazilian Portuguese" VS "Colloquial Portuguese of Brazil", (which one?)
Edited by TKK on 17 November 2008 at 9:23pm
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J-Learner Senior Member Australia Joined 6029 days ago 556 posts - 636 votes Studies: Yiddish, English* Studies: Dutch
| Message 2 of 6 21 November 2008 at 7:49am | IP Logged |
I can recommend colloquial Hebrew over the Teach Yourself simply because I noticed some rediculous errors straight away and I am only a beginner.
They are both worth getting if you have enough money because hebrew resources are hard enough to get as it is.
I would rather recommend Eliezer Tirkel's Hebrew at your ease. It is harder to get audio for but the course is much more thorough that either of those mentioned above. I ended up borrowing the audio on cassettes from a native speaker who wanted to teach it to her children. her being Israeli born and them Australian.
Shalom,
Yehoshua.
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Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5607 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin*
| Message 3 of 6 28 September 2009 at 11:37am | IP Logged |
Is colloquial Italian 2 a book aimed at learners at the intermediate level? Is it somewhat harder than TY Italian? Which series should I choose? Thanks!
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stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5831 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin
| Message 4 of 6 28 September 2009 at 6:50pm | IP Logged |
Yes, Colloquial Italian 2 is aimed at intermediate students. It comes with 2 CDs and there is an companion website which you can look at to get an idea of the level.
Companion website
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Al-Malik Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member United Kingdom arabicgenie.com Joined 7133 days ago 221 posts - 294 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Dutch, French, Arabic (classical) Studies: Mandarin, Persian
| Message 5 of 6 28 September 2009 at 8:24pm | IP Logged |
I think both series have their purpose. However, I'd say that the quality of the Teach Yourself series fluctuates more than the quality of the Colloquial series.
E.g. Teach Yourself Modern Persian would be better suited for a complete language learning novice, while the Colloquial Modern Persian is perhaps betters uited to those with some experience learning foreign languages.
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Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5607 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin*
| Message 6 of 6 29 September 2009 at 7:33am | IP Logged |
What do you think of "Take Off In Italian" and "Take Off In Spanish" (I've already got 2 older editions) in comparison with "Colloquial Italian (Spanish)" and "TY Italian (Spanish)"? Thanks again!
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