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Best Single Language Publications

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
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DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 6150 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 1 of 12
24 November 2010 at 11:56am | IP Logged 
What are the best single language publications for different languages ? By this, I mean publishers who've focused on a single language, and don't produce a series of courses across a number of languages. I've excluded websites from the list, as there are more appropriate threads for collating this.

Here's the list so far.

Russian

Modern Russian 1
New Princeton Russian Course

Hungarian
Hallo, Itt Magyarorszag

BCS/Serbo-Croatian

Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian: A Textbook with Exercises and Basic Grammar (Ronelle Alexander, Ellen Elias-Bursac. University of Michigan Press)

Bulgarian

Intensive Bulgarian Vols. 1-2 (Ronelle Alexander. University of Wisconsin Press)

Macedonian

Macedonian: A Course for Beginning and Intermediate Students (Christina Kramer. University of Toronto Press)

Polish

Cześć, jak się masz? vols. 1-2 (Władysław Miodunka)
Z polskim na ty (Ewa Lipińska)
Kiedyś wrócisz tu (vols. 1-2) (Ewa Lipińska, Elżbieta Grażyna Dąmbska)

All of the above are published by Universitas at the Jagiellonian University (Kraków, Poland)

Romanian

Discover Romanian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture (Rodica Boţoman. Ohio State University Press)

Slovak

Slovenčina ako cudzí jazyk "A" (Angela Zebegneyová, Anna Puzderová, Beáta Baková)
Slovenčina ako cudzí jazyk "B" (Alica Bortlíková, Eva Maierová, Jana Navrátilová)
Slovenčina ako cudzí jazyk "C" (forthcoming?)

The first two are published by Comenius University (Bratislava, Slovakia)

Ukrainian

Modern Ukrainian (Assya Humesky. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press)

For Estonian and Finnish, it's debatable whether these otherwise high-quality courses below should count since their respective publishers (sometimes with foreign partners such as Berlitz) have all begun producing series of learning materials in other target languages although these are still designed for native speakers of Estonian or Finnish.

Estonian

E nagu Eesti (Mall Pesti and Helve Ahi)
T nagu Tallinn (Mall Pesti and Helve Ahi)
Saame tuttavaks! (Silva Tomingas)
Naljaga pooleks (Mare Kitsnik and Leelo Kingisepp)
Avatud uksed (Mare Kitsnik and Leelo Kingisepp)

All of the above are published by TEA Kirjastus.

Finnish

Finnish for Foreigners 1-3 (Maija-Hellikki Aaltio. Otava)
Hyvin menee! 1 (Satu Heikkilä & Pirkko Majakangas. Otava)
Hyvin menee! 2 (Kristiina Kuparinen & Terhi Tapaninen. Otava)
Kuulosta hyvältä - Sounds good (Lili Ahonen, SKS)
Sounds good - Kuulosta hyvältä (Lili Ahonen, SKS)
Suomen kielen alkeisoppikirja (Anna-Liisa Lepäsmaa & Leena Silfverberg. Finn Lectura)
Suomen kielen jatko-oppikirja (Leena Silfverberg. Finn Lectura)

[EDIT - Including Chungs brilliant post]

Edited by DaraghM on 02 December 2010 at 10:24am

7 persons have voted this message useful



Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7155 days ago

4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 2 of 12
24 November 2010 at 6:37pm | IP Logged 
So far I can only think of publishers subordinated to universities or cultural institutions since their kits reflect specific needs of classes or their communities. They're definitely not in the mold of publishing houses designing courses that appeal more to independent learners and use a "cookie-cutter"-like approach by producing a series of comparable courses.

BCS/Serbo-Croatian

Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian: A Textbook with Exercises and Basic Grammar (Ronelle Alexander, Ellen Elias-Bursac. University of Michigan Press)

Bulgarian

Intensive Bulgarian Vols. 1-2 (Ronelle Alexander. University of Wisconsin Press)

Macedonian

Macedonian: A Course for Beginning and Intermediate Students (Christina Kramer. University of Toronto Press)

Polish

Cześć, jak się masz? vols. 1-2 (Władysław Miodunka)
Z polskim na ty (Ewa Lipińska)
Kiedyś wrócisz tu (vols. 1-2) (Ewa Lipińska, Elżbieta Grażyna Dąmbska)

All of the above are published by Universitas at the Jagiellonian University (Kraków, Poland)

Romanian

Discover Romanian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture (Rodica Boţoman. Ohio State University Press)

Slovak

Slovenčina ako cudzí jazyk "A" (Angela Zebegneyová, Anna Puzderová, Beáta Baková)
Slovenčina ako cudzí jazyk "B" (Alica Bortlíková, Eva Maierová, Jana Navrátilová)
Slovenčina ako cudzí jazyk "C" (forthcoming?)

The first two are published by Comenius University (Bratislava, Slovakia)

Ukrainian

Modern Ukrainian (Assya Humesky. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press)

For Estonian and Finnish, it's debatable whether these otherwise high-quality courses below should count since their respective publishers (sometimes with foreign partners such as Berlitz) have all begun producing series of learning materials in other target languages although these are still designed for native speakers of Estonian or Finnish.

Estonian

E nagu Eesti (Mall Pesti and Helve Ahi)
T nagu Tallinn (Mall Pesti and Helve Ahi)
Saame tuttavaks! (Silva Tomingas)
Naljaga pooleks (Mare Kitsnik and Leelo Kingisepp)
Avatud uksed (Mare Kitsnik and Leelo Kingisepp)

All of the above are published by TEA Kirjastus.

Finnish

Finnish for Foreigners 1-3 (Maija-Hellikki Aaltio. Otava)
Hyvin menee! 1 (Satu Heikkilä & Pirkko Majakangas. Otava)
Hyvin menee! 2 (Kristiina Kuparinen & Terhi Tapaninen. Otava)
Kuulosta hyvältä - Sounds good (Lili Ahonen, SKS)
Sounds good - Kuulosta hyvältä (Lili Ahonen, SKS)
Suomen kielen alkeisoppikirja (Anna-Liisa Lepäsmaa & Leena Silfverberg. Finn Lectura)
Suomen kielen jatko-oppikirja (Leena Silfverberg. Finn Lectura)
4 persons have voted this message useful



DavidW
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6525 days ago

318 posts - 458 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Malay
Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, German, Urdu

 
 Message 3 of 12
26 November 2010 at 12:58am | IP Logged 
Chung, you seem to know your eastern european study materials well. What books would you recommend someone with a good background in Russian for studying Polish and Serbo-croat on their own? For audiolingual courses, I know there's the FSI course for S/C, and 'Beginning Polish.'
1 person has voted this message useful



Monte Cristo
Newbie
United States
Joined 5180 days ago

26 posts - 37 votes
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 4 of 12
26 November 2010 at 4:06am | IP Logged 
German

German without toil by Assimil
1 person has voted this message useful



Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7155 days ago

4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 5 of 12
26 November 2010 at 4:43am | IP Logged 
DavidW wrote:
Chung, you seem to know your eastern european study materials well. What books would you recommend someone with a good background in Russian for studying Polish and Serbo-croat on their own? For audiolingual courses, I know there's the FSI course for S/C, and 'Beginning Polish.'


It depends on how much money you want/are able to spend as well as your preferred method of teaching yourself.

In a certain way, it'd be better not to make too much of your background in Russian and to approach each successive Slavonic language with a mind that is as open as possible. Otherwise you run the risk of falling back on Russian tendencies or norms when running across what are or appear to be similar structures or words in Polish or BCMS/Serbo-Croatian. This kind of "falling-back" might not be fatal in the end but it may hinder you from learning Polish or BCMS/Serbo-Croatian "properly" and you could end up speaking these languages with a detectable Russian accent or "bias".

I think that Thomas Magner's comments in his textbook "Introduction to the Croatian and Serbian Language" may be instructive before I go further:

Magner, Thomas F. “Introduction to the Croatian and Serbian Language”. University Park: Penn State Press, 1995, pp. xi-xii wrote:
If you have previously studied Russian, your knowledge of that language will be helpful in approaching Cr&S. For one thing, it will be easier for you to master Serbian Cyrillic, once you have learned the small differences between Serbian Cyrillic and Russian Cyrillic. But be careful: Similarities are not identities. Both Russian and Cr&S have the word sestra, "sister," and mikroskop, "microscope," but in Russian the stress accent is on the final syllable, that is, "sestrá" and "mikroskóp", while in Cr&S, which as a general rule never has an accent on a final syllable, the accentuation would be sèstra and mikròskop. And what language scholars call "false friends," that is, words that look alike but have quite different meanings, can cause confusion and sometimes embarrassment. For example, in Russian urók and ponós mean "lesson" and "diarrhea," respectively; in Cr&S, however, ùrok means "a spell" or "a charm," while pònos means "pride."

Unlike Russian and English, Cr&S has no reduced vowels; every vowel in Cr&S gòvorite, "you speak," is pronounced as spelled, while in Russian vi govoríte only the accented vowel is pronounced as spelled. You will notice that it is not necessary to use the pronoun in Cr&S, since pronouns are used only for emphasis: vi govorite, "You speak." So while a knowledge of Russian can be helpful, don't lean on it too heavily; Cr&S and Russian are distinct languages.


As I mentioned at the beginning, good materials to get started in either language will depend on how much money you want or are able to spend as well as your learning style.

See the sections for "Books" and "Links" in the Collaborative Profiles of both BCMS/Serbo-Croatian and Polish for detailed information.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Lance
Newbie
United States
Joined 6997 days ago

17 posts - 19 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 6 of 12
02 December 2010 at 3:09am | IP Logged 
For Spanish I like the materials from bilingualamerica.com and their new website speakspanish.com

Lance
1 person has voted this message useful



NuclearX2
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5107 days ago

10 posts - 11 votes
Speaks: Italian, English*
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 7 of 12
03 December 2010 at 2:45am | IP Logged 
The Case Book for Russian by Laura A. Janda and Steven J. Clancy

I've only begun to go through it but looking through the contents and skimming it, it
seems to have a wealth of information on the case system, as well as exercises at the
end.
1 person has voted this message useful



Jinx
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
reverbnation.co
Joined 5692 days ago

1085 posts - 1879 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, French
Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish

 
 Message 8 of 12
08 January 2011 at 1:37am | IP Logged 
Maybe we should add this book to the list for Arabic. I haven't used it myself, but in the thread about it people seemed very enthusiastic.


1 person has voted this message useful



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