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TY Complete Estonian | ||
Tags: Estonian | Teach Yourself | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5952 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 7 19 April 2011 at 10:27am | IP Logged | ||
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I've just started learning Estonian, and decided to go with the Teach Yourself Complete Estonian course. My initial impressions are that it's a good course compared to other TY courses. This course is a revision of their recent original course from 2008. They've broken with their usual format, and started with some essential vocabulary instead of pronunciation in Unit 1. The pronunciation is covered in Unit 1, but after some rudamentary expressions.
The audio with the course is very good, if somewhat limited, like all TY courses (2 Cd's). The audio tracks are broken down much finer than other TY courses, where a single track typically covers a whole unit. There are multiple tracks per unit on TY Estonian. I've only started the course since this morning, so my verdict may change as I progress. I'll update this topic when I'm further into it. Has anyone else used it, and what do they think ? Edited by DaraghM on 19 April 2011 at 10:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6957 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 2 of 7 19 April 2011 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's definitely one of the better offerings from the series. It has its flaws but they're nothing in comparison to those of its nearest competitor in Colloquial Estonian. I completed the first edition of TY Estonian but based on your comments, the change seems restricted to the first unit, and so it seems that you'll learn the same stuff as I did.
If you're interested, see my comments on the course in the Estonian Profile under "BOOKS". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5952 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 3 of 7 21 April 2011 at 11:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks Chung for the update, and pointing me to the extensive Estonian profile on this site.
I avoided Colloquial Estonian as it had the same author as Colloquial Latvian, Christopher Moseley. Knowing Colloquial Latvian was appalling, I assumed the same applied to this course. I checked the reviews on Amazon for Colloquial Estonian, and they were even worse than I expected. I may also use the FSI style course, "Basic Estonian" mentioned in the Estonian profile. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5952 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 4 of 7 09 June 2011 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Having completed just under half of this course I'll add a few quick observations.
While the course is good, it needs a lot better editing. I found that too many dialogues were missing translations in the key, and some had extra vocabulary not featured in the dialogue. This was further compounded by some of the exercises which featured answers that weren't taught up to that point. This happens quite early on in the course and would be extremely disheartening for a newbie. The dialogues on the CDs are spoken at almost native speed with strong intonation. This has its benefits and drawbacks. While you get to hear Estonian as it's really spoken, it can be hard to discern some word boundaries and the finer details of pronunciation. I would prefer if the dialogues were slightly slower at the start. Given the lack of materials for Estonian, I'd just about recommend it, but the older course Basic Estonian is better. Edited by DaraghM on 09 June 2011 at 3:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6957 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 5 of 7 09 June 2011 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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That's interesting. In the first edition I got no translations with the dialogues and don't remember being surprised by new concepts or vocabulary that were taught in later chapters. I actually like the native delivery (one of the course's speakers reminded me a lot of one of my Estonian friends) and figured that I may as well as get used to it from the start.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tedmac278 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4101 days ago 23 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Estonian | Message 6 of 7 20 February 2013 at 12:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi everyone!
I'm new to this forum and am officially saying hello! Hopefully this thread isn't dead. I've been flirting with Estonian for the last month or so. It's really a beautiful language and intrigues me. I recently ordered the TY complete Estonian, the newer version. I actually have the older version on my bookshelf but I don't have the CDs. (I found it on an airplane a year ago). The audio component is the main reason I ordered the new book, in adition to the good reviews online. I'm curious if you guys know what the difference is between the old version and the newer version? Also has anyone tried this online estonian course by ImmiSoft? : http://www.integrationresearch.net/immisoft-e-courses.html The sample videos I've seen on youtube look interesting enough to me. The course seems to be aimed at people who need to use the language in their daily life in Estonia, which is what I'm after. I was thinking about getting this and using it in conjunction with the TY course. Thoughts appreciated! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6957 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 7 of 7 20 February 2013 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | ||
Based on a comparison of the kits "Teach Yourself Serbian" and "Complete Serbian" (I bought the former for peanuts and checked out the latter from the library), the audio on the different editions of TY Estonian (now called "Complete Estonian") is almost certainly identical (it is for those Serbian courses). The difference is instead primarily cosmetic except for the inclusion of short "self-tests" comprising 10 questions or so at the end of each chapter of the new editions. These self-tests are a dubious improvement in my view since their questions are frequently ones asking you merely to translate to English what a certain phrase or sign in the target language means. Whoopty-doo. Regardless of which edition you'll use, you'll have what I deem to be the best self-instructional beginners' kit for Estonian in hard copy. Kitsnik and Kingisepp did a big favour for Hodder and Stoughton's TY brand (it certainly helps that the erstwhile competitor, Christopher Moseley's "Colloquial Estonian" is worse than toilet paper). 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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