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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Roger Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6406 days ago 159 posts - 161 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Indonesian | Message 1 of 58 13 November 2006 at 1:23pm | IP Logged |
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I was recently thinking of starting russian (as my italian is coming along nicely now) and was considering the 'Teach youself' range. However a friend of mine who speaks russian said the 'teach yourself' series is rubbish.
Anyone with experience of using the 'teach yourself' range (any of the language ones), i would appreciate any feed back. cheers 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6704 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 2 of 58 13 November 2006 at 1:50pm | IP Logged |
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The books are all written by different authors so the quality of the courses ranges from book to book. I've noticed that some courses are fairly good quality. I was quite impressed with 'Teach Yourself : Improve Your French' and 'TY : Chinese' but some of the others have been far from useful or user-friendly (eg. 'TY : Dutch Grammar).
I haven't had a look at every book in the Teach Yourself collection so it's possible that the overall quality of the Teach Yourself series is far from ideal. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Felixelus Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6652 days ago 237 posts - 244 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 58 13 November 2006 at 2:00pm | IP Logged |
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Since each TY book is written by different people it's difficult to generalise. Also the writers tend to deviate from the standard TY style depending on what language..well from what I've seen browsing through them for hours on end in waterstones!
I quite liked TY french and french vocab. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| OCCASVS Tetraglot Senior Member Poland Joined 6457 days ago 134 posts - 140 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian*, English, French, Polish | Message 4 of 58 13 November 2006 at 4:14pm | IP Logged |
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What do you think about Teach Yourself Russian Complete Course?
Consider that if I start learning Russian, I will do it seriously and I won't stop once reached basic understanding of this language. Edited by OCCASVS on 13 November 2006 at 4:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Roger Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6406 days ago 159 posts - 161 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Indonesian | Message 5 of 58 13 November 2006 at 4:33pm | IP Logged |
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Well i bought the TY instant russian, and the complete course, also TY russian script. i will let you know how it all goes, no doubt i will get stuck somewhere. Quite a good price, all of the listed for only £45. The author is daphne west.
I only wish someone made a michel thomas learning method to learning russian. Edited by Roger on 13 November 2006 at 4:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6682 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 6 of 58 13 November 2006 at 6:40pm | IP Logged |
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Please do let us know how your studies go.
I've read the TY books for Esperanto and Norwegian, and also have them for Finnish and Japanese, the latter two I've only began but didn't have time to complete. Overall I've been very satisfied with the books I've read, however, I've heard that some in the series are terrible and therefore I try to do my homework before buying one. I will say this about the Japanese one: I haven't given it my all yet, but that book does confuse me. It might end up going down as the first TY book I've read that I didn't like. The past few years, though, the series has been re-doing some of their titles, so it's possible that former shaky work books are much more improved now. I think I read that it was thus with Hungarian and/or Polish. Hard to say, at Amazon, the reviews for both editions are often lumped together, which makes things a headache. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| OCCASVS Tetraglot Senior Member Poland Joined 6457 days ago 134 posts - 140 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian*, English, French, Polish | Message 7 of 58 14 November 2006 at 8:30am | IP Logged |
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What's the learning method of TY courses?
Are they like Pimsleur, Assimil, FSI, etc., or have they a particular approach? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6970 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 8 of 58 14 November 2006 at 10:12am | IP Logged |
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The "Teach Yourself" series are usually designed for people who want to learn how to speak some of the language reasonably quickly. The approach is that every chapter has a few dialogues that get progressively more difficult. There are brief notes on grammar, vocabulary and a few exercises in every chapter.
In general, they are similar to the "Colloquial" series by Routledge. There's not much to choose between either series, since their layout and approach are similar. If you want some opinions about them, take a look on Amazon for reviews of these courses to give yourself an idea of what to expect. Teach Yourself books are usually a little cheaper than Colloquial books. In addiiton, I find that Teach Yourself books have funnier dialogues and introduce a lot more colloquial vocabulary (a little ironic considering the title of the series by Routledge). Assimil courses usually have funny dialogues, and in total just as many exercises as a Colloquial or Teach Yourself course. The biggest problem that I have with Teach Yourself series (and the Colloquial and Assimil series) is that there are too few exercises that let you practice and really retain the material. But for the price, Teach Yourself and Colloquial are good introductions to foreign languages and set you up decently for more advanced or comprehensive courses by FSI, Spoken Language Services or Linguaphone. Roger: Did you know that Princeton University has posted the materials for their introductory Russian courses SLA 101 and SLA 105 for free? Go to www.princeton.edu/russian I downloaded all of the files and they're full of exercises, dialogues and notes. There are 12 chapters for each course, and in turn, each chapter has about 10 lessons. Each lesson has its own exercises or dialogues. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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