Colloquial Slovak

by James Naughton

Colloquial The Complete Course for Beginners has been carefully developed by an experienced teacher to provide a step-by-step course to Slovak as it is written and spoken today. Combining a clear, practical and accessible style with a methodical and thorough treatment of the language, it equips learners with the essential skills needed to communicate confidently and effectively in Slovak in a broad range of situations. No prior knowledge of the language is required. Colloquial Slovak is exceptional; each unit presents a wealth of grammatical points that are reinforced with a wide range of exercises for regular practice. A full answer key, a grammar summary, bilingual glossaries and English translations of dialogues can be found at the back as well as useful vocabulary lists throughout. Key features Balanced, comprehensive and rewarding, Colloquial Slovak is an indispensable resource both for independent learners and students taking courses in Slovak. Audio material to accompany the course is available to download free in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

Genres: Language, Nonfiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published December 26, 1996

Reviews

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series is a great way to learn a language organically, as you listen to and imitate quick speech and common language. The lessons proceed in order of grammatical difficulty and do not attempt to explain too many rules at once, focusing instead on hearing the rules in the context of the dialogues.

The only reason I can't give this five stars is because Slovak is so fucking difficult. You'd be crazy to try to learn it.

[Felicia Latoya Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have yet to find an adequate book for learning Slovak. I thought this would be in with it's audio CD's and the reviews I read, but the context of each chapter bounces around. There doesn't seem to be any flow to any of the chapters which makes comprehension a little more difficult. For instance there could be a short paragraph about a specific preposition in one section, but the rest of the details for it isn't until several chapters. I found myself flipping around trying to find connections and hoping to understand so that I could communicate. The best part of this book was the beginning chapter on Slovak pronunciation (which is paramount to the learning process). After that, I was sorely disappointed. I use it along with other books to try to get a grasp on the language, but I found that I learned more from asking friends.

[Tyler · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this states it as being written for beginners, it is nothing of the like. Had I not known other Slavic languages before reading this I would have been lost by the third chapter. Instead I was lost by the sixth chapter...