Complete Bengali: A Teach Yourself Guide

by William Radice

It's easy to teach yourself Bengali! Complete Bengali: A Teach Yourself Guide provides you with a clear and comprehensive approach to Bengali, so you can progress quickly from the basics to understanding, speaking, and writing Bengali with confidence. Within each of the 24 thematic chapters, important language structures are introduced through life-like dialogues. You'll learn grammar in a gradual manner so you won't be overwhelmed by this tricky subject. Exercises accompany the texts and reinforce learning in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This program also features current cultural information boxes that reflect recent changes in society. Features:

Genres: Language

448 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2010

About the author

William Radice was a British poet, writer and translator. He was also the senior lecturer in Bengali in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His research area is in Bengali language and literature. He translated several Bengali works, and works by Rabindranath Tagore and Michael Madhusudan Dutt.
Radice adapted the text Debotar Grash by Rabindranath Tagore as an opera libretto, which was set to music by Param Vir as Snatched by the Gods. He wrote the libretto for a children's opera Chincha-Chancha Cooroo or The Weaver's Wedding with music by Bernard Hughes.
He published nine volumes of poetry ranging from Eight Sections (1974), Strivings (1980), Louring Skies (1985) and Gifts (2002) to his latest two books This Theatre Royal (2004) and Green, Red, Gold, a novel in 101 sonnets (2005) which were hailed by A.N. Wilson in The Daily Telegraph as stunning. He has also fore-worded the a collection of translated Tagore poems, Soaring High, written by Mira Rani Devi.
In 2002, he published the voluminous (784 pages) Myths and Legends of India, a collection of 112 of his own retellings with selections from P. Lal's ongoing transcreation of the Mahabharata. Along with the major Hindu myths, he included legends and folk tales from Muslim, Buddhist, Jain, Syrian Christian and tribal sources.
His mother was the editor and translator Betty Radice.

Reviews

[Indian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish all language books were written with the same kind of flair, passion and beauty that this author William Radice had brought forward through this book.
One can tell immediately, how much love this author has for writing books, for the topic at hand he has.
He gives numerous examples of the beauty and the eccentricity of the Bengali language to make clear his claim with such authority, which only a scholar like he can or perhaps Rabindranath could bring through his Sahaj-Path books.
This book would have a long shelf life for all those who are trying to learn this language through English.