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Elementary Vietnamese, Third Edition: Moi ban noi tieng Viet. Let's Speak Vietnamese.
"This is a superbly constructed textbook written by an experienced teacher for the benefits of beginning learners of Vietnamese…Professor Ngo is to be congratulated on his outstanding achievement; he has indeed produced a powerful tool in the area of learning resources for Southeast Asian languages."—Nguyen Dinh–Hoa, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Foreign Languages, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
This is a complete language course designed for college or high school–level classroom use or self–study.
Since its publication in 1998, Elementary Vietnamese has become the leading book for anyone wishing to learn Vietnamese, and an invaluable resource for people traveling, studying or working in Vietnam. This bestselling book was originally developed for classroom use at Harvard University, where it has been field-tested for many years. This revised Third Edition has been thoroughly updated to reflect recent developments in Vietnamese speech patterns and culture over the past decade.
The main focus of Elementary Vietnamese is to assist learners in developing basic skills in listening, speaking, writing and reading the language. It serves a secondary function as a general introduction to modern Vietnamese society and culture, with dialogues, cultural notes, exercises and readings drawn from contemporary life and popular media there. Elementary Vietnamese is designed for effective self-study as well as for use in a college-level classroom. Features of the Third Edition include:
-Many hours of new audio recordings by native Vietnamese speakers
-Innovative pronunciation drills to help you to achieve near-native pronunciation ability
-New usage examples, cultural notes, and exercises along with photos showing life in Vietnam today
-A guide for instructors ("New Edition Notes") detailing changes made in the Third Edition
The MP3 audio recordings which accompany this book are of native Vietnamese speakers. These recordings cover:
1) all dialogues, narratives and vocabulary;
2) grammar and usage notes;
3) everyday Vietnamese idioms and expressions;
4) a unique set of pronunciation drills to help you speak like a native; and
5) commonly-used proverbs, to help you speak and understand colloquial Vietnamese.
This is a complete language course designed for college or high school–level classroom use or self–study.
Since its publication in 1998, Elementary Vietnamese has become the leading book for anyone wishing to learn Vietnamese, and an invaluable resource for people traveling, studying or working in Vietnam. This bestselling book was originally developed for classroom use at Harvard University, where it has been field-tested for many years. This revised Third Edition has been thoroughly updated to reflect recent developments in Vietnamese speech patterns and culture over the past decade.
The main focus of Elementary Vietnamese is to assist learners in developing basic skills in listening, speaking, writing and reading the language. It serves a secondary function as a general introduction to modern Vietnamese society and culture, with dialogues, cultural notes, exercises and readings drawn from contemporary life and popular media there. Elementary Vietnamese is designed for effective self-study as well as for use in a college-level classroom. Features of the Third Edition include:
-Many hours of new audio recordings by native Vietnamese speakers
-Innovative pronunciation drills to help you to achieve near-native pronunciation ability
-New usage examples, cultural notes, and exercises along with photos showing life in Vietnam today
-A guide for instructors ("New Edition Notes") detailing changes made in the Third Edition
The MP3 audio recordings which accompany this book are of native Vietnamese speakers. These recordings cover:
1) all dialogues, narratives and vocabulary;
2) grammar and usage notes;
3) everyday Vietnamese idioms and expressions;
4) a unique set of pronunciation drills to help you speak like a native; and
5) commonly-used proverbs, to help you speak and understand colloquial Vietnamese.
- GenresLanguage
288 pages, Hardcover
First published May 10, 2013
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51 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 6, 2014
There are very few Vietnamese language college-level textbooks for English speakers, so in that context, this is not a bad book. However, that does not mean that there are some problems with it.
Two things that annoy me the most are the treatment of vocabulary and the E-V and V-E dictionaries in the book's back matter. In each chapter, new vocabulary is introduced in the dialogs and there is a vocabulary list for each dialog. This would be fine if the dialogs were the only place that new vocabulary was introduced, but it is not. Frequently, especially in the earlier chapters, new words will be introduced in exercises, drills, and even in the grammar sections. Yes, the English is provided parenthetically, but that still makes it difficult for students to learn to locate and study all the new information in a chapter. It would be much better if there were single vocabulary list with all the new vocabulary that is introduced in that chapter.
I have a problem with the English-Vietnamese and Vietnamese-English dictionaries in the back matter. Not every word in one is found in the other. In other words, the E-V dictionary may give the Vietnamese word for some English word, but if you go to that word in the V-E dictionary, it is not there. Any language book (or bilingual dictionary) should have "mirror-image" word lists.
A third, but less irritating issue is that the chapters present dialogs that are of a more social, tourist type of conversations, rather than professional or business situations.
The book and its accompanying CD focus on the Northern (Hanoi) dialect, yet most of the overseas Vietnamese, especially here in the USA, are originally from the South and speak the Southern (Saigon) dialect. This not only makes it difficult to engage Vietnamese in conversation, it can, for political reasons, antagonize some.
Two things that annoy me the most are the treatment of vocabulary and the E-V and V-E dictionaries in the book's back matter. In each chapter, new vocabulary is introduced in the dialogs and there is a vocabulary list for each dialog. This would be fine if the dialogs were the only place that new vocabulary was introduced, but it is not. Frequently, especially in the earlier chapters, new words will be introduced in exercises, drills, and even in the grammar sections. Yes, the English is provided parenthetically, but that still makes it difficult for students to learn to locate and study all the new information in a chapter. It would be much better if there were single vocabulary list with all the new vocabulary that is introduced in that chapter.
I have a problem with the English-Vietnamese and Vietnamese-English dictionaries in the back matter. Not every word in one is found in the other. In other words, the E-V dictionary may give the Vietnamese word for some English word, but if you go to that word in the V-E dictionary, it is not there. Any language book (or bilingual dictionary) should have "mirror-image" word lists.
A third, but less irritating issue is that the chapters present dialogs that are of a more social, tourist type of conversations, rather than professional or business situations.
The book and its accompanying CD focus on the Northern (Hanoi) dialect, yet most of the overseas Vietnamese, especially here in the USA, are originally from the South and speak the Southern (Saigon) dialect. This not only makes it difficult to engage Vietnamese in conversation, it can, for political reasons, antagonize some.
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June 1, 2022Digital version contains numerous errors
Being a new student to Vietnamese, I did not notice the numerous errors. luckily, my instructor pointed them out by showing me the PRINT version, which is always correct. The most common digital error is an incorrect letter e replacing the correct letter o in a word. For example: clock in the printed version is Đồng hồ ,but the incorrect digital version is đếng hế Similarly, pink in the printed book is hồng, but the incorrect digital version is hếng. There are other types of errors too numerous to detail here. Save yourself a ton of trouble and buy the hardcover book.
Being a new student to Vietnamese, I did not notice the numerous errors. luckily, my instructor pointed them out by showing me the PRINT version, which is always correct. The most common digital error is an incorrect letter e replacing the correct letter o in a word. For example: clock in the printed version is Đồng hồ ,but the incorrect digital version is đếng hế Similarly, pink in the printed book is hồng, but the incorrect digital version is hếng. There are other types of errors too numerous to detail here. Save yourself a ton of trouble and buy the hardcover book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews