Teach Yourself Catalan: Complete Language Course (Teach Yourself Language Courses)

by Alan Yates, Anna Poch

A guide to learning Catalan offers lessons on Catalan vocabulary and grammar, with practice exercises, reading selections, and suggestions for students, along with an English-Catalan, Catalan-English glossary.

356 pages, Audio CD

First published September 28, 2004

Reviews

[Ted · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well,this is a help, but you really can't learn a language by yourself. As fate would have it, I now have a private tutor--no fee!--at New York University. Her method is to speak only Catalan, and you have to find your own way into the language. (She uses a text book in which everything, even the instructions, is in Catalan.) It took me two classes before I admitted to myself that I needed an English-Catalan / Catalan-English dictionary. (She never suggested it or said I would need one.) And in fact they are very rare and expensive. I found a used Larousse version (the best of the available editions) in Paris (via Internet)that cost $45. *Intense homework*. This is really military grade instruction, way beyond the "total immersion" methods of yore. In addition, if you dislike humiliating yourself, you have to work incredibly hard every day at this very odd language. (E.g., the second conjugation of verbs has two, maybe three regular verbs; ALL the rest are irregular and must be learned one by one. This is a very Catalan way to go about things: gather a large number of unlike things under an apparently simple taxonomic heading. Then almost *everything* is an exception to the rule.) However, the results of my tutor's approach (I *really* dislike humiliating myself) are nothing short of sensational. After two weeks, I can already write a 500 word essay on how the housing market works in Nova York, including some historical background and a subtle "subtext" critiquing market capitalism. I can't believe how fast I'm learning, but it really is like going to Marine boot camp. By far the best way to learn a language--better even than having a lover whose native language is the one you want to learn, because in that case the things you learn really only are useful with the next lover who speaks that language--your vocabulary is just "massa intim" for use outside the bedroom. I'm having a blast, and my upcoming months in Barcelona will be hundreds of times more rewarding. Que be! Fins ara.