Teach Yourself Bengali Complete Course Package

by William Radice

Bestselling language courses now with audio CDs! From Danish to Spanish, Swahili to Brazilian Portuguese, the languages of the world are brought within the reach of any beginning student. Learners can use the Teach Yourself Language Courses at their own pace or as a supplement to formal courses. These complete courses are based on the very latest learning methods and designed to be enjoyable and user-friendly. Prepared by experts in the language, each course begins with the basics and gradually promotes the student to a level of smooth and confident communication, including:

Genres: Reference

Paperback

First published July 21, 1994

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

[Lisa Faye · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great way to learn to write Bangla! When I started reading this I could speak quite well and had a large vocabulary, but my comprehension was not so good and my reading and writing were nil. I have been using this for a month and supplemented it with 2 days a week with a teacher. My progress has been amazing! I can sound out words on signs, write quite well, guess at spelling for many words - and generally feel really confident!

I would say that it is best to have a tutor as well for a few reasons:
1) pronunciation is of course important;
2) it is really good to learn the Bengali alphabet in the right order, but this book teaches you the letters and the sounds - it's like learning S then G then I then O, but not being able to say your ABCs;
3) some of the letters can be difficult to write without having a teacher to show you some little tricks;
4) sometimes the book uses Bengali words that are not actually commonly used, so it was good to have a native speaker along to teach me the more natural words; and
5) while you learn to write immediately, I think that it would have been frustrating if I didn't have a bit of vocabulary and grammar before starting to write.

I also wish that I had the version with the CDs, but I got it for free, so no complaints!

[Araminta Barlow · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is the standard course book for Bangla but the Teach Yourself series like the Colloquial series moves too fast from beginners to literature.

[Az · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was ok. Don’t have anyone to practice Bengali with but the book was sufficient for a $1 investment.

[Siddartha Sikdar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a Bengali - I would approve this as a good attempt for a Bengali 101 for western audiences.