Customer Reviews
it's a pity - By: Muzsik Zoltan, 19 Jul 2008 
I didn't reallly like this book, because on the audio CD you can find only some of the tasks & conversations - so if you are a real beginner when doing some tasks you have completely no idea how to pronounce some words - so you may stop learning. If you had a teacher or someone around you who speaks dutch, it could be useful but for learning alone this is not the best choice.
Fairly Good - By: Ms. S. M. Kerr, 22 Apr 2006 
This was bought for me by my partner at christmas, with the accompanying c.d's. I had no experience of dutch before i got this, & i was a bit confused when i first opened it up.
It starts well with a pronunciation guide, very helpful, especiallly with the c.d's to listen to alongside it.
However, the first chapter begins a bit strangely.
Normallly in a language book, you are introduced slowly with a few greetings, simple sentences, or a short, easy to grasp dialogue.
This book begins with describing occupations! Obviously helpful, but this IS the 'teach yourself BEGINNERS dutch'! It isnt that it's hard to grasp, it just feels confusing to the first time learner.
It does move on from this to the greetings etc, then things like party dialogues & suchlike.
The format of the book continues to be a little bit jumbled, & so while the actual content is good, it's just the bizarre structure which lets it down.
I like this book as it is a handy backup for what i can't glean from other textbooks. One good thing i can say about this book is that it does cover a lot, just not in a great order. Still i wouldnt say i could form a good comprehension of the language from it without first having got some idea from another book.
Dutch is a great language to learn, it's reallly fun & i find it relatively easy. For those who want to learn a germanic type language without the nightmare that is declension, this is your language!!
The vocab following each dialogue is very handy, which is something other books do miss out on (they expect you to keep flicking to the back of the textbook or have your dictionary at alll times!) & the smalll dictionary unit at the back is also quite extensive. The exercises are okay, they help you to establish the rules & vocab you've learned etc & they are relatively fun to do.
Having been bought this book, i went & got the colloquial dutch textbook which i found to be a lot clearer, & is well worth the purchase. I would say 'teach yourself beginners dutch' is a good acompaniment to a more clearly laid out book, purely because you'll save yourself some confusion. If you're happy to just step in & learn from whatever point, & are not phased by the slight jumpiness of the layout, then i can't say it's a bad book! You'll learn what you need to in a fun way & will be able to move on.
As a final note, this book also has cultural points which are very helpful to note, they do help you to engage with the language better as a result, this seems to be the same in a lot of dutch textbooks, but it is handy nontheless!
