No comments about Burmese Self-Taught - Burmese & roman Characters with phonetic pronunciation (Thimm's System).

2 comments about Burmese: An Introduction to the Literary Style, Book 4 (Book + 1 Cassette).

1. There is no other equivelent for studying Burmese in english other than John Okell's books. I have the entire series along with the tapes and they are all excellent. My only wish is that these tapes will be converted to CD. I learned Burmese from my parents, but cannot read, write, or understand formal speech. His series of books and tapes have helped me tremendously.



2. Once you have a good grasp of Okell's Introduction to the Burmese Script or have mastered the basics on the seasite website, you can plunge into learning the literary style of Burmese.
   
   This book uses actual Burmese texts to build your vocabulary and knowledge of the literary forms not generally used in the spoken language.
   
   Unless you are able to devote full-time study to this book, I highly recommend you gradually and patiently assimilate the material. I now try to read something in Burmese almost every day, even if only for five mintues, and sometimes up to an hour (and sometimes I have to look up most of the words in the sentence!!). With a regular attention to reading, I've found that now the material in this book can be learned much more quickly.
   
   Excellent resource!!!

No comments about Pocket Burmese Dictionary: Burmese-English English-Burmese (Periplus Pocket Dictionaries).

1 comments about Burmese: An Introduction to the Spoken Language, Book 2 (Book + 14 Cassettes).

1. There is no other equivelent for studying Burmese in english other than John Okell's books. I have the entire series along with the tapes and they are all excellent. My only wish is that these tapes will be converted to CD. I learned Burmese from my parents, but cannot read, write, or understand formal speech. His series of books and tapes have helped me tremendously.

1 comments about Judson's Burmese-English Dictionary.

1. It's pretty old version of the dictionary and might not be helpful for modern users of the language. Still it's better than nothing and for them to keep the old book alive in good condition, it's good job. I wish there's a more updated one though. I mean, this talks about court language, which is not used anymore in modern day Burma.

2 comments about Burmese for Beginners CDs.

1. The book is very useful over all. But there are some printing errors for Burmese words. I am native burmese and I've felt some of the words or sentences are very former and too difficult for beginners to understand. The book comes together with CD. In the CDs, the pronunciation of the Burmese is not professional.



2. As for the quality of the product, not knowing Burmese myself I can't really say much. The book seems useful and I would recommend it for someone like me trying to learn something about this language on my own. When I received the CDs they were damaged and didn't play. Upon complaining with Amazon, however, I received a very quick response, and got my new CDs in a couple of weeks (I'm an international costumer) free of charge and without even needing to return the old ones. I'm fairly new to Amazon and was positively impressed with the service. The new CDs work just fine and I would like to say 'jeizutinbade' to Amazon costumer service!

No comments about Burmese: A Course in Four Volumes (4 Books + 34 Cassettes).

1 comments about Burmese for Beginners Book and CDs Combo.

1. I do wish there were some pauses and prompts to repeat between each of the audio clips on the CD's. The book is well organized and supported by the CD's, the combination gives you a thorough structure in which to struggle with the tonal language that is Burmese. I intend to be able to cover the basics before arriving in Myanmar and hopefully master "I would like a beer please...No, make that two beers" in time for Dinner on the first day. I think I have my hands full and Burmese for Beginners is keeping me on track very nicely thank you.

3 comments about Burmese for Beginners.

1. Let's face it - Burmese isn't the easiest language to learn. But if, like me, you are serious about learning the language, this book, along with the accompanying language CD, will get you there. By the time you finish this book, you should have enough basic Burmese knowlege to puzzle your way through a newpaper, and order off a menu, as well as get around Yangon.
   
   I've been working through the book for the last few months, and I feel that I'm finally making progress.
   
   The book is clearly written, with numerous examples, and pronunciation guides throughout. Also important for a book you'll be paging through for months at a time, the book is very sturdily constructed, and my copy is still in rather good shape.
   
   This isn't a perfect book by any means (I'd love to have seen far, far more pages on the alphabet, since though everything is covered, it's covered a little quickly), but this book is *so* far ahead of every other commonly available resource on the Burmese language, it easily earns the 5 stars I'm giving it.
   
   If you don't have ready access to a native Burmese speaker, I strongly recommend the Burmese for Beginners CDs as well.



2. The book is good but it makes it much easier to understand and help with the pronounciation when you have the CD's to go with it.



3. This book is pretty good, although I do have some issues with it. It could cover grammatical points more thoroughly, and it would benefit from expanding its drills to include substitution drills. The CDs are truly needed to get the pronunciations and tones right; recorded drills would be beneficial. An index of vocabulary would also have been useful. That said, given the dearth of decent materials available, this is a very welcome foundation book.

1 comments about Burmese Phrasebook.

1. Here's what it comes down to: If you're going to Myanmar/Burma and don't have a phrase book, then get this one for yourself and tell everyone else you're going with to get it!
   
   I lived in Myanmar for a while and found this quite useful, especially back when I knew only a few words of Burmese. I would stumble through and try to pronounce the text and fail miserably (though not the fault of the book as they do a good job trying to discuss pronounciation).
   
   Then I would point to the word or phrase in the book. The person I'm "talking" with would then stare at the page for a moment, see the Burmese script, then understand what I was trying to say.
   
   Now that I can do basic conversation and basic reading/writing, I've found it to be a good resourse to keep on hand.
   
   So, if you're going to Myanmar/Burma, take this phrasebook along, you won't regret it, even if you do have to point to the text because of your poor pronounciation!!
   
   My only complaint is that there were times where it seemed additional phrases should be included in this type of phrasebook to make it as comprehensive as other ones.
   
   By the way, just about everyone I showed this phrasebook to wanted a copy so they could learn more English. You might even want to order a few extra for your trip to give away.