3 comments about Rama and the Demon King: An Ancient Tale from India (Gujarati-English Bilingual Edition).

1. Whether you are familiar with the Ramayana or not, this is a wonderful introduction to the main plot and characters. My 4-yr old daughter likes this story and actually has grown to love it more. It is very difficult to create a kid-friendly version that is nonviolent but also educational. Jessica Souhami does a wonderful job. I hope such a book will come out regarding the Mahabharta.



2. My children have loved this book since I purchased it about 2 years ago (they are now 4 and 6). The illustrations are wonderful and the story beautifully told. I would highly recommend this to any parent for their young children.



3. We bought our son several books of Hindu tales. This was his favorite. It was easy for my 4 year old to understand this version of the Ramayana. I would recommend this.

5 comments about Oxford Fowler's Modern English Usage Dictionary.

1. It is somewhat amazing that this book, first published in 1926, is still in print. The language has changed quite a bit since then; thousands of words have been added, hundreds have gone obsolete, and hundreds more have had their meanings shaded; and of course many of Fowler's pronouncements are now merely echoes of battles long lost or won. Not only that, but two newer editions of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage have been published, the excellent second edition edited by Sir Ernest Gowers in 1965 (now ironically out of print while the original finds yet another printing), and the not so entirely well-received (but underrated in my opinion) third edition, edited and revised by R.W. Burchfield in 1996.

   How to account for this phenomenon? Part of it is because Fowler's reputation only grew after his death as several generations of writers sang his praises and adhered to, or sometimes fussed about, his many dicta on usage questions both great and small. And as the years went by, and as the pages of his masterpiece gave way to wine stains and silverfish or the few remaining copies disappeared from libraries, he himself became a legend. Not everything he wrote is considered correct today, nor was it then. And sometimes the succinct yet magisterial little essays he wrote were followed by other little essays that were all but impenetrable, obtuse and somewhat overbearing. No matter. The good greatly outweighed the occasional misjudgment, and the education he afforded us remains.

   Another part of the story is that there is something very properly English and wonderfully nostalgic about the man himself. He was a bit of a character who lied about his age and joined the army when he was 56-years-old to fight the Germans in the Great War (only to faint on the parade grounds), a man who earlier gave up a teaching career because he did not feel it was his responsibility to prepare a student for the seminary. More than anything, though, the fact that this book is still in demand is a testament to the high regard and affection felt by the literate public toward Fowler himself.

   What Fowler knew and preached was that before we could presume to be literary artists or journalists or even authors of readable letters we must of necessity, if we are to be effective, be craftsmen. Central to his purpose was the belief that the right word in its proper place and context constituted the backbone and much of the muscle and sinew of forthright and effective writing. That belief along with Fowler's celebrated passion for the concise and the correct, and his intolerance of ignorance and humbug, coupled with his sometimes incomparable expression, long ago won him the undying respect and admiration of careful writers of the English language the world over.

   But this is something of a problem. Since Fowler last set pen to page some seventy-one years ago (he died in 1933), the English language has changed and grown enormously. What was correct and effective then, as well as what was ineffective, offensively brash or downright ugly has in some cases become acceptable and even felicitous. So, like it or not, Fowler had to be updated, and of course there was no shortage of lexicographers, linguists, grammarians, journalists and others looking to do the job. Furthermore, the "Great Divide" between American English and British English needed to be explained, recorded, and codified. Some of the people who have joined in this enterprise over the years have been H. L. Mencken, Jens Jespersen, Margaret Nicholson, Dwight MacDonald, Bergen and Cornelia Evans, and more recently, Bryan A. Garner and R.W. Burchfield, and many others. I think all of them, if they looked over their shoulder would see upon the wall an especially sober portrait of Fowler passing silent judgment upon their protracted labors. Certainly on their desks would be this book.

   So I recommend that you buy that very impressive book by Garner (Garner's Modern American Usage), especially if you are an American, or splurge for a copy of that underrated third edition edited by Burchfield, and that you consult them as well as this venerable authority. As you use the books you may compare and contrast and get a nice feel for where the language has been and where it is headed.




2. If you want to learn to write, start with 'The Elements of Style' - concise, clear, good advice, short and cheap. But if you want to learn about using English, from a wise opinionated teacher at once wry and passionate, start here.
   
   Other reviewers have said what needs to be said, but I'll summarise: it's out of date; it's written in an old-fashioned curmudgeonly prescriptive style; you can learn more about using English from this than from five other books of similar intent.
   
   Don't - please don't - even think of adhering dogmatically to Fowler's dictums. I think he'd turn over in his grave if you did. What you say and write is your responsibility; agree with him or disagree, but know why and everyone subject to your words will be better off.
   
   Oh, and the third edition is worth getting too, but is not readily comparable to this. It's a different style, and not as easy to use, I find. However, it's obviously far more current. In any event, since you can buy this edition for little more than postage, I'm aware of no better value deal on Amazon.



3. The content of this book is quite interesting, including all kinds of history of the usage of various words. However, it's very difficult to read, because the print is very blurry. It looks like it was photocopied from an older photocopy. They really need to redo the original.



4. This is a wonderful book, and will still be a wonderful book a hundred years from now. By then the English language obviously will have changed even more than it has since the book was written, so the details of the guidance Fowler gives will be less reliable. But the wit and sensibility of the book will still live on and make it a treasure for people who love words, in sort of the same way that Johnson's dictionary is still great reading now. (This can't be said for Burchfield's revision, or Garner's usage book, or most other books on language, which all are tied to their times.) Not the most practically useful language book to own anymore, but still one of the best anyway.



5. although the product was as promised, the delivery took several weeks. considering other vendors have shipped within the week - for the same $3.99 shipping charge - I don't feel the service is up to par.

No comments about The Leopard's Drum, Gujarati/English-Language Edition: An Asante Tale from West Africa (Dual Language).

1 comments about Vocabulary Tools: Fast and Easy Techniques to Grow Vocabulary for School, Work, or the SAT, TOEFL, TOEIC, GRE, Etc., Second Edition (English, Spanish, ... Gujarati, Bengali and Korean Edition).

1. Without using a dictionary, do you recall the meaning of "plutocracy", "thermophone" and "heliotrope"? Sure, their semantics may be easy for some native English speakers to deduce, but the exact meaning of their references to people, the senses and astronomy may elude others. And how would you apply these prefixes, roots and suffixes in a completely DIFFERENT context?
   
   I've found that "Vocabulary Tools" impressively delivers on its subtitle: "Books for busy people who want fast results". As a Business ESL / ESP teacher and trainer, I had decided to investigate this book as a possible vocabulary-building solution for my students' test-taking and business dilemmas. In short, I had been searching for a productive, systematic method for learning and generating vocabulary that renders results in a reasonably short period of time. Moreover, I wanted an interactive book geared towards both native and non-native learners.
   
   I've been really happy with my serendipitous discovery! I like how the activities in this book immediately engage the learner not only in comprehending new words but also in being able to generate words in diverse contexts. For example, students learn the meaning of words such as "fiduciary", "philogyny" and "pneumatometer" and then the methods in this book direct them to comprehend/use them in a completely different context, thereby solidifying their meaning.
   
   The workbook format is great for visual and kinesthetic learners, and I definitely plan to continue to use this as a supplementary text in future Business ESL / ESP, Academic ESL reading courses and standardized test training workshops.
   
   Ms. Weinstein, well done!

No comments about English-Gujarati and Gujarati-English Word-to-word Bilingual Dictionary.

4 comments about Colloquial Gujarati (Colloquial Series).

1. A good basic book for beginners. The first few lessons use romanized transcriptions after which the book relies on the Gujarati script. Note that the book is available with or without accompanying cassette tapes. The first printing was marred by a number of typos which could be confusing to complete beginners; I hear they were corrected in later printings.



2. This book is organized the way American high school French and Spanish books are organized, so it will be familiar to anyone who was raised here. In each concise chapter, you learn to conjugate a verb or two (and nothing is backwards--it all makes sense--I, You, He/she, etc...), you learn some key words about a topic, you get a grammar lesson, and you read a phoenetic conversation between two people on the topic while listening to it on the tape. The topics are important: weather, food, rooms of a house, and so on. The book is really geared to quickly get you over your initial fear of speaking and to make it as simple as possible without diluting the material. It is good for absolute beginners as well as people who have been around Gujarati speakers for some time. I've tried other books that were no help. This one is different because it is "colloquial." It teaches you practical things you need to know, and it's fun and easy--even for novices like me. At the end you learn about writing in Gujarati. There's a lot more too--but the main thing is that it's fun, and in five or ten minutes you can learn a few phrases that will take you a long way. Then you're hooked, and you want to come back the next day to learn more.



3. I read this book 6 months ago, ready to write a review, which I never really got around to until now. I was planning a review of great detail, with many direct references to the book, but instead this shortened rundown is what I give you.
   
   One merit of this book is that it is at least a book, of Gujarati. There is only a small amount of teaching material on this language, and this is some of it. It may serve as a standard introduction or refresher to Gujarati, but it is riddled with problems. It is really quite bad.
   
   First, the dialogues and their translation don't match. This isn't just in a few little places - this is systematic, consistent; it happens over and over and over and it absolutely boggles the mind. Really, what is this? Unbridled idiocy or sadism? How is one to learn? And it's not as if I'm complaining about how the translations aren't word for word. I assure you, I know that when translating one must keep in mind contextual equivalency in addition to literal equivalency. But here it's not even a matter of that. The English passages can be so sloppily off the mark. A chapter or section may introduce a grammatical feature, and when that feature is put to use in the corresponding passage, to be noticed and learned, it'll turn out totally mistranslated (progressive past as simple past for instance). But mostly it's these non-grammatical, small wrongs that are oh so numerous, that run throughout the book. Inexplicable things like "Oh, today so and so is also with you!" becoming "Oh, so and so is also with you!"... why oh why, did you find it necessary to omit the `today'? This continuous occurrence gets to be very infuriating.
   
   Also, there is so much missing in content and depth. Here are at least two absolutely fundamental things I remember noticing that lacked any explanation: the hoi/ho/hoie forms of hovu, and reverse verbs like khabar hovi, laagvu, and gamvu. These are two things of a great many. I compel knowledged speakers to go to the `Tense' portion of the `Reference' section and laugh at its patheticness.
   
   And then, much of what IS there is explained so poorly and rushedly. Relative pronouns and the passive voice are two examples. Other times a thing will be explained much too late. I remember the emphatic ja being used for at least 50 pages before there being any discussion about it.
   
   For script, this book has a system of romanization-only in the beginning, and Gujarati-script-only after that, which is ridiculous. It should have been beginning: Rom+Guj, afterwords: Guj-only. Also, the romanization is non-standard.
   
   If there is anything that somehow stand outs about this book, I would say that it's the "tidbit" information: colloquialisms, pre/suffixes (esp.), etc. Otherwise, get Teach Yourself Gujarati by Rachel Dwyer instead. With Gujarati being as obscure as it is, unsurprisingly the book seems to have been discontinued. Now you can get it as a free PDF on her website. It's not perfect either, but it's deadly close and is the best there is. Perhaps I should write my own book, lol.



4. I second the below reviewer. I would give this book fewer stars if it weren't for the fact that there is a dearth of books on Gujarati for native English speakers out there. In the light of that, this book is not completely useless.
   
   My biggest problem with this book is that the glossary in the back is far from complete. (To put it more emphatically, if more colloquially: it SUCKS.) Not every word that appears in the English->Gujarati section appears in the Gujarati->English section, and vice versa. Furthermore, not every vocabulary word introduced in the individual lessons is included in the glossary either. This becomes a problem, as the vocabulary lists at the start of each chapter do not generally give the gender of nouns, and if these words are not in the glossary, then nowhere in the book will you find the gender of that noun. In Gujarati, you need to know the gender in order to conjugate adjectives and past tense verbs, so this can be a problem. Secondly, in at least one case, perhaps more, the vocabulary list has given a definition for a certain conjugation of a verb as used in the dialog for that chapter, rather than the root or infinitive of the verb. Of course, the same verb doesn't appear in the glossary in any conjugation.
   
   My second largest problem is that, though Dave mentions in the Introduction that there are 4 main dialects of Gujarati, he neglects to mention which one the book is written in, let alone a brief description of the differences between them. (I think part of this is meant to be taken care of by using speakers of various styles of pronunciation on the tapes. However, without an explanation that that is the case, and in cases where one doesn't have easy access to cassette players, this is of limited utility.)
   OK, fine, it's common practice for a language book to be written in one dialect of a language, usually the most common. However, Gujarati as written in the book is different from what my in-laws speak. I realize that not everyone will have this problem, but my M-I-L said she doesn't know anyone who talks the way the book is written. Sure, this is a minor question of pronunciation, generally, but it took me a few days of being surrounded by fluent speakers to realize this, and in the meantime I sounded like a fool. One small tip-off in the text would have helped.
   
   A third annoying thing- that dialect tip-off, among other things, may yet be in there. Rather important pieces of information are kind of buried in odd places, and as I'm still shaky on the script, I haven't been able to read through the whole book yet.
   
   There are several more things I'm annoyed with- the tapes not matching the book, the sloppy English translations of the dialogs, the errors in the answer key to the grammar exercises, the bizarre matching exercise where, in matching 2 columns of words, some of the "matches" are synonyms, some are antonyms, some are classes of things- all within the same exercise! And of course, using grammatical forms in one chapter that don't get explained for 2 more chapters, and giving out vocabulary of questionable application. Do I really need to know how to point out the location of a vegetable garden before I am able to describe the what sort of weather we're having? (This latter complaint is one I have for all the books in the Colloquial... series that I've come across so far. The others are Japanese and a 50-yr-old edition of Czech.)
   
   To summarize: if you have the choice of something else, get it.

2 comments about Learn Gujarati in a Month: Easy Method of Learning Gujarati Through English without a Teacher.

1. NAMASTE! I wish there were more like it! I attempting to learn Gujarati through books... this is not "ideal." However, this book has helped. I have purchased everything on Amazon I could find on the language and this book and the software are pretty much what gets used the most.
   -Joe



2. You could not learn Gujarati in a year with this book. It does not teach conversational Gujarati but instead teaches how to read Gujarati script. Even my girlfriend, a native Gujarati speaker, laughed at this book. Very disappointing.

2 comments about Gujarati Dictionary and Phrasebook: English-Gujarati / Gujarati-English (Hippocrene Dictionary & Phrasebooks).

1. There is no pronunciation section in this book. I had to figure out the pronunciation by looking at the order of letters in the Gujarati-English section of the dictionary, which is arranged not according to the English alphabet, but according to the Gujarati alphabet, even though it is romanized. This romanization is quite strange. In some cases, h means aspiration, but in other cases it means a dental sound. U with grave accent is not a vowel, but a retroflex aspirated t. Capital O with circumflex accent is not a vowel, but a retroflex aspirated d.
   The grammar section is a little bit better than the romanization, but also inadequate. No mention is made of the oblique case, the nominative is treated as if it is the only case in the language. There is no section on pronouns. Several pronouns are finally mentioned in the section General Words and Phrases, but with no indication that Gujarati distinguishes between exclusive and inclusive 'we'. There is some inconsistency in the transcription, in the grammar section 'boy' is chhokro, in the dictionary it is chhokaro. And there are other examples. This inconsistency is not explained.
   At least the cultural section of the phrasebook seems good, quite detailed.



2. This is, without question, the worse book I have ever purchased. The pronunciation system utilized is awful! Simple words, those words one would expect would be represented in any dictionary, can't be found. What a disappointment.

2 comments about Universal English-Gujarati Dictionary.

1. I teach ESL and I bought this dictionary for my 2 students, and they seem quite pleased. I don't speak the language, so I can't review its quality. :)



2. I was disappointed with this dictionary. The print quality is very bad and for the price I expected more.

No comments about Learn Tamil in a Month: An Easy Method of Learning Tamil Through English without a Teacher.