5 comments about Bahasa Indonesia Book 1: Introduction to Indonesian Language and Culture (Bk.1).

1. Most language learning books are quite similar. No one writing a book is going to make a breakthrough in teaching a foreign language. The trick is to write a book in a way that the reader will be interested and will not give up. The format of this wook is exactly that. It tells short stories in every chapter. Readers are naturally intrigued about what will happen next, so if the book is written well, readers will keep on going. An interesting story will also make it easier to remember the vocabulary, as it creates easier associations in the learner's mind. An interesting thread stays longer in someone's mind, so that it makes it easier to retrieve a particular sentence. The book does not overburden the reader with grammar explanations. Grammar explanations are necessary indeed, but they should never surpass the story or conversational section. The natural way of learning does not involve understanding why things are said one way or another, although the adult's mind tends to always want to understand "why." The natural way or acquiring a language, however, takes about 7 years of constant exposure. In order to accelerate this, memorization techniques and grammatical explanations are commonly used as tools to teach a language. As these tools are artificial, it is best to reduce them to the minimum level. This book follows quite well the above precepts and allows the learner to immerse himself in a story and start acquiring the language.



2. I'm really satisfied with this book! After three months of self-study, I was already able to communicate about everyday life issues in Bahasa Indonesia!
   It's well articulated and well done, really! You shouldn't miss this book!
   A+!



3. This book has a wealth of information in it, and I am sure I will learn a great deal of bahasa indonesia with it, however I feel as though the organization in the book is lacking. The vocabulary is spilled at you at the beginning of each chapter and sometimes the words are somewhat related to a common theme but more often than not they are not. The book has many of the words in Indonesian in the back with a glossary which only goes from Indonesian-English. However there are many words that the book uses which are not in the back, leaving the learner clueless as to what they mean without having the aid of a dictionary. I feel that a grammar book should include all the words it uses in the back in a glossary from the language to English and vice versa ESPECIALLY with a language with such long and interesting spellings as many of the words in bahasa indonesia have. If you are willing to work with the style (which I don't particularly care for) I think you will learn though. PLUS remember there aren't very many other choices out there for you outside of this and TY Indonesian. This book is a standard in many universities for Indonesian programs around the world, so it does deserve credit. I will continue using it since I don't have much else from which to choose. I think with a good dictionary and a little work to organize the topics in such a way that you learn better from it this book would be much better than it is as is.



4. No pretenses are made that this book is written for the serious student. If you are just looking to spend a few weeks in Bali and want to pick up some phrases to get by, this is not the language book for you. There is in fact very little material in the book that would be useful to the average tourist. The goal of this book is to help the motivated student build a strong foundation in Indonesian grammar. It is assumed that you will read more on your own as your understanding of the grammatical structure of the Indonesian language enables you to do so. Vocabulary will therefore be built by repeatedly referring to dictionaries.
   
   What I like most about the book is its step wise towards helping students master increasingly complicated sentence structures. I took the author's advice to heart and mastered the material page by page. As I look back, I am actually surprised at how far I have come from where I had begun. Even though you probably cannot read an article from say [...] without painfully looking up the majority of the words from a dictionary after finishing book one, it becomes possible to do so whereas it would have been very unlikely for those who have not been introduced to the Indonesian language to get the sense of what the text in any news article says.
   
   It is a great text for those who care to make the long journey.



5. As with the first order, the book came in new condition and is easy to use.

5 comments about Teach Yourself: Indonesian.

1. To reiterate what a previous reviewer had pointed out, the "Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course" includes just the textbook, whereas the "Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course Audiopack" includes both the text book and compact discs. Contrary to what Amazon.com suggests, you need to only buy the "Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course Audiopack" to get the full benefits of the program.
   
   I purchased the "Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course Audiopack" several days ago, and after having had the opportunity to peruse the material for a bit, I must say that I am very impressed with what I have seen thus far. The material is presented in such a way as to make learning Indonesian effectively and effortless.
   
   For example, each chapter begins with a dialogue in Indonesian that pertains to everyday activities, such as eating out or asking for directions. Below the dialogue is a box filled with pertinent vocabulary words from the preceding dialogue. Next is an English translation of the dialogue to ensure that the student fully understands the meaning of the Indonesian dialogue. Succeeding that is a section entitled, "How the language works." Here, grammatical concepts and contexts of the vocabulary words relevant to the dialogue are discussed. Finally, several exercises are included in each chapter to reinforce the lessons taught. Do not worry, the answers are in the back!
   
   The compact discs mesh perfectly with the material in the chapters. Native Indonesian speakers act out the chapter dialogues, thus providing the student with the opportunity to practice their listening skills and learn how to properly speak Indonesian. The speakers on the compact discs clearly enunciate so there is plenty of time for the student to practice their Indonesian out loud if desired.
   
   Overall, the "Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course Audiopack" is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in learning Indonesian. As a student of Indonesian myself, I highly recommend this product for its exceptional effectiveness.



2. This book is very easy to use, being well laid out and organized and introducing vocabulary in manageable pieces throughout each chapter. Another nice thing is that the book alternates 50-50 between formal situations and casual situations so you can become familiar with both styles of the language. So far the book is fun and motivating and makes me want to study much more than my other books do.



3. I'm half way through this course and it's pretty easy to use, and the topics and dialogues are relevant and interesting. There is material on the cd's to help you get accustomed to hearing spoken Indonesian, which is great if you live somewhere with very few Indonesian people like I do.
   
   I have two minor criticisms:
   
   1) During the dialog practice there is often not a long enough pause on the cd to allow you to finish saying your part of the exchange. This is not a big deal if you have an ipod and can easily pause and rewind with little trouble. But it's a bit of a hassle when you're using a home stereo and you have to pause it.
   
   2) Sometimes the dialogues contain a couple of words that are not in the vocabulary key for that dialogue, and sometimes not even in the glossary at the back of the book. That has caught me off-guard a few times when I didn't have my dictionary with me.
   
   But all in this is the best introductory course I've seen, and a much more interesting way to start off than using Yohanna Johns's "Bahasa Indonesia" (which looks better for long term serious study).



4. My husband started using this book before I did..... as I preferred to speak to the people and learn that way.
   NOW I WISH I had started sooner using this very book myself!
   
   I does teach you all the necessary vocabulary easily!
   
   THUMBS UP!
   
   Wish it was available on Kindle!



5. Great content but poor organization as with every TY book. I would just once like to find one that has any kind of logical order. I mean really can you really have awful order that many times over and over. Do you never learn anything from all the comments saying so with EVERY language book TY does. If you are willing to sort out the order of things than you will make good use of this book.

5 comments about Comprehensive Indonesian-English Dictionary.

1. let me give an example 'obat:remedy,berobat:to take medicine,mengobatikan:to cre,terobati:cured,bengobat:medicine used to treat,bengobatan:therapy'. so,you see two many variations deriving from the word 'obat'we can multiply similar examples.this dictionary is full with derivations of a great deal is used in sample sentences. a monumental work on indonesian language.



2. I'm so happy to find this book. This is the most comprehensive Indonesian-English Dictionary you could find. Highly recommend to anybody!!!



3. It's simply the best Indonesian-English dico there is, better than the other alternative An Indonesian-English Dictionary (Hardcover). The lemmata are more current.



4. Good printing and up-to-date grammatical items. For many indonesian dictionaries,they did not indicate the future-tense usage for the word of hedak, while this one, it put it as the first one definition in its lemmata. Very good dictionary indeed.



5. The "Comprehensive Indonesian-English Dictionary" by Alan M. Stevens and A. Schmidgall-Tellings is what it promises to be: a very comprehensive and up-to-date dictionary. I have not yet come across a modern word not included in the dictionary. The lay-out and print are also pleasing to the eye. It is simply an excellent 5-star dictionary.

1 comments about Tuttle Pocket Indonesian Dictionary: Indonesian-English English-Indonesian.

1. This is an excellent book; both in its content,size and durability...a good item for anyone seriously interested in studying the language.
   
   Kali

5 comments about Indonesian, Compact: Learn to Speak and Understand Indonesian with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon & Schuster's Pimsleur).

1. Pimsleur is the fastest way I've found to learn to speak a language. Their method gives you the ability to make a sentence in a very short time, whereas every other course I've found simply has you memorizing words (eg, Rosetta Stone), without every knowing how to use them in conversation. Unfortunately, this course is just a teaser. Apparently, Simon and Schuster doesn't believe that anyone wants to continue learning this language, because they only put 10 lessons in this course, and they don't have any more courses in this language! That is very disappointing, because now I must find another way to build my vocabulary. S&S - get off your butts and finish the job!!!!!



2. I've used the Pimsleur method in the past for learning basic German. They use a good pace for learning pronunciation and rythem of a language. You're not going to get any grammar lessons but it's a great start to get the gist of the language.



3. I bought this product for my recent trip to Bali, Indonesia. This was an easy to use Indonesian language mini-course. I was able to listen to this on my iPod every day leading up to my trip. Not only did I learn some basics vocabulary, I was able to piece together other phrases and sentences from new words I learned once I was in Bali. The only downside is that this particular course is so much shorter than other Pimsleur language course. For an eager beaver like myself, I was able to complete this course in a matter of one-week. Not a bad product for an introduction to the Indonesian language.



4. great system
   Whole family into it.
   kids and adults alike
   learning heaps.



5. This is a great product for beginners who have a hard time with pronunciation. The speaker will go through each syllable of a word until you have the accent right. You will quickly learn easy and useful phrases. Due to the repetitive nature of the course, you will remember words and phrases much more easily.
   
   They use a "recall" method, meaning you are taught different words and phrases and then the speaker will ask you a question and you try to give the appropriate answer ("How are you?" "I am fine"). You have to apply what you are learning, so that it isn't just memorizing words and phrases. This method requires more than just listening so that the phrases go deeper in the memory as a result of a little more effort: and yet in the same amount of time for someone who wants to learn some basic Indonesian quickly. I bought this product 2 years ago and STILL remember the phrases and words I learned. I didn't do anything else that would help me (no traveling to Indonesia, no Indonesian friends, etc). So it's thanks to Pimsleur it stuck.

3 comments about Essential Tagalog Phrase Book (Essential Phrasebook Series).

1. The book is divided into section such as "emergency," "food," etc. Being someone who understands the language it's a nice refresher on how to speak when traveling. It does not have a pronouncination guide so someone who's still learning or has never spoken it may have trouble. It about the height/width of a paperback but thin. It can fit in a small purse, not so much in a "pocket."



2. This phrase book is awesome! I'm trying to learn tagalog so I use it all the time. My mother was really surprised when I started using some of the phrases of the book! It's really great and I would recommend it to anyone trying to learn tagalog.



3. I just adopted an older child from the philippines and this book was a great way for me to have some phrases to speak to him in his language. I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, as soon as he saw it he confiscated it to use with his friends!!! Now I'll have to order another one.

5 comments about Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course Audiopack.

1. I've owned this product for several weeks now, after having completed the only (introductory) course offered by Pimsleur. Sorry, guys, but this audio CD course presumes that one can master a dozen new words in 30 seconds, pushing you right into a real-time conversation after only having heard the parts once. You can learn some helpful phrases, if you listen to the same lesson 10 times (eventually, you can catch on). However, the method of learning is quite inferior. The only saving grace is that it does have a decent book that comes with the 2 CD's. If you study the book, you can learn a lot of words, and listening to the CD's will give you the proper pronunciation. I just wish Pimsleur would offer a complete course in all of their available languages, because they are the best! My suggestion - buy Pimsleur to get started, then get a good dictionary and an Indonesian friend.



2. takes you right through everything you will need to know for the basics and into more advanced material A++++ I recommend



3. I bought this thinking I can pop the audio cd in my car and ride around and listen to this and learn bahasa. Like I did with pimsleur mandarin chinese. Well, you can't do that with these audio disc's. You have to sit down with the book and audio cd's and listen and read along. So annoying if you don't have the time to do this.
   
   My car cd player wasn't seeing the tracks correctly and I couldn't start at the beginning of the lessons I wanted. I went forward from lesson 1 and it went to lesson 8. Tried to get back to lesson 1 and it took me to the very beginning .... I'm going to have to RIP this cd to a new cd and isolate the lessons track by track. I'm going to give this 3 stars based on this unfunctionality of this disc.



4. This is a review of Teach Yourself Indonesian Complete Course Audiopack (2003) with 2 CDs by Christopher Byrnes and Eva Nyimas.
   
   I think this is probably the best introductory course available for autodidacts. The language is contemporary and immediately useful for travelers and long-term residents. The program includes such activities as introducing oneself, shopping, ordering in restaurant, making travel arrangements, daily "small talk," and, ultimately, talking about preferences and opinions at a basic level. New material is presented in short, lively dialogues, which are recorded at a reasonable speed on the accompanying CDs. Succinct and clear grammatical explanations with examples and charts and a variety of short exercises (with answer key) reinforce and expand on the points introduced in the dialogues. Attention is paid to registers (formal/informal) including an introduction to the "highly informal" Indonesian spoken among friends. The Indonesian system of word bases, prefixes and suffixes with associated phonetic changes is (relatively) painlessly introduced with a vocabulary of about 1,500 words. All and all, it's an excellent value for the money.
   
   It is not, however, without faults. The published text is clearly a heavily-edited and trimmed manuscript that didn't get a final close look: Some words are defined repeatedly while others never are; the glossary is hit-and-miss; the introduction of numbers 11-19 is skipped over; and there are typos in the text and errors in the answer key. All this is, in my experience, very rare in the Teach Yourself series. I hope the publisher will clean up this basically sound product in a later edition.
   
   As for the CD recordings, they are professionally done although the track allocation is exceedingly odd. New chapters sometimes start 3 or 4 minutes into a track - a real time-waster when you're looking to start a new chapter. The same material is recorded on tracks 10 and 11. The "Over to You" section wastes time going over the same material ad nauseam. This, too, seems like something the publisher would want to revise in later editions. I'd suggest that recording time thus freed up might be better used for additional number drills, question and answer drills on the dialogues, additional comprehension material, and pronunciation practice.
   
   Teach Yourself Indonesian will get you started and take you to the "advanced beginner" level (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: A2; Interagency Language Roundtable: 1/1+). For those who wish to study in greater depth, I suggest the following material available from Amazon.com (residents of Indonesia and Australia have a wider selection):
   --Bahasa Indonesia Books One and Two by Yohanni Johns. Published more than 30 years ago they are starting to show their age, but still offer a systematic and comprehensive (if not so exciting) grounding in the language.
   --The Learner's Dictionary of Today's Indonesian by George Quinn. I can't imagine any learner at any level not benefitting from and enjoying the examples and cultural asides in this dictionary.
   --Tuttle Concise Indonesian Dictionary. Most "concise" dictionaries are a waste of money; this one isn't and it's still "concise" enough to be conveniently carried.
   --Colloquial Indonesian by S. Atmosumarto. Too disorganized and too steeply-graded for a true beginner, this can serve as a supplement to other introductory programs.
   --Beginning Indonesian Through Self-Instruction by John U. Wolff, Dede Oetomo, and Daniel Fietkiewicz Books 1-3. The course offers very, very extensive memorization and drill exercises - which some students will swear by and others swear at.
   Selamat belajar! ("Enjoy your studies!")
   
   
   
   



5. This is a great compliment to the Pimsleur discs as neither is completely satisfactory for various reasons. The Pimsleur is great for pronunciation and basic vocabulary, but the Teach Yourself is great for further expansion of the language, plus there are written exercises and a dictionary. Both are great methods. I use the Pimsleur when I am driving or working on the computer and the Teach Yourself when I can focus all my attention on my language study. I don't feel either one is a complete way to master the language, but used together my mastery has certainly evolved. Bottom line, don't expect one cd or one book to give you everything to master a language. If you really want to learn, you know that it will require both verbal repetition and visual/tactile cues.

5 comments about Tuttle Concise Indonesian Dictionary: Indonesian-English English-Indonesian.

1. This is my second Indonesia-English dictionary (other is Oxford), and I find that this one is a little more comprehensive. Indonesian is a language that uses prefixes on verbs, so sometimes the words are hard to find, if you don't understand the structure well. However, this one goes beyond the call of duty and lists many verbs with their prefixes. If you are looking for this type of reference, I don't think it gets much better than this, though it still falls short of a "full" dictionary.



2. I find the Tuttle Dictionary most useful as it usualy contains most of the words I am looking for. The only problem I found was that it does not allways explains the context of the word. For example: but -conj tetapi, tapi, namun; kecuali
   Luckily I have a friend in Indonesia whom I can ask. Otherwise I am very happy with my purchase and with the language course, it is very useful.



3. This is a vast improvement over the old Tuttle Indonesian dictionary. An attempt was made to define specific versions of an Indonesian word rather than have the user wade through a long list of variants. The printed page is much more attractive and the binding much better (for the past 2 years, the old Tuttle has been in pieces fluttering around my room). This is a must buy for Indonesian word users due to the inexpensive price and careful and exciting revision. And please -- throw away your exhaustively worn previous Tuttle paperbacks before they totally rot!!



4. high quality, good price, arrived on time, will do business with this company in the futures.



5. Great small dictionary that would be easy to keep with you when travelling or studying. Very good lay out and colored for easy reference.

3 comments about Indonesian: Lonely Planet Phrasebook.

1. I found the phrasebook very good, coupled with an indonesian speaker,to use as an assistant helped greatly. Hopefully money well spent, as I will be in Bali in October (08)and putting my new found language skills and phrases to the test.



2. Used this book for West Papua and Java. It is particularly good as it has many phrases of the sort we use a lot, referring to trees, birds and animals. Also many useful social phrases that were out of the ordinary, even political!
   If you get off the beaten path, you will need some help, and this is well worth the money.



3. I actually have two Lonely Planet Indonesian phrasebooks: this one (5th edition) and the 4th edition which has a purple cover. Both are great and will help you with the basics of Bahasa Indonesia but they do have good points and bad points.
   
   The 4th version has a neat section on some basic grammar which I thought shouldn't have been cut down in the current one. I noticed many of the phrases make use of the prefixes and suffixes which have been wiped out in the 5th ed in favour of using more root words. I've compared the phrases in both versions and the 4th not only uses longer words but sometimes completely different words to the this one when their English equivalents haven't changed at all. I'm not an expert on the language but the assumption is that the 4th edition uses 'proper' Indonesian more akin to grammar books while this is laid back, perhaps closer to normal speech? Assumptions aside, I noticed several reviewers gave their 4th edition phrase books to Indonesian friends and it is important to mention, it does indeed have impressive cultural knowledge tidbits that are vacant in some of the Indonesian courses on the market ("Colloquial Indonesian" by Routledge, which I also own).
   
   As I mentioned above, the latest edition has been simplified. The grammar section, although not cut out entirely is reduced by not adding the information about word formation (the prefixes, suffixes etc). The author has replaced it by several pages dedicated to some of the other major languages of the archipelago, namely: Balinese, Benuaq, Bugis, Galelarese, Javanese, Lani, Minang, Sasak, Sundanese, Toba Batak, and Toraja. I don't know how practical they are as there's only 3-4 pages dedicated to each but they're an interesting addition nonetheless. At the very least, you can say thank you "matur suksma" in Balinese to the woman that just massaged your feet and she'll bow her head, laugh that you used her local language and continue chuckling as she walks off, you left wondering whether it was the shock that a foreigner knew Balinese at all or just thinking you're an idiot for using the local tongue (It's too hard to tell!)
   
   The next version of this phrasebook would do well to re-introduce the word formation section and keep the small part dedicated to the other languages, why can't we have the uniqueness of both editions? Also to make more of an effort (if possible) to ensure the speaker uses the right tone of language for the right situations. No one wants to use complex language when it's not needed, nor do they wish to sound like a fool for using overly simplified language or coming across as using Tarzan/street/babyish/disrespectful speak.
   
   Despite the small criticisms, this book helped me in the most amusing way... my mother was attempting to get a purse made in Bali but wanted leopard print design. When she told the two men who were going to make her purse, they looked at her quizzically and made a cute mispronunciation "lee-o-pard?". The first thing I did was quickly dive into my trusty phrasebook and hope that it would have the equivalent for leopard within and it did! "erm, macan? kulit macan?" I threw into the air and they understood immediately. "Ooo macan, ok!". It was the first and most pleasing experience i've ever had with one of these gems, as I knew we potentially overcame agonizing minutes of useless charades and repetitions trying to get across the exact animal print we were looking for.
   
   These things do come in handy, and not just for communicating with speakers who have zero English!

5 comments about Instant Indonesian: How to express 1,000 different ideas with just 100 key words and phrases! (Instant Phrasebook Series).

1. I used this book as a follow-up to Pimsleur's and was impressed with its quick-start format. I'm a language buff, so have used a lot of methods and products covering many languages over the years. This is a handy way to quickly pick up useful vocabulary.



2. This is a wonderful book to help learn the language but it goes hand in hand with the flash kit. This book provide lots of useful phrases which help to learn the Indonesian language. I recommend to buy this book if you order the flash kit.



3. this little book is great. the style of info presentation is what is so different, gets you started learning the most commonly used words first. my mom was from java indonesia, and was a bahasa indonesia and jawa (indonesian and javanese language) teacher for 45 years, so i've seen a lot of indonesian language books through the years. she thought highly of this book and even bought one for all of her kids. ibu sri always knew quality when she saw it! grab the book, check it out - it's reasonably priced so what can you really lose?
   
   can anyone recommend a similar style book for learning french?
   
   thanks / terima kasih banyak / matur nuwun



4. I purchased this little book so that I may be able to learn some Indonesian before traveling there this winter... I understand why some other reviews mentioned it is not well organized - the author could have done a little better by making dividers and such, so I'm using one reviewer's advice by having stickynotes - but I am finding this book to be rather helpful for learning some key words and phrases! I did, however, also purchase the Lonely Planet's phrasebook, as I find it to be very detailed and divided into catagories that will hopefully be easy to use in specific situations. Knowing that I'll be in areas without English speakers for weeks and weeks, I think I can use all the help I can get!
   There is also some helpful advice in here about social situations, and the importance of Pak and Ibu (similar to the importance of Usted in Spanish) for respect.
   I know it got some bad reviews, but I bought it anyway, and I like it! If you're willing to spend some time studying, and want to become a decent speaker, this book will work for you.



5. Not useful as a phrasebook or a language-learning tool. Stick to Lonely Planet for phrasebooks, and Rosetta Stone & Pimsleur for language learning tools.