No comments about Talk Now! Tamil: Beginners (Talk Now!).

No comments about Learn Tamil in a Month.

2 comments about The Four Hundred Songs of War and Wisdom.

1. Hart & Heifetz again prove that you don't have to be a dried up, passionless writer to generate fine scholarship. The translations are flawless, retaining all the grace, passion, and subtle flavor of the originals. Poetry has never been so beautiful or so bloody. A haunting loveliness combined with a window the steals an uncompromising glance at the capriciousness and creativety of a forgotten age. If your heart can bare such a relentless look into South India's forgotten past, you must read this book. An excellent source for hardened scholars, armchair Indologists, and poets alike.



2. George Hart and Hank Heifetz transport us in time to a fascinating ancient Tamil world of honor and valor. As a Tamil who knows Modern Tamil, but does not understand Classical Tamil too well, reading the translation and then going back to the originals helped me gain better insight and understanding of the originals. Wish the originals were printed alongside the translation!!

No comments about Narrative Strategies: Essays on South Asian Literature and Film.

No comments about Learn Tamil in 30 days: [the best book for beginners] (National integration language series).

1 comments about Sinhala Phrasebook.

1. Nice little book even though the language is crazy to try to learn.

1 comments about The Interior Landscape: Love Poems from a Classical Tamil Anthology (Oxford India Paperbacks).

1. Interior Landscape is the book you always hope to get - a poetic translation true to the original yet understandable to the reader. This is poetry at its best exploring human relationships. The introduction provides sufficient material to appreciate the aesthetic framework under which the poetry was originally written. But one can appreciate the poetry without knowledge of its background - in fact, without even considering that it is a translation.

3 comments about Colloquial Tamil: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series (Book Only)).

1. Though the authors have done a commendable job simplifying a very difficult language, there are several things that could be improved. The course is transliterated in Roman script rather than Tamil. Though useful perhaps for taking a holiday to India, it's not helpful for someone truly interested in learning the language. Also, the audio part of the course is spoken so fast that it's almost impossible for a beginner to grasp the sounds yet alone were the words break. I persistently struggled through it for one year before visiting India and will probably struggle another year since there is there is no other audio instruction available.



2. This is probably not the ideal book if you have NEVER heard/attempted spoken tamil before. But, if you are familiar with another Indian/South Indian language and want to learn Tamil, this is a good book. There are several very realistic dialogues with English transations that are used as a teaching aid throughout the book. Personally, I have found the book extremely useful, but I have lived in Chennai for 4 years and I can understand most of it. Thanks to this book, I have been able to talk to my mother-in-law in near-fluent tamil in about 4 weeks. Another problem is there aren't too many other Tamil books out there, so by all means, give this a try. Overall, it is a very well written book.



3. I'm sorry to differ with the other reviewers, but I found this book to be extremely difficult to deal with. For openers, the dialogues are presented in a very "realistic" setting - a little too realistic for the student who is not already familiar with the phonetic system of Tamil. At first try, you will find it hard to believe that the speakers on the CD are actually saying the words in the book.
   
   Secondly, the grammar is presented in piecemeal, not to say chaotic, fashion. An incredibly large amount of data about verb forms are thrown at you immediately, with little attempt to structure it in a way to be more easily assimilated.
   
   Thirdly, as has already been mentioned elsewhere, the writing system is only presented in a cursory fashion. It would be much better if it were presented the way that, say, the Hindi script is presented in "Teach Yourself Hindi."
   
   I am not a beginner at this sort of thing; I speak over ten languages, although this is the first Dravidian language I've tackled. I honestly think that the writer couldn't make up his mind what his audience would be.
   
   As for myself, I have found that various free online programs present this material much more intelligently, and I use this book (and the CD's with it) just for learning vocabulary.

2 comments about Colloquial Tamil Compact Disc: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series).

1. These books are not available Seoul, Korea, and so this was a gift. To a lingist and friend who expressed interest in Tamil. Eaxactly right for that kind of person.



2. I got this CD to learn how to SPEAK Tamil. I did not find this CD that user friendly. If anything, I would compare it to taking a college level Tamil course, when one really just needs a Berlitz immersion course.

1 comments about Tamil Dictionary & Phrasebook: Tamil-English / English-Tamil (Hippocrene Dictionary & Phrasebooks).

1. There are limited Tamil resources available in the US, and this was the first dictionary/phrasebook I found. It does not use the Tamil script-- it only offers romanised words, which I find frustrating as a beginner trying to learn how to spell Tamil words. The phrases seem useful; the two-page cultural overviews and tourist tips are just half-hearted attempts. It's better than nothing, but not a substitute for a more complete dictionary.