No comments about An Intenstive Course in Telugu.

2 comments about English Telugu Pocket Dictionary.

1. If you want it to learn spoken Telugu, don't get it. I thought it would have pronounciation of the Telugu words, but it didn't...only written Telugu.



2. Authoritative Dictionary by fine lexicographer of the 19th century,found in every Telugu household ;Serves as an excellent resouce to learn and hone one's language skills ,Can be used as an advanced reference by foreign students,as it was written for native Telugu speakers.At later time it was updated by great linguists and lexicographers like Gidugu and Ch Rao.No dictionary to date can be compared with Sankara Narayana's !!

1 comments about Talk Now! Learn Telugu: Beginners (Talk Now!).

1. an absolute waste of money. My fiancee speaks Telugu native and she says a lot of words are simply wrong. E.g. they show right as in the direction but use the word for "correct". That in addition to poor pronunciation. the only way they show the words is in Telugu script. so the only way to learn is by listening to poor pronunciation of wrong words. If it wouldn't be so much work I would return the product.

No comments about Spoken Telugu: Book I, Units 1-30.

1 comments about A Poem at the Right Moment: Remembered Verses from Premodern South India (Voices from Asia , No 10).

1. A Poem at the Right Moment offers a rare chance to take an inside look at culture in south India. The poems are a snapshot of an evolving verbal form of verse called catus. The verses are known and recited with personal modifications by many literate people in south India. They may mention well known poets, such as Kalidasa, but don't necessarily refer to the actual person. Kalidasa may be incanted in a modern setting, or be conversing with another poet from a different time period. Poetry and poets from former times are reinterpreted in the context of today's world in south India, in a form I found very refreshing.

No comments about Learn Telugu in a Month.

No comments about English-Telugu Dictionary (Readwell's).

2 comments about Spoken Telugu: Units 1-12 (Spoken Telugu).

1. Both my brother and I bought the book/tapes and were severely disappointed with the quality. Errors were not edited out, and the accent/pronunciation was very poor according to all the native Telugu speakers to whom we showed the product. Amateurish and overpriced.



2. I have spent a lot of time looking for books written to help English speakers learn Telugu. Unlike the previous reviewer, I have found the audio cassettes to be of great help. Are they worth the price? It depends on your resources and how urgently you need to learn to speak Telugu. A friend of mine from Hyderabad laughs at the Andhra man speaking on the tape because his voice is not exactly melodious, but she tells me that his pronunciation is good. More on the tapes later. I have many bad things to say, but one thing must be understood - I cannot think of a better way to learn to speak Telugu without a personal tutor. No matter what, DO NOT buy this book without some source of audio accompaniment, either from the tapes or a friend. You've gotta have aural reinforcement to make this book work. There are much more appropriate books out there if you're only interested in learning to read and write Telugu (this book largely avoids Telugu script and focuses on Romanized Telugu).
   
   First, the pedagogical approach taken by Lisker is unlike any others I have seen in language instruction books. The book begins with the compulsory 'introductions' section but quickly strays far from the beaten path. Where most books might introduce the basics of sentence structure or present logically grouped nouns or adjectives, Lisker presents very brief dialogs (mostly 4-8 sentences) including some of the most bizarre words imaginable - i.e. 'small river island' and 'chameleon.' It's hard to imagine how he chose these words, and the silliness made it hard for me to take this book seriously at first. Most other words are, however, appropriate.
   
   Now, a few words on the tapes. They're very strange. The American woman sounds like Jan Brady (but more subdued), the Telugu man sounds like he's not trying very hard, and they both seem to be absolutely miserable. The only traces of emotion are in the form of laughter after verbal gaffes (by the way, the tapes don't seem to be edited in any way). The errors on the tapes are rare. Not all the material in the book is recorded on the cassettes, and some of the material chosen for inclusion is downright mindless. For instance, somewhere in the early chapters, the presenters substitute the same list of 15-20 vocabulary words into three similar types of sentences. It's analogous to an English book having a list of 20 adjectives and saying, "Now, listen as we substitute each and every one of these adjectives into the following sentences: (1) I am ____ (2) She is ____ (3) He is ____." Does that sound a little silly? Well, it sure is. Especially when the book has much more useful lessons to teach that didn't make it onto the tapes.
   
   The book never presents grammar in a traditional fashion as it continues to rely on a commented conversational approach to introduce new concepts. If you are looking for a more rational, structured introduction to Telugu, I suggest 'A Basic Course in Modern Telugu' by Krishnamurti and Sarma. For a serious grammar book, you might try 'A Grammar of Modern Telugu' by Krishnamurti and Gwynn. Unfortunately, both of these are out of print (I think).
   
   Despite some goofy repetition, as mentioned above, the tapes have helped me learn to parse Telugu spoken at normal speed. The dialogs from the earlier chapters are presented very slowly, as one would expect. From somewhere around chapter 10 onward, though, the presenters speed up quite a bit. By the time I had gotten to this level, I was able to keep up with the dialog. I now feel that I can improve my Telugu by watching subtitled Telugu movies. Before listening to these recordings, I was overwhelmed by the speed of most spoken Telugu.
   
   While the book and accompanying audio cassettes have many shortcomings, they serve as an excellent introduction to the spoken language. Because of the unconventional pedagogical approach, these materials require more dedication on the part of the student than a conventional introductory language textbook. This book is very dense, and a dedicated student would get much more knowledge out of it than out of most introductory-level language books its size.

1 comments about Learn Telugu in 30 Days (National Integration Language).

1. There aren't very many options for learning Telugu available. Given the limitations, this book is definitely worth the price. The claim that you will learn in 30 days is not accurate. The book is very small, almost a pamphlet, and is limited in content. You can pick up some useful vocabulary, but not enough to have a real conversation. The verb tenses are covered, but there is no discussion of irregular verbs, which in my limited knowlege don't appear to be rare. There are no discussions of sentence structure, or grammatical patterns, such as the way many adjectives seem to be completely altered when used to describe an object. I'm still trying to figure that out. Another problem is that in the phrase section of the book, the words run together without spaces between. This makes it very hard to figure out which part of the sentence is what, and reverse engineer the grammar.

2 comments about Telugu-English Dictionary.

1. As a Telugu Speaking person, i rate this Telugu-English Dictionary, the " best " available book in the world market. I personally thank C.P. Brown for his effort in publishing this book. I used refer this book when i was at school.



2. Originating from Europe, it was really great on
   Sir C P Brown, for not only learning to speak,read and write Telugu,
   but also to be able to deliver such works.

   He really served the Telugu language by collecting all the "Vemana padyalu" (stanzas by Vemana) and publishing them.

   Wish I can get more and more Telugu books from Amazon.com