Colloquial Hungarian (Colloquial Series)

By Jerry Payne

Book Overview

Colloquial Hungarian is easy to use, with helpful instructions. Specially written by experienced teachers for self-study or class use, the course offers you a step-by-step approach to written and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415045894
• ISBN13: 9780415045896
• Release Date: June 1987
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.9" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Colloquial Hungarian by Jerry Payne

I think this book is great. However, the complexity of Hungarian requires a LOT of study, and hence, I recommend you get the cassette with it, and play it over and over and over and over again until the pronunciation exercises and first two dialogues make you sick. Once you have done this, the material in the book is much clearer, and like the other reviewer said, allows you to learn and get into Hungarian very quickly. Stuff I learnt in chapters 1 and 2 of this book I use regularly in Hungary and it seems to work! Be prepared for two months of vowel sound learning though - not a fault of the book, but the fact that Hungarian is very hard to pronounce, learn and understand - but nothing ventured...I do it for fun and I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to start - the dialogues are also funny, though I don't think anyone says "elvtars" in Hungary anymore - making this slightly outdated, but very enjoyable!!

A good introductory book to get you started.

The book starts with pronunciation exercises, and then consists of a series of lessons, each of which simulates a common scenario setting (restaurants, gas station, etc). It presents new vocabulary and a few grammatical rules along the way. It makes for easy reading, and along with the tape can get you started easily into the language. However, if you want something more than "survival hungarian", you will need to go on to an intermediate book. The learnings from this book will not allow you to have a full conversation, but only to interact as a tourist in Hungary.