[.ca] Colloquial Indonesian Pack: The Complete Course for ... (ISBN 0415429285)

Good excercices, bad structure:
Lets start with whats good about this package; You get two tapes,so there is enough listening material. The grammar is clearly explained without difficulty. The material covers good areas suited for a beginner. The are many excercises to give you a thorough understanding of the grammar and sentense building. Ok so why not 5 stars? First of all; to my great irritation, when you come to certain dialogues at the middle/end of the chapter there are words and expressions which are not covered in the current chapter - it is explained in usually the following chapter. Some words may occur in a dialogue, when searching through the chapter and previous ones and not finding it - you try to use the glossary at the end of the book, but there is nothing there. The so-called glossary is of very little use. Another problem has to do with the pronounciation of 'e', which sometimes is pronounced like oe, sometimes 'e' as in pet. In many other books on indonesian, words where 'e' is pronounced have markings such as a '`' above it (in most respectable dictionarys this is also used). But in this one its not, with listening excercises its no problem but there are at least two extra dialogues in each chapter without listening tools so you don't know how to pronouce those words correctly. But I consider these problems to be minor ones. As long as you get an indonesian-english dictionary to find words and get the correct pronounciation of 'e', this course is very useful, mainly because of its very extensive excerices and tapes. Just remember to get a dictionary where the different pronounciations of 'e' is clearly market out.

Comprehensive, easy-to-use course:
Colloquial Indonesian is a comprehensive textbook, logically arranged and easy to use. Each unit contains prose and/or conversational passages, grammar and plenty of exercises. The Indonesian verb, with its system of affixations, is taught in a lucid and easily comprehensible manner. The book also contains a good 'Ready Reference Grammar'. When you finish this course (count on taking six months) you will have a thorough grounding in Bahasa Indonesia. I found the accompanying cassette tapes, which are recorded by native speakers, very useful. I can find only one fault with the book - the author introduces a lot of vocabulary which is not to be found in the Indonesian-English glossary at the back, so you really need a dictionary to get the most out of it. Despite this, I enjoyed the course and often return to it for revision.