[.ca] Say It in Danish (ISBN 0486208184)

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This pocket size book attempts to teach the reader basic phrases and sentences in Danish by printing them phonetically in English. This is a great concept- but instead of spelling things foe-net-ik-lee, they use all of those annoying symbols that one generally finds in a pronunciation key at the begining of an american dictionary (the upside down and backwards e, the little lines over an a or an e, etc. for example). So unless you are an English major and understand the meaning of these american language symbols- you will never understand this book. Also, even when you try to figure out what all the symbols mean- the pronunciation that you end up with sounds nothing like the danish word. My husband is from Denmark and I have been struggling with the language for years. I suggest that you get Colloqial Danish with the audio tapes if you don't know anyone who can demonstrate the pronunciation for you.

Buy the Whole Series-- They fit in your Breast Pocket:
This is the best language book I've ever bought, and I speak good German and Spanish in addition to English. I picked this book up used for \ocheap\c at a cozy bookstore in historic Julian, CA. Frustrated to death with tapesets that have no booklets, booklets that are impossible to read, rote memorization of "vocab" lists that aren't used in conversation-- this book was a refreshing alternative. As someone who speaks English and German, Danish was an easy-to-comprehend mixture of the two. The book starts out with hundreds of common phrases "I'm from America" "I'm here on business," "Where can I find good theaters..." and then introduces more vocabulary words. They've brought out all the essentials of the language, in a clear, pocket-size manual you can carry around in your shirt pocket while bicycling Europe. If you get one Danish book, get this one-- and buy some others from the set. Say it in Japanese, Say it In Norwegian, Say It in German, Turkish, Arabic, French... the list is comprehensive. All the books follow the same excellent model. I totally disagree with the reviewer who hated the phonetic symbols. What's so hard about the shwah (backwards e), long a, short a, etc.? Any high-school grad should understand these symbols. It's the ONLY way to communicate pronunciation clearly. That's why dictionaries use it. Can you understand the dictionary? However, her recommendation of the other tapes was helpful... maybe I should check those out!