The Basque Language: A Practical Introduction (The ... (ISBN 0874171555)

Worth buying if you have the money.:
This book is an excellent refence book if one wants to use it in this manner. I have this book and have enjoyed it. The only problem I have is that there isn't any tapes that come with it so that a person can hear what the language sounds like. However, the author has remedied this with a slightly less expensive language learning set called "Colloquial Basque" that contains tapes so you can hear the Basque language spoken. This set happens to cost much less. If you want to find it here, just look up the title and you will be able to see the price for it here at amazon.com

Best By Default:
There are no other Basque language textbooks to speak of, so this one is necessarily the best, because it is a competent attempt. If you're a serious learner, this book will put you a good ways towards achieving your goal.

Thorough but rather dry coursebook:
This coursebook is by the same author as Colloquial Basque, but content overlap is minimised and the style of the two books differs somewhat. The present book is a much heftier work, but is also a much drier read. Although I've given it four stars, I would recommend it only for more serious students, who have few alternatives anyway. Colloquial Basque, which comes with tapes and a generally more modern style, would be more suitable for most other people. The best feature of The Basque Language: A Practical Introduction is the grammar section at the end of the book. This provides a handy summary of all the grammatical points which appear in the book, and includes a general explanation of their use. The book also includes a selection of readings, with various passages about the Basque Country and related topics (some of them by King himself), excerpts from a play and several novels, and a selection of both traditional and more modern songs. The units themselves mostly consist of a short dialogue followed by grammatical notes and exercises. Unfortunately the grammar sections and exercises are all mixed in together, and there are no fun headings ("Saying what you mean", "Doing things with words") such as appear in Colloquial Basque. Apart from making the chapters less interesting, this can also make it more difficult to find things in preceding chapters. Explanation of the grammar is also often poor or lacking altogether, although thorough explanation is provided at the back of the book. Serious students of Basque will find this book to be an invaluable reference. Many people, however, will find Colloquial Basque to be a more practical introduction to the language.

A useful and well organized grammar:
Well there are not many Basque grammars available owing, I assume, mainly to Basque's relative obscurity. In this grammar, however, Alan King has managed to organize the grammar well for those who are just beginning to study the language (i.e. a properly ascending difficulty level), yet also includes a good amount of information for those who want it, from cultural notes to the differences between the different Basque dialects. The book includes a written conversation in almost every chapter, which is followed by new vocabulary. Next comes a number of grammar points with practice (answers to the questions are found in the back of the book). There are also review chapters which allow the student to review the grammar and vocabulary from previous chapters. Finally, there is a reference section at the back of the book, which contains anything from an elementary reading section to an explanation of the semi-complicated Basque verb system (it also includes a pronunciation guideline, rules for sentence structure, small dictionary for important words used in the book) Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found it helpful for my purposes. It reminded me structurally of Wheelock's Latin. My only complaint would be that I would have liked to have more examples of some of the more complicated grammar points. This, however, is to be expected given that this grammar is only intended as an introduction.