I am very interested in the culture and languages of european (especially eastern european) countries. For 12 years I have been taking part in international folk dance festivals all around europe, as a violin player, and in these festivals I meet people from all over the world and learn about their cultures and lives. This year I met a Slovakian group and had many good friends. They thought me a little Slovak and I liked it very much. When I turned back to Cyprus, I decided to buy a book and improve my Slovak. Of course, as usual, I searched from Amazon.com and found this perfect book. This book starts with the pronunciation and explains in detail, how to pronounce vowels and consonants. The accompanying cassettes are also very good in this sense. The following chapters teach you the Slovak grammar step by step, in a very logically designed order of topics. When you finish this book, you not only learn the Slovak grammar and many Slovak words, but also be able to speak with slovak people, as the name of the book, "Colloquial Slovak" also implies. I am very happy to have added one more language to my list and I really recommend this book to anybody who wants to learn Slovak in very short time...