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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Maltese Cross, 21 Sep 2002
This review is from: Maltese (Teach Yourself) (Paperback)
This must be the worst book in the "Teach Yourself" language series. It must be almost impossible for anyone to learn Maltese from this book. For example: There is no vocabulary listed at the back. There are no lists of vocabulary associated with each chapter. There are no lists of common things such as numbers, days of the week, etc. (numbers are written in the form of a paragraph on P119 - difficult to follow and useless as an aid to memorizing). There are no verb tables. The guide to pronunciation lists unhelpful advice as "unvoiced rolled alveolar; voiced labiodental fricative" and so on. The only helpful tips are "orthographic" notes on the letters h and "gh". It is difficult to know why it is still in print. The usual high standard of TY language books is badly let down by this book.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
gramar, 4 Sep 2010
This review is from: Maltese (Teach Yourself) (Paperback)
I understand what previous reviewers are saying, but in its defence the book was published in 1965, when most other TY books were also simply grammar books: that was the way things were back then. Unlike the others, this has never, for some reason, been revised (though other minority languages - e.g., Welsh, Irish - have been. The original TY Welsh and TY Irish were very similar to this.)
As a reference grammar, I rate this book highly; as a work of self-instruction I find it wanting.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Poor book, 3 Oct 2004
This review is from: Maltese (Teach Yourself) (Paperback)
This book is very poor. In the first place, one cannot learn Maltese without hearing the language - it needs audio. Secondly, this is a gramar book and not a coursebook, and it is very dry and user-unfriendly. It will not tell you how to order that cup of coffee when you arrive in Malta. Maltese courses are not easy to find. If you read German, the best is Kauderwelch's Maltesissch with cassette. There is also Beginners Maltese with 2 cassettes, although moist of the audio is just single words. But this Teach Yourself is by far the worst book in that series, which is otherwise exvellent.
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