This series is very good for teaching oneself, but requires some familiarity with the language (i.e. series 1 and 2). Most people get frustrated that the dvds' for series 1 and 2 (only) are available for purchase, but series 3 and 4 dvds' are not. Only few of series 3 and 4 episodes can be seen on youtube.
I purchased the series 2 dvd set which came with an electronic version of the workbook. I assumed wrongly that the series 3 book would come with an audio cd - as I know one did exist , and there was no mention of how to order this audio cd. The book is very self contained, and has had enormous effort put into the lessons, which each having a theme and an interest to accompany the grammar work.
Occasionally I wondered how my pronunciation was, and occasionally I found the interview passages a little difficult. Bear in mind that I live in Australia , and some of the 'maritime' themes and outdoor words for peats etc. don't have an immediate familiarity.
The book is playful enough to appeal to a great age range, yet it has quite a lot of rigour. You cannot rush through this book as it is quite dense in learning - though it has great groundwork and progresses perfectly, never leaving you hanging.
I am half way through the book, having spent 20 hours on it. I have already ordered the book for series 4. I found that it helped to work simultaneously on the 35 Units of beag air bheag on bbc Alba. This meant that I could hear many conversations with pronunciation, while doing structured sentence writing and theme comprehension with this exercise book.
