Spoken Telugu: Book Units 1-30; Cassettes Units 1-12 [Paperback]

I have spent a lot of time looking for books written to help English speakers learn Telugu. Unlike the previous reviewer, I have found the audio cassettes to be of great help. Are they worth the price? It depends on your resources and how urgently you need to learn to speak Telugu. A friend of mine from Hyderabad laughs at the Andhra man speaking on the tape because his voice is not exactly melodious, but she tells me that his pronunciation is good. More on the tapes later. I have many bad things to say, but one thing must be understood - I cannot think of a better way to learn to speak Telugu without a personal tutor. No matter what, DO NOT buy this book without some source of audio accompaniment, either from the tapes or a friend. You've gotta have aural reinforcement to make this book work. There are much more appropriate books out there if you're only interested in learning to read and write Telugu (this book largely avoids Telugu script and focuses on Romanized Telugu).

First, the pedagogical approach taken by Lisker is unlike any others I have seen in language instruction books. The book begins with the compulsory 'introductions' section but quickly strays far from the beaten path. Where most books might introduce the basics of sentence structure or present logically grouped nouns or adjectives, Lisker presents very brief dialogs (mostly 4-8 sentences) including some of the most bizarre words imaginable - i.e. 'small river island' and 'chameleon.' It's hard to imagine how he chose these words, and the silliness made it hard for me to take this book seriously at first. Most other words are, however, appropriate.

Now, a few words on the tapes. They're very strange. The American woman sounds like Jan Brady (but more subdued), the Telugu man sounds like he's not trying very hard, and they both seem to be absolutely miserable. The only traces of emotion are in the form of laughter after verbal gaffes (by the way, the tapes don't seem to be edited in any way). The errors on the tapes are rare. Not all the material in the book is recorded on the cassettes, and some of the material chosen for inclusion is downright mindless. For instance, somewhere in the early chapters, the presenters substitute the same list of 15-20 vocabulary words into three similar types of sentences. It's analogous to an English book having a list of 20 adjectives and saying, "Now, listen as we substitute each and every one of these adjectives into the following sentences: (1) I am ____ (2) She is ____ (3) He is ____." Does that sound a little silly? Well, it sure is. Especially when the book has much more useful lessons to teach that didn't make it onto the tapes.

The book never presents grammar in a traditional fashion as it continues to rely on a commented conversational approach to introduce new concepts. If you are looking for a more rational, structured introduction to Telugu, I suggest 'A Basic Course in Modern Telugu' by Krishnamurti and Sarma. For a serious grammar book, you might try 'A Grammar of Modern Telugu' by Krishnamurti and Gwynn. Unfortunately, both of these are out of print (I think).

Despite some goofy repetition, as mentioned above, the tapes have helped me learn to parse Telugu spoken at normal speed. The dialogs from the earlier chapters are presented very slowly, as one would expect. From somewhere around chapter 10 onward, though, the presenters speed up quite a bit. By the time I had gotten to this level, I was able to keep up with the dialog. I now feel that I can improve my Telugu by watching subtitled Telugu movies. Before listening to these recordings, I was overwhelmed by the speed of most spoken Telugu.

While the book and accompanying audio cassettes have many shortcomings, they serve as an excellent introduction to the spoken language. Because of the unconventional pedagogical approach, these materials require more dedication on the part of the student than a conventional introductory language textbook. This book is very dense, and a dedicated student would get much more knowledge out of it than out of most introductory-level language books its size.

Both my brother and I bought the book/tapes and were severely disappointed with the quality. Errors were not edited out, and the accent/pronunciation was very poor according to all the native Telugu speakers to whom we showed the product. Amateurish and overpriced.

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