Colloquial Slovak- A waste of time, January 22, 2004

I am currently studying from J.D. Naughton's book and I have come to the conclusion that it is the worst text book I have ever come across. The conversations in the book are not relavent to every day life and so usually a waste of time. Also he puts words in the conversations which have no translation on the page and are NOT in the Slovak-English dictionary section at the back. After extensive investigation you find that the word was mentioned and translated in a conversation some 10-100 pages previously, and only once! So what you have to do when you come to these words is look back through EVERY conversation in the book until you find it! It's ridiculous! I have learned many languages in my time and have a lot of Slovak freinds who after being shown the book also agree that it is more of a waste of time than it's worth. Don't get it.

Dobry Den, August 13, 2003
Reviewer: A reader
This is a great course for adult learners! It was very easy to follow and to understand. I enjoyed it very much.

Excellent!, May 14, 2003
Reviewer: A reader
I purchased this book before going to Slovakia for the second time...this time I was alone without my English-speaking friends to interpret for me. Having only minimal knowledge of the language, this book taught me things I didn't think I'd ever pick up (such as proper grammer, which is difficult in this language). My friends in Slovakia were amazed at my knowledge of their language in such a short amount of time. I definitely recommend this book for anyone (even raw beginners) traveling over there.

Best available even if not the best imaginable, April 26, 2003

I learned Slovak with this book and now read at an intermediate level and speak at a beginning level. I've been to Slovakia several times and successfully used what I learned. The cassettes provided pronunciation guides and speaking practice that work in Bratislava (I can't vouch for other dialects). What more do you want from a language book?

Some of the other reviewers criticize this book for not being a systematic grammar. That's fair, since it's not a systematic grammar (though it does have grammar tables in the appendix). By introducing some major grammar points gradually over several chapters, it can be frustrating as a reference source.

As a learning tool, however, there's a lot to be said for introducing things slowly. If you work systematically through this book and its exercises, and repeat (or memorize) dialogues, you'll learn Slovak. Some of the material is boring ("Zuzka hears a train crossing the bridge") though Naughton occasionally livens things up ("Don't be afraid! Kiss me!"). I'm not sure that any language-book texts can really be exciting. However, if I were giving Naughton advice, I'd add more paragraph-length texts about Slovakia and its people, along the lines of the Bratislava texts late in the book.

There are better books for beginers, January 21, 2003

When I first began to learn Slovak this was the first and only book I found. I was able to learn a lot from the book, but what makes the book a little difficult to understand is that it jumps around from subject to subject. You might learn how to congicate verbs one way, and then it won't teach you the other forms until chapters later leaving gaps in between. I had to keep going back and forth between chapters. I searched for a while and found a book: Slovak Language Laboratory Course. This is a much better book written by a native Slovak who was a language proffesor here in the US in the 1950's. I have found that if you can find older Slovak books that were used as original text books they are much more accurate and easy to use. This book breaks down all congicated forms of verbs, adjectives everthing with easy to read text and tables that are also very helpful with both slovak and translated english dialouge. Make sure you also purchase a good dictionary. Beware the dictionary written by Nina Trnka. As this dictionary actually has a lot of Czech words that are not used in the slovak language. Get a good dictionary and paraphrase book. Good luck this is a very difficult laguage to learn with out a teacher.

Stay away!, December 29, 2002

Not much to say, except - stay away! I got this book for my wife to learn some basics as I introduce her to my language... Not only have I found this book incomplete, it is full of actual mistakes and misinterpretations of Slovak grammar. It is unfortunate, that there is such a limited number of Slovak grammar texts in English, and the few available are this bad. I recommend obtaining Slovak middle-school texts, which are much more precise and correct. Slovak is a very grammar-centric language; one will never master it without a good grammatical foundation!