Beginner's Croatian with 2 Audio CDs (Hippocrene Beginner's) Pap/Com Edition

This book introduces the Croatian language in 15 lessons, each beginning with a sprightly, enjoyable conversation followed by an exhaustive treatment of some point of Croatian's complex grammar. If you already know some Slavic language, as I did, you can work through the book at about three or four hours per chapter and then start using the language, learning as you go. Indeed, if you want the super short course, just look at how Croatian forms the past and future tenses – quite different from Russian – and at the declension of the pronouns and then jump into reading. If you do not know another Slavic language, you have a huge job ahead of you.The dialogues are really excellent and worth the price of the book. The grammar is more a reference grammar; don't try to learn it all on the first pass. Rather than learning everything about the accusative case before touching the genitive, learn the basics of all the cases and then to come back to deal with exceptions. In any event, complex rules can't be applied fast enough to use in conversation. Rather, one needs to memorize conversations, and this book gives excellent material for doing so.The one piece of grammar strangely missing is the declension of the demonstrative pronouns. Only the nominative is given. Fortunately, the full declension is easily found on the internet.Just how much help is knowing Russian? The whole system of cases is more or less identical in Croatian. As for vocabulary, I found that if I eliminated the ten percent or so of the words obviously borrowed from Western European languages, then Russian helped remember about half of the remaining words – obviously a big help. I expect that it would be similar with other Slavic languages.In Split, I bought two little books in Croatian on the history of the city, but was dismayed to discover that they were written in a long-sentence, complex Croatian that would have done credit to the most long-winded German academic. Then I found, "Eat in Split," a bi-lingual free guide to more than just restaurants. Here was the language as spoken. I read it with delight, only rarely looking at the English. I concluded, perhaps too quickly, that Croatians had looked to German writers in Vienna for literary models while Russian writers had looked to the French they knew so well.

Needs a separate track for the Croatian letters that have no English correlative. Tracks need informative headings. Should have audio track for each lession's vocabulary. Text is 5 star; audio discs are 3 star. All in all, though, a very good value

Well organized, easy to understand. I started learning Croatian six months ago. I looked at and purchase several materials (apps, books, cds) before finding this book. They all turned out to be complicated, unorganized, and dissapointing. This book has a wonderful flow and is thorough wothout being overwhelming. I definitely recommend this book.

Unfortunately , there was only CD1. Because i was traveling i only realized this now.

This book is really one of the superior language aids that I've used across my study of three Slavic languages. The book is well organized and intuitively designed to offer the student an ideal combination of vocabulary and grammar exercises to put towards language building. The story is also engaging and fun in the sort of way that will charm experienced textbook users (it plays with tongue-in-cheek conventions) and interest those new to the practice! I would recommend the book to anyone interested in the study of Croatian!

The material presented in this book is well organized, clearly presented and joy to read -- thank you very much!!!!

love the cd's fast delivery. great for the whole family to use and listen to cd's so when they take the class people will have a idea of the book and class.

I love the contents and the product's fine. thank you! :D

I bought this to prepare for a holiday in Croatia. The course is very much more than that, with a comprehensive grammar guide and exercises. For me, however, the attraction of the course was the series of recorded dialogues. which played out an entertaining, sometimes amusing miniature soap opera or mini drama. The dialogues were carefully contrived to introduce a range of tenses and situations which might be useful either for holiday or business use. My preferred method of learning was to listen to each dialogue frequently (usually ok the car on the way to work) and thus I learned effortlessly a lot of useful Croatian. I had need to say very little that Marijana and her friends had not said in the dialogues. In addition I found the characterisation and storyline made for an entertaining read. The grammar was helpfully explained, with a thoroughness which would do justice to an academic course rather than simply absorbing a little holiday language. I recommend anyone who wants to learn Croatian seriously to give this course a try.

Im very satisfied with this purchase.The book provides a comprehensive introduction to the Croatian language.It includes dialogues, lists of vocabulary, useful phrases and clear and concise explanations of grammar.The two CDs that come with the book (stored in plastic pockets on the insides of the front and rear covers) not only include recordings of all the dialogues but also the lists of vocabulary.If you are serious about putting in the time and effort to master the Croatian language, this book is an excellent place to start; don't hesitate to buy it!However, it might not be very useful to a holiday maker wanting to learn a few useful phrases.

Another book to my Croatian (and Serbian) language courses. Even though I have been learning the language for 4 years, this book certainly adds to my depth of understanding. Its not the easiest language to start with as a complete beginer - so you made need two or three to get different takes on things if you arent going to lessons. This would certainly go with my copy of Teach yourself croatian, Croatian: A Complete Course for Beginners (Living Language Series)and Colloquial Croatian: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series).This very worthwhile book comes with two CD's. If you purchase it from the right seller on Amazon you can get it for a very good price.

A very thorough course of Croatian, but also a practical phrase book for travelers who just want to have a taste of the language. The CDs help with the pronunciation, and the exercises fix all the - difficult - grammar points found in the dialogues. Totally modern in its methodology, although it can be a little intimidating: the language is very complex! All the grammar structures and vocab are well explained and they appear in dialogues along the book, so to repeat things that you have already learnt. The only aspect I would recommend to improve is the graphic: if there were pictures here and there, it could definitely help motivating the students!

need to resell it as sitting on bookshelf unloved