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Jan. 7th, 2011 10:22 am
Indonesian for chumps
How many Teach Yourself books do I have now, something like twenty? I can't really explain the affection I have for them, particularly the old-school editions which are all like "Here's fifteen pages of grammar, now we'll give you five practice sentences you'll never find a real-life use for ever." But the quality is undeniably variable. I don't know if the c1965 edition of Teach Yourself Indonesian is the worst I've seen, but it's way down there.
Although the grammar isn't quite as "simple" as everyone says (of which more later), the major challenge to tackling Indonesian is the fact that, apart from the foreign borrowings (mainly English, Dutch, Arabic, and Indic), none of the vocabulary resembles that of any other bloody language you've ever studied. (Unless, of course, you're one of those freaks who speaks Pilipino.) And the book is really very little help with this. For starters, I have yet to find a single word in the glossary at the back. I don't mean that there are no words in it--after all, there are eleven pages of them. But not one of them is a word I've stumbled across in one of the first eight lessons and asked, "What does that mean?" I can't figure out where they're drawn from, since it's not like there are any extended reading passages in the entire slim volume.
Normally, of course, new vocabulary is glossed within the lessons. That was the case here, too--at first. But now we're in crazytown. The vocabulary at the end of Lesson 7, for instance, looks pasted in from a completely different chapter. (Apparently it's there to help you complete the exercises, but the instructions fail to mention this.) Overall, it's striking how often the author throws in words and constructions which haven't been introduced yet--which is a valid paedagogical approach, but only when you provide plenty of reinforcement. Here, however, it just looks like he doesn't understand the concept of graduated lessons. (Not to mention that this brings us back to the sucky-glossary problem.)
So what am I doing with this book at all? Well, I thought I'd breeze through it just to get friendly with the language before I talked a real text like Johns' 360 p. Bahasa Indonesia, Bk. 1. At this rate, I'll be done with it in no time and--who knows?--I may even retain a few of the words. (Hopefully less of the grammatical explanations, given that on page 9 he's telling you things about the language which contradict everything else I've read everywhere.) That is, if I don't succumb to frustration first.
Although the grammar isn't quite as "simple" as everyone says (of which more later), the major challenge to tackling Indonesian is the fact that, apart from the foreign borrowings (mainly English, Dutch, Arabic, and Indic), none of the vocabulary resembles that of any other bloody language you've ever studied. (Unless, of course, you're one of those freaks who speaks Pilipino.) And the book is really very little help with this. For starters, I have yet to find a single word in the glossary at the back. I don't mean that there are no words in it--after all, there are eleven pages of them. But not one of them is a word I've stumbled across in one of the first eight lessons and asked, "What does that mean?" I can't figure out where they're drawn from, since it's not like there are any extended reading passages in the entire slim volume.
Normally, of course, new vocabulary is glossed within the lessons. That was the case here, too--at first. But now we're in crazytown. The vocabulary at the end of Lesson 7, for instance, looks pasted in from a completely different chapter. (Apparently it's there to help you complete the exercises, but the instructions fail to mention this.) Overall, it's striking how often the author throws in words and constructions which haven't been introduced yet--which is a valid paedagogical approach, but only when you provide plenty of reinforcement. Here, however, it just looks like he doesn't understand the concept of graduated lessons. (Not to mention that this brings us back to the sucky-glossary problem.)
So what am I doing with this book at all? Well, I thought I'd breeze through it just to get friendly with the language before I talked a real text like Johns' 360 p. Bahasa Indonesia, Bk. 1. At this rate, I'll be done with it in no time and--who knows?--I may even retain a few of the words. (Hopefully less of the grammatical explanations, given that on page 9 he's telling you things about the language which contradict everything else I've read everywhere.) That is, if I don't succumb to frustration first.
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