Spoken Vietnamese

Rating:
Summary: Spoken Vietnamese
Review: I bought the SLS Spoken Vietnamese course a few years before arriving in Vietnam and it turned out to be a great investment that is still paying dividends.

Though it is a bit dated, it is still in my opinion the best Vietnamese language course on the market, especially if you are living in Saigon where the dialect can be at times quite different than that of Hanoi. All other courses on the market are based on Hanoi standard usage. The SLS Vietnamese course is the only one I know of that is based on Saigon standard.

Gary

Rating:
Summary: One of the better books out there
Review: There are several reasons why this book is good. There is a wonderful breakdown of the different vowel sounds and it also focuses on the southern dialect of Vietnamese which is spoken most in the U.S.

Used in an academic setting (whether it be individual or in a class), the drills are very helpful.

However, I think the book works best when used together WITH the audio cassette. The two MUST work together to help students aquire the language better. Yes, the authors also developed the audio version but it don't think it supplements the text as well as other foreign language packages have.