Colloquial Indonesian offers students an introductory course which goes over proper pronunciation, grammar, listening comprehension, and writing. This self study course is perfect for students who want to learn Indonesian in a quick yet efficient manner.
If you want to be able to converse in Indonesian, then you’ve probably already realized that the resources available are few and far between. Considering the population of Indonesia is 249 million – much more than Korea’s 50 million+ and Japan’s 128 million – it’s quite surprising what a dearth of language learning material there is. If you’re looking to learn Indonesian, then sorry, beggars can’t be choosers. Colloquial Indonesian is one of the few decent beginners’ Indonesian books available in the market.
"If you want to be able to converse in Indonesian, then you’ve probably already realized that the resources available are few and far between."
The book follows a pretty standard layout. Before the actual “lessons” there is an introduction which explains transcription and pronunciation. It’s important to really study this before moving on to the actual lessons. Then, the topical chapters begin. You’ll find the book covers the common beginner language student topics. Some of the chapters are “My name is John Stanton”, “Flying to Indonesia”, “Has somebody washed my shirt?” and “I’m so tired”. In total, there are 17 topics covered over 279 pages, making it a rather meaty book and audio set.
Colloquial Indonesian focuses on day-to-day conversation, hence the name. Its main focus is to make sure that students understand and can converse in basic Indonesian. It accomplishes this in a few ways. The chapters usually start with a “situation”, which is essentially a short story that the student can read or hear on the audio CD. There is an English translation at the end as well as a vocabulary box. The stories usually deal with a specific story line related to the same characters throughout the book. Next, the book presents a grammatical issue or two. There is a written explanation about the grammatical point along with some specific notes or a chart. There are also some examples to help students focus on the grammatical patterns. All in all, the grammatical portion of each chapter is a good 2-4 pages long; the book takes the issue of grammar seriously, but manages to present it in a way that’s not overwhelming or dreadfully boring. After this, there is another situation and another grammar lesson in the same chapter.
This is all followed by a few pages of exercises to test what you’ve learned. Most of the exercises are fill in the blank or “select the answer from the box”. You will find the answers to these exercises at the end of the book. The chapter wraps up with a “Language in use” section which helps to reiterate what has been learned in the chapter, along with a reading passage to help you become literate in Indonesian.
The book is designed as a self-study course. Each of the chapters have enough content to last you for a week or even ten days of study. After four months of studying the book beginning to end, it’s likely you’ll be able to read, write, and understand a good deal of Indonesian. For the price, this book is well worth the money you’ll spend as long as you keep at it and don’t give up!
