If you just wake up one day and decide to learn how to speak a language, then it’s probably not going to be Indonesian. The reason most people decide to study Indonesian is because of a personal connection to the country, or perhaps because they do or plan to live in Indonesia or marry a person from there. Because Indonesian is a fairly uncommon language to decide to study, there are significantly less study materials than say, German or Chinese. If you are planning to study Indonesian then you are a foreign language minority and as a result, you’ll have to take whatever language learning material you can get.
Lucky for you, the very reliable Teach Yourself series has just the book for you. Teach Yourself Indonesian is a book designed for individuals who wish to self study colloquial Indonesian. The lessons focus on casual, everyday interactions so that the student can quickly put to use what’s learned.
"Because Indonesian is a fairly uncommon language to decide to study, there are significantly less study materials than say, German or Chinese. If you are planning to study Indonesian then you are a foreign language minority."
Being that if you are studying this book you probably live in Indonesia, plan to, or are around a native Indonesian speaker regularly, this book makes for a great supplement to “full immersion” study. They say that the best way to learn a language is to be around it a lot. This book focuses on topics that will arise in conversation on a regular basis, allowing you to study at home and then practice in the real world.
There are seventeen topical lessons in Teach Yourself Indonesian. The topics are things like “Asking the Way”, “Checking In”, “Eating Out”, “At the Doctor’s” and so on. The nice thing about the lessons in Teach Yourself Indonesian is that each lesson presents a dialogue that reads like a story. The characters seem real and the dialogue is actually interesting, sometimes even witty. Having engaging content to fill a topic may not seem like such a big deal, but if you check out other language learning material, you’ll realize just how rare this really is.
This book is, as the name suggests, intended for self study. Anyone who is dedicated to learning the language should show a large margin of improvement by the end of the first few lessons. If, however, you want to use this book with an Indonesian teacher, that’s perfectly possible as well, but it isn’t outright necessary. A teacher will help to ensure that you have correct pronunciation and will give you a chance to practice what you learn with a real person rather than just saying things aloud to yourself.
Indonesia is a country made up of more than 17,000 different islands, all of which probably have their own accent and linguistic nuances. It’s important to note that this book focuses on colloquial Indonesian spoken in Jakarta. If you wish to learn Jakarta Indonesian and want to have fun doing it, then this book is a good choice for you.
