The Colloquial series of language textbooks are aimed at a niche market by concentrating on more ‘real’ language rather than following the standard format.
The Colloquial series of language textbooks are comprised of many books which were first published in the 1990s and have since been republished a number of times. In the rather large world of language textbooks these books are aimed at a niche market by concentrating on more ‘real’ language rather than following the standard format. From previous experience working with this series of books it must be said that the authors tend to sacrifice teaching important language structures in order to create an easier learning experience.
For English speakers, Norwegian is a slightly easier language to pick up compared to other languages like Finnish or even further afield, Chinese. This language is actually a relatively young language mainly derived from Danish. Due to the close relation between Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, if a student has already mastered one of these languages they can also understand and pick up the other languages quite easily.
"In short the book does indeed teach a great deal of Norwegian, but it is another matter as to whether a student would manage to stay interested long enough to follow it through to the end."
The contents page shows how there are twenty chapters with titles such as shopping, family, weather and history, followed by a guide to pronunciation, a ready-reference guide, exercise answers, glossaries in English and Norwegian, a bibliography and an index. The introduction describes the structure of each chapter and it also goes into detail about the vocabulary that will be taught throughout the book.
Every lesson in the book follows a similar structure. The chapters begin with a reading activity which usually consists of four lines followed by a vocabulary list. After the text there is a “Language Points” section which concentrates on a specific grammar structure followed by some practice exercises. These exercises require a bit more effort than the usual fill in the blanks questions you find in other textbooks; however even with this in mind they are relatively simple. Depending on the chapter there are sometimes one or two more “Language Points” sections which go over some more beginner-level grammar structures. After the grammar sections there is a short pronunciation exercise followed by a listening activity. Following this section, the chapter comes to an end with a section labeled “Language in use”. This section consists of a list of phrases which the authors deem to be useful.
Phrases like ‘I am fine,’ ‘things are fine,’ ‘how are things with you?' are taught and sometimes students might not find this section very stimulating or useful. The end of the lesson also ends with one last exercise and a listening comprehension test. This format is continued in all twenty lessons, it is perhaps a good way of studying for someone in a rush, but at times, students might be presented with very irrelevant phrases or language points.
There are some chapters where grammar points are introduced and they do not connect with the entire lesson; the book also seems to teach a number of random phrases such as “This is a glacier” or “She has translated a book” which don’t seem to connect with other aspects of the lesson. There appears to be no real thinking behind this, almost as if the examples have just been picked out of a hat. It is also hard to see how the dialogues are based on real ‘street’ language when you have completely disjointed conversations like refusing to give someone a cigarette with the reason "I’ve smoked my last cigarette now’ due to not earning enough money."
If a student is patient and follows each chapter up to the end, they will in fact learn a considerable amount of Norwegian. However, this book is designed for a self-study student and in fact would require a huge amount of patience to follow each lesson through. The first few chapters have too many random bits of vocabulary and phrases to be considered truly beneficial to the learning experience; the layout isn’t conductive to study either. In short the book does indeed teach a great deal of Norwegian, but it is another matter as to whether a student would manage to stay interested long enough to follow it through to the end.
