At this point, I’ve been through
a number of language texts, enough to get a sense for what works for me and what doesn’t (I’d like to think that in a visit to a bookstore, I’d be able to flip through a text to get a sense if it’s worthwhile). This is definitely not a worthwhile text.
The problems are numerous: There was little or no proofreading done so the book is rife with typographical errors (I marked a number of corrections in the library’s copy in just the first couple of chapters), including most egregiously, in the model conjugation of verbs. In at least a couple of instances, the answers in the back of the book are incorrect (as in having no discernible relation to the question asked) or missing. The Slovene-English vocabulary at the end of the book is missing numerous words used in the text. Vocabulary is introduced haphazardly, in some cases in examples for unrelated texts. The exercises reinforce only a surface understanding of the language and in many cases are answered by simply copying word-for-word an example from the unit under examination, and in other cases, expect vocabulary which has not been introduced in any form that I could locate.
I don’t often get angry at a book, but this one enraged me. Its sole redeeming feature is its brevity, insofar as it permitted me to complete the book without investing too much time (while simultaneously preventing me from gaining much knowledge of the Slovene language).
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