Mongolian Books (was Re: VW )

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> On Thu, 5 Apr 2001, David Stokes wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 5 Apr 2001, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> >
> > > YHL, dreaming friendly Mongol-inspired dreams
> >
> > My girlfriend and I are struggling to teach ourselves Mongolian right now
> > so my own Mongol-inspired dreams are a little more like nightmares. ;)
> >
> > Actually, Mongolian is a really cool language. Converbs are oing to have
> > to show up in one of my languages soon.
> >
> > But the language tapes we have are were made in England and for we
> > Americans its sometimes easier to understand the Mongolian than the
> > English on them.
>
> JOOC, where'd you get the tapes?  Do you recommend 'em (other than the
> British accent)?  I started learning a little (written) Turkish because
> it was the closest thing I could find in the bookstore to Mongolian.
> :-p  (Not that Turkish isn't a neat language in itself...)
>
> YHL
The book and Tapes I have is called "Colloquial Mongolian" by Alan J K
Sanders and Jantsangiin Bat-Ireedüi, published by Routledge. I got it at
a bookstore in Boston that was mentioned on the list a few months back,
perhaps someone remembers the name or you can look in last Dec.
archives.

I don't know if I would say I recommend it as much as say its adequate
with few alternatives. Its a teach yourself a foreign language book with
tapes, pretty typical of the breed. Professionally done, seems to cover
everything, has native mongol speakers on the tape (in addition to the
british guy). Good, solid, and adequate, but I'm not going to rave about
it being wonderful.

There is one other alternative I know of. "Basic Course in Mongolian" by
John G. Hangin, published by the Mongolian Society. Also a book with
tapes (or CDs). I've looked at the book but have not studied. The book
is spiral bound xerox sheets, but it looks like the info is good. The
explanations of pronunciation was better that the Sanders book. However,
when I asked the Mongolian Society people about it they did not
recommend it. Instead they offered to hook me up with a native speaker
for tutoring. We will probably take them up on this offer soon. The
Mongolian Society has lots of neat stuff; they have a web page at:

http://www.indiana.edu/~mongsoc

I hope that helps.

Daraa Bayartai.
(afterwards with joy -- 'goodbye')
(your first lesson)

David Lucas Robert Stokes

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