Speed bumps. Does anyone know a sane person who enjoys driving over them? If yes, do they tire of the 'adventure' within a few minutes, or does it remain a pleasure for as long as they're behind the wheel? Colloquial Ukrainian reminded me of driving over speed bumps (spaced closely together for the duration of the journey). Seemed that each time a corner was turned and learning Ukrainian became a possibility on the horizon, I'd hit another speed bump on the road to knowledge. Learning should be educational, easy, and enjoyable; and, should any speed bumps be encountered, they should be minimal and spaced very far between. Will a person get to a destination while driving over speed bumps? Possibly--depending on how much discomfort, frustration, or annoyance a person is willing to endure. Will it be an enjoyable journey? Probably not. Below are some of my execrable experiences encountered while traveling an actual bumpy road to learning Ukrainian called the course of Colloquial Ukrainian. My hope in sharing my experiences is that the savvy traveler will bypass the speed bumps and, instead, take the superhighway to scholarship arriving at the destination enlightened, educated, and enjoying the myriad possibilities that learning Ukrainian will afford.



Colloquial Ukrainian: the Complete Course for Beginners, is stated to be, in addition to an introductory course in the Ukrainian language, a course which can be used by someone who needs minimal skills. To that end, this course is recommended for either a classroom setting or studying on one's own. Although the approach is meant to be casual and fun without disregarding grammar, I found it to be, at a very minimum, an exercise in frustration and annoyance.



Available as a kit (text and two CDs or cassettes) or individually, as a text or audio set, the language course that is reviewed below is the kit. The text, as stated on page one of the book, features native-Ukrainian speakers (I assume that they're not teachers, or that fact would have been stated), and is accompanied by "two 60-minute cassettes" (two CDs were in my kit, although the icons throughout the book still show cassettes, and the text throughout still refers to cassettes--unless, of course, you look at the back cover, which states "two 60-minute CDs are available to complement the book").



Recorded material on the CDs includes: dialogues (ad nauseam--I've seldom used dialogue, per se, from any language classes that I took; words and phrases, yes--dialogues, generally, no), selective examples from the book, and additional materials. Caveat: where the cassette symbol appears in the book, not every example is recorded. It's quite disconcerting to be reading a list only to hear a word that isn't in the order where you'd expect it to be. Additionally, the cassette icons blend in with the rest of the text and, at times, are up to five pages apart. When the speaker says "dialogue 1" or "dialogue 2," or whatever the next number is, the cassette icons in the book only show a cassette; having a number next to the cassette icon would facilitate immensely a quicker location of the dialogue. The speaker never advises to turn to page so and so; you're on your own to sort through the pages looking for the next cassette icon.



There's no background information on either the two authors or on the speakers (except that they are native speakers); additionally, the cover image isn't described/captioned except to name the photographer.



The Reference section states that it includes: "some information on Ukrainian grammar that is not in the lessons, and also that there is information in lessons, on occasion, which is not listed in the reference section." It's too bad that all of the reference material listed throughout the lessons isn't listed/included in the reference section; the student is left having to remember where something was encountered previously and then, if necessary, to do a tedious, time-consuming search.



The Abbreviations (of English terms) will necessitate constant referral to the reference section in the second half of the book. The Declension section features page upon page of almost all text in bold, rendering it a difficult read. The Weeks and Months section has, again, mostly words in bold, four columns across, which leaves the section cluttered and difficult to follow--and, is listed neither in the Contents nor in the Index. In the Conjugation section, again, most text is in bold.



It's stated that in the Ukrainian-English glossary (28 pages based on words found in the dialogues, texts, and readings) "far from being a complete list, some useful words not included will be found grouped thematically in individual lessons." If the words are useful, why weren't they all included? Again, the student is left with the dismaying task of searching for some useful words that are grouped thematically in individual lessons. Why isn't the student relieved of that task while utilizing instead the time to concentrate on studies instead of a game of search and seek? The English-Ukrainian glossary spans 11 pages--which leads one to ask why are there 28 pages of Ukrainian-English words, but only 11 pages of English-Ukrainian words in the glossaries?



Cosmetic appearance and presentation of material are just two reasons, among others, why I find Colloquial Ukrainian falling short of a good language course; they may seem minor bones of contention, but with the stress of learning a new language, each irritant becomes a stepping stone on the journey which may result in a possible dead-end. The descriptive narrative, the illustrations, the bits of information on Ukrainian history and culture which are included are all admirable additions, but if that's what I had wanted, I'd have looked to other types of books/genres. In a language course, however, among my requirements are ease in using materials, presentations which enhance learning the language and vocabulary, explanations that are able to be comprehended readily, and exercises that can be completed based on material presented and learned.



Ukrainian as a language can be in and of itself intimidating and formidable; if the steps to be climbed in the process of learning that language are too steep or too frustrating, reaching that summit may prove to be too arduous a goal, and, therefore, not achieved. If something is difficult from the get-go, the student will probably return the material to the bookstore or to the library, or just drop out of the class. By the time I got through the first lesson, I thought to myself that had I purchased Colloquial Ukrainian, I would, at that point in time, had been headed out the door to the post office or to the bookstore to return the material.



This 373-page book is smaller than a regular-sized book; makes it handy for carrying around, but with somewhat narrow margins and small fonts, it makes for a difficult read. The lessons themselves span 276 pages; reference material spans 97 pages. The pages are crammed with information to the point of making it difficult to locate specific items. The very many items on a page that are highlighted in bold make the headings lose their prominence, so that finding materials is cumbersome and tiresome. I especially dislike the lists, which have Ukrainian words in bold in the first column, English definitions in the second, Ukrainian words in bold in the third column, and English definitions in the fourth column--had the font been larger, had fewer columns been used across the page, and had fewer words been written in bold, reading and comprehension would have been easier. With so many obstacles to contend with--small text font, bold feature overused, four columns of small print across the page, much of it in bold, together with too much material on one page--the copy is very much less than reader-friendly. Add to that the frustration of using the CD together with the book, and you'll understand why I find this language course to be less than satisfactory.



The Contents includes: About this book; Introduction; Lessons (twenty titles are in Ukrainian with translations directly beneath each); Reference section; Grammatical terms used in this book; Abbreviations; Declension; Numerals (not listed in the Contents); A few propositions and case government; Weeks and Months (not listed in the Contents); Conjugation; Selected further reading and reference (in the text, "and reference" is omitted); Key to the exercises; Ukrainian-English glossary; English-Ukrainian glossary; and, Index.



In the Introduction, it's confusing when readers (on the CD) read words in a list, but skip around. For a person familiar with Ukrainian, it's annoying; for a person who's learning the language and not yet proficient in the spelling of words and pronunciation of sounds, it must be extremely frustrating. Dialogues have a paragraph of text in Ukrainian followed by a paragraph of translation in English. I prefer to see a line of Ukrainian dialogue followed by the English translation.



The section entitled "Tips on writing" (still in the Introduction), shows some samples of Ukrainian script. The script is too small for any useful purpose. On a computer, it's possible to enlarge the script size--while reading a book, that convenient feature, alas, is unavailable. I doubt that many students study from books while holding a magnifying glass in one hand; I know that I've never studied with a magnifying glass held over a textbook--however, looking at the Ukrainian script in this text, I thought that perhaps I should get out my magnifying glass for a closer look, at least that would be better than squinting. Instead of cramming four columns on a small page with small font, it would serve the student much better to have shown a larger script in order to show the scripte