A great book to get you started., August 10, 2000

I learned Swedish without a single formal lesson extremely quickly (in 4 months to fluency whilst living in a Swedish / English speaking environment), and bought and borrowed an enormous range of books to bring me there. This is the book that I used to learn my first words. For the extremely early stages of learning the language I would recommend this book and tape, but once you get to about lesson 6 or 8 you will move quicker by shifting to a book concentrating on vocabulary and idioms in conjunction with The Essentials of Swedish Grammar. See my review of the Teach Yourself series Swedish book for further advice on which books I recommend as you progress through intermediate and advanced.

The book is a serious textbook (but not dry and boring like in high school), and the Authors are writing it to an audience who actually want to learn Swedish, and are not interested in learning only travel phrases. This book does very nicely, but does ask you to move very quickly to get from one lesson to the next from about lesson 5 or 6. Nevertheless, you will be amazed at how quick your progress is. Each lesson takes less than an hour, so in 6 or eight hours of studying, you will be able to speak basic Swedish with a limited vocabulary using the correct word order in the present, past and future (it is at this stage also that I recommend moving off this book to one that builds vocab and another that presents you all the grammar of the language in a nutshell). You can, after spending a week or two with other books, return to this book to complete the remainder of the lessons, most of which will be very easy, some of which will still be very difficult (I dipped in and out of it but never again worked with it as true programmed learning). This book is of high quality, but needs to be used in conjunction with other books for the quickest possible gains and then should be followed up with more advanced books to continue your Swedish. This book is titled "The Complete Course" but I would like to emphasise the "For Beginners" aspect. Your learning certainly does not begin and end with this book.

Helpful but not for a Beginner, March 22, 2001

As a new student of Swedish, I bought the book and tapes as a suppliment to my course materials. The book is helpful, but not as easy to use the Ake Viberg grammar reference - which facilitates more rapid reference to grammar rules. The Holmes courses emphasis on everyday spoken Swedish is however welcome. I was very dissapointed in the tapes - the British narrator is quite dry and somewhat annoying with his constant "listen to the speakaa" phrases, and I was expecting more drilling on verb usage as opposed to just listening to conversations and reading. The tapes main function I guess seem to be to get the student used to hearing rapidly spoken Swedish.

Not so helpful, August 9, 2001

The material gets across, but it is rather haphazardly organized; you learn how to say "plastic handle" long before learning any object pronouns. There seems to be an effort to translate new vocabulary as it is introduced, but this is not entirely successful; I found myself repeatedly having to look up words in the reading sections that were not included in the vocabulary lists following the readings. Also, the book makes the unwritten assumption that the reader is British, which produces surprisingly many inconveniences for an American reader. All things considered, one can certainly learn beginning Swedish from this book, but not in a particularly efficient or utile manner.

Good price. easy to use., April 30, 2001

Except for the introductory pronunciation section, the book is fairly easy to use. The first five or six lessons are a bit slow. After that, it gets more interesting.

Review of the tapes, March 6, 2000
Reviewer: A reader
You can buy the Book and tapes, just the book, or just the tapes. Make sure you are getting what you want. I accidently ordered just the tapes. They have a very good pronunciation section, but then skip to conversations at full speed. I was a little overwhelmed, so don't get this as your only course.

Wonderful course in Swedish, October 12, 1998

This work is an excellent, thorough welcoming into the Swedish language. Having had experience with several "Colloquial" texts, this is by far the best. Not only are the important aspects of daily Swedish language tackled, but real-life situations are taught besides just phrases like "where can I change traveller's cheques?" The person who finishes this course is truly a Swedish speaker, not someone who merely gets along.