Croatian phrasebook 2 (Lonely Planet Phrasebooks)

This is an excellent book if you want to use or read some Croatian words or phrases while you visit that country. It is easy to use and offers useful phrases for travelers. We stayed in Dubrovnik. The people all spoke several lanuages, including English, there. The phrasebook was not a necessity in Dubrovnik, but when I travel, I find that people of a specific region enjoy hearing travelers use some of the local language. I enjoy using it, too. This book helped me engage the people of the city!

I've lived in Croatia and I've studied the language for about 5 years, so I know it to a reasonable degree of fluency. This book is great for communication, and as a reference for phrases, questions or comments that one might be a little lost on otherwise, even as a speaker of the language. I would agree that there are mistakes (like the mixing up of the words "boyfriend" and "girlfriend"... did they do that on purpose?) but honestly, I've gone through tons of Croatian language-learning, grammar and phrase books, and this is by far the most useful for its purpose. An earlier review cited the use of Serbian words as a problem, but while I think a revision wouldn't be a bad idea, this product still is completely worth it in that anyone who actually needs to use this, i.e. not a native speaker, will probably be forgiven and/or totally appreciated for attempting to speak at all. As far as grammar goes, yeah, there's not much in it, but if you're looking for grammar, use Thomas F. Magner's Introduction to the Croatian and Serbian language, and for conversation, Teach Yourself Croatian. However, with both of those being so much larger, you wouldn't want to take them on a day trip, so for light travel, this is a must-have.

This book was indispensable. Between this and Pimsler's Learn Croatian 1 we managed to get by fairly well. There were definitely a few frustrating moments though. The book fell through on such things as "Wait, I have a phrasebook" and "Sandwich" in the dictionary. If you want to talk about how your sex life or drug use is going however, you'll be well equipped. I definitely recommend it. I also recommend a guidebook. Between lonely planet, frommer's and DK I would rank frommer's as the most useful, DK with the best pictures, and lonely planet as acceptable. Oh . . . the country is amazing, definitely go . . .

This book covers the basics in a way that is simple and useful. Three topics are covered in the book: the basic grammar, useful phrases and a 2000 word dictionary. The book is small enough to fit in your pocket and covers each of these topics with an efficient layout. For the grammar, first of all its usually missing from most phrasebooks and dictionaries. But, when you find a grammar section, its usually not useful for travel because its too much detail. For example, in "Barron's TravelWise Croatian" book, four standard verb endings (-am,-jem,-em,-im) are described for present tense conjugation. What that book lacks is information to figure out which ending goes with which verb. In this book, a "rule of thumb" way to add a single ending to all verbs is described. Its simplier to learn and works well with the format of the book. Its not prefect so maybe language experts cringe but its practical. For the phrases, it is a majority of the book. A couple things I liked were that for phrases that begin with the same words, the words are not repeated. The other is it includes an English pronunciation hint for the Croatian phrase. Both might seem like common sense but several books don't do this. My main criticism with this book is the English pronunciation hint seems strange. The stressed syllable uses italics instead a bold font. And the transliteration use combinations of english letters for one sound. Compare these "ya ne go-vorim" and "ya ne gaw-vaw-reem". Which is easier to use? For the dictionary, it is not huge but its a two way dictionary with gender and pronunciation. Its more words than you can memorize for a trip anyway. There is also a separate culinary reader for looking up food dishes. If there were a second edition to this book, the author should fine tune the vocabulary in this book. Its kind of funny seeing "Tequila" as a drink but not finding "Lobster" or "Squid" for food. Why go to Croatia to drink tequila? And of course its translates to "Te-kee-le". This book is not prefect so it gets 4 stars not 5. For a Croatian language reference book that fits in your pocket this is the best book out there. If you have more time to study, review the "Teach yourself", "Colloquial" and "Barron's" Croatian books.