Learn Tamil in 30 Days Through English Paperback – October 15, 2006

I am not usually one to be harsh in reviews. Or even write reviews, for that matter. But this book is really not a useful way to spend your time or money. Unless you pay 50 cents for it in India, like I did, and use it only as a reference, like I wish I had, you'll end up pretty frustrated and disappointed. There are much better resources online, including [...]. And I haven't seen it, but many people like Tamil for Beginners as well.Perhaps the book is meant as part of a learn-by-doing approach - if you have a native tamil speaker on hand who's willing to do most of the teaching, it does contain some useful reference and practice material. But there is nowhere near the detail of a typical western book meant for teaching a language. No grammar, no orderly tables of pronouns, and only a few scattered, confusing examples of how to conjugate verbs. You really cannot learn how to form more than 2- or 3-word sentences in tamil with this book. The information simply isn't there.Perhaps this isn't surprising, given the book's layout. Here's a run-down of approximately how the space is used:15 pages on the alphabet (the writing system is a little complex)65 pages of vocabulary (over a third of the book! Just buy a dictionary instead!)55 pages of sample conversations and other texts, with translations5 pages of pronouns, 5 pages of verb conjugationsSo yes, if you have someone around to actually teach you sentence structure, verb formation, the way that adjacent words borrow letters from each other, etc, then you might find this book useful as a backup. But if you're looking to teach yourself tamil, definitely look elsewhere. This book isn't nearly as good as some others in the series.