Beginning Urdu: A Complete Course

This is a wonderful first textbook for those seeking eventual fluency in Urdu. I will just give a heads-up that it's very dense -- I've been doing small, consistent portions of the first unit for about a month and a half now. The pacing doesn't bother me, especially when the textbook promises to take students to an intermediate level. I appreciate working with one textbook for as long as possible rather than jumping through different materials for each level, so this is exactly what I was looking for.

The book for learning urdu was good.

I've owned the Beginning Hindi book for a while and have completely finished it and I thought I might as well work for the Urdu one too. Just like the Hindi book, this book is fantastic. It has in-depth lessons, lots of exercises for practice, and lots of vocabulary lists to work with. I think this book is perfect for anyone looking into Urdu after learning Hindi, wanting to learn Urdu, or using it in conjunction with an Urdu class. Like the Hindi book, I really appreciated the slow and detailed sound and script lessons because it is one thing that tends to be missing from other Hindi/Urdu textbooks. There were also tons of dictation exercises in both books that were so useful for differentiating the sounds of the language. I highly recommend this book if you want to learn Urdu. If you work through it you will have a decent knowledge of the language afterward.

Having the hobby of learning languages, I was interested in learning Urdu because I thought it would be the easiest to learn since it's the closest to my native language, has almost the same script and has a lot of common vocabulary. Apparently, I was mistaken. A difficult language is difficult for everyone, it really didn't matter that I was lucky to get a boost by my native language and start at 30% common vocabulary (more if you include English), I still got 70% to go.I was looking for resources for learning Urdu and this book was the best one I found. In spite of this book's size, it was very simply written which is a positive thing especially if you are at the beginner's level. The vocabulary included are a lot less useful if you weren't in a classroom, and some of the exercises you cannot do without a partner. I would totally recommend this book, but maybe with other resources for vocabulary.Pros:1. Simple.2. Contains a mix of grammar, vocabulary, listening, and a lot of exercises.Cons:1. Formatted and written for a classroom, and not for self-study.2. A lot of the same vocabulary, many of which are classroom objects.3. Many exercises require partners.4. No answers for most of the exercises.5. Vocabulary are frequently written in romanized Urdu even after you learn how to write them in Urdu script.6. More suited for beginners, you still have to find other resources in order to reach fluency.

I've been meaning to review this for a long time but never gotten around to it. This, and its Hindi counterpart, are easily two of my best language-learning books period, out of several dozen.Pros:- Clear-quality audio, and a good amount of it;- Printed in a readable size, which I find can be very frustrating in trying to study languages written in the Arabic-derived script;- Did a very good job teaching the Nastaliq style of handwriting, something I struggled to find elsewhere;- Presents fairly ordinary, everyday vocabulary, which is a wonderful change of pace from books that try to teach military, political and related vocabulary terms before the reader can even carry on a normal conversation;- The grammar explanations given are pretty good;- The appendix appears to include all vocabulary given, as well as grammar summaries;- There's a table with suggested amount of time to be dedicated toward various sections;And probably others that are slipping my mind.Cons:- I really wish this was bound in hardcover. That's literally the only bad thing I have to say about it.

As it says in the description above and also on the back of the book, you can download the audio files online for free. The book doesn't come with a CD anymore.

This review is not for its content but for the physical book only. I received it today and was disappointed to discover that over half the Urdu script examples are printed in light yellow-green on a beige background?? As can be seen in the photos the black script on a white background examples are readable. The yellow-green script, however, with much less contrast (and printed in a smaller size), is nearly impossible to read.A great example of how a book designer, and all those who are supposedly checking for quality control, can ruin what is a well written book. Did the people who designed it ever look at a printed copy?I am thinking of returning it.

The book is big and heavy. The format is similar to a textbook with clear text, pictures, charts, symbols… In this regards, the course is certainly different from most other Urdu courses. The CD contains numerous recordings. However, I couldn’t get to hear it clearly even though I pushed the volume of the speaker to the maximum. There are two brief introductory chapters about the sounds and the Urdu script. The lessons have extensive and clear explanations in English. The Urdu words are written both in phonetic and Urdu scripts, for those who cannot read Urdu. Almost everything is recorded in the CD. It is certainly a welcome addition to the limited resources for learning Urdu.