Uyghur: An Elementary Textbook

I have been studying Uyghur for some time now and before only used Chinese-made materials which had very poor recordings and not very excellent structure. Seeing this was being published and edited in USA I expected a high-quality product that would far surpass the other materials I had. If I was rating this book for my own purpose, which is self-study, I would give it two stars. I am being generous giving the book four stars as I'm sure it would be more than efficient for use by a teacher to teach a group of foreigners learning Uyghur. As for self learners like myself, it is not ideal. I will address the problems I found below.1. The book was written for use in a classroom. The sentences "ask your instructor for... " and "with a classmate" come up very often and leave the independent learner lost.2. The DVD included is ok. It's nice to have video and vocabulary you can click and hear but, besides that the quality is poor. Even on my 24" monitor I can't see the writing clearly and have to guess. The films are all dubbed over and have title screens that last much longer than the actual videos themselves. I would expect as much from materials produced in China but for USA its not acceptable.3. The DVD included is only a flash application that you can run on your computer. I would have liked to have MP3 files of the conversations and vocabulary so I could load them up on my MP3 player and listen while I'm on the road. Having to load up and run the the app just to listen is annoying.4. The conversations on the DVD don't have transcripts. Again very annoying for the self-learning student as its very hard to figure out what is said when there is no text available.5. The textbook is printed on poor quality paper. The cover feels very cheap and flimsy.For the pros:1. As we know the materials for studying uyghur are few and far between so its nice to have another resource.2. It is a big book with lots of grammar points and vocabulary.3. It is colorful with plenty of pictures, cultural notes and diagrams that aid the learning process.4. The flash application is helpful in learning the new vocabulary, being able to just click on the word and hearing it pronounced is a plus.As I said 4 stars is being generous, considering the hefty price tag I would bring it down even lower as 60+ dollars is a lot, but since the publisher knows people who are studying a rare language will be willing to pay for an overpriced book since they basically have a monopoly. For those who can read and speak Chinese there are many cheaper options, and for those who can't there are online resources that can be downloaded for free and are just as effective if used properly.For the editors: At least provide mp3 files and transcripts for us who plan on self study, listening and practicing away from home, ect. A smartphone app would be great as well. I hope they could make these improvements in the next edition.

Tremendous resource -- and in many ways -- a break through for English-speaking, introductory Uyghur students. While clearly designed to be used optimally as a textbook in an instructor lead classroom, the accompanying CD -- rich in thoughtful exercises, videos and resources -- could serve an individual language learner well. The textbook is well organized, makes a ton of sense and incrementally guides the beginning student from and through an understanding and grounding of the Uyghur alphabet to more sophisticated conversational skills. The book is artfully illustrated with cultural, historical & geographic insights from Xinjiang -- so in many ways, it goes well beyond a language text. Moreover, its clear that the book's authors -- two of the most respected Professors of Uyghur in the U.S. -- have fully leveraged hundreds of hours of classroom instruction, training and real world experience with students in creating this incredibly effective text. I could not recommend this book more highly!

Really happy there is a text book for Uyghur like this. I am learning Uyghur for my family. It’s difficult but I want my kids to know where they come from and who we are.Free uyghur

I am just ploughing through Chapter 3. The dialogues are untranslated and the new vocabulary is not included in the vocabulary list at the end of the chapter or in the dictionary at the back of the book. How am I supposed to know what I'm reading?There are words on the audio that are never used in the chapter, but basic phrases such as "what is your name" that the Chapter is supposed to teach are not on the audio! So, how am I going to check the pronunciation of these basic expressions?Even with an instructor in the classroom, this is IMPRACTICAL, INCONVENIENT AND FRUSTRATING.AUTHORS: WHY DID YOU DO THIS???

Indispensable for beginners. Color images look so attractive, no dull guaranteed.

This book has been a lifesaver for learning Uyghur. When studying less commonly taught languages, it can be extremely difficult to find resources to learn the language. This book is a good starting point for learning the Uyghur alphabet, basic Uyghur grammar structure, and a foundational base of Uyghur vocabulary. The book also provides a good introduction to Uyghur culture, and has authentic multimedia materials in the book. While traveling through Xinjiang, I saw some of the main attractions and places I had previously read about in this textbook. It was nice to have some prior knowledge of the language, culture and locations before I traveled to Xinjiang. While learning a language in class is often easier than studying a language on your own, there are not many Uyghur classes taught in the USA. If you don't have the luxury of living where you can take a Uyghur class, but you still want to learn Uyghur, I highly recommend this textbook. I have not found a better, more comprehensive textbook for learning Uyghur than this book.

I was very disappointed in this textbook.While possibly useful for those studying in a classroom environment, this book is singularly ill-suited to the independent learner. It is poorly organised, patronisingly written and poorly presented. I have no idea what the target demographic for the text is, but the layout and illustration resembles a book designed for school children from the 1960's. As an example of the organisational issues, the text book introduces basic greetings on page 40 with a short dialogues presented under a series of photographs.The English translation for the phrases appears on page 53 after a number of entirely unrelated grammar points and pages upon pages of cartoon illustrations.Even then, you gain very little insight into the component elements of the greetings.The accompanying CD rom is equally frustrating. It's very difficult to extract the sound files to put on a digital music player/ mobile phone and the sound quality on the recordings is sub-par.While I admire the refusal to include romanized versions of the Uyghur, sticking to Arabic script throughout, and I think the sound files help with pronunciation, there isn't enough good in this book to justify the price tag. I shall not buy book two of this series.Greetings from the Teklimakan: a handbook of Modern Uyghur which you can download for free from Kansas University is a much better introductory text and is available free to download from the Kansas University website.

Comme son titre l'indique, ce manuel est en anglais. Je mets cinq étoiles pour la richesse des matériaux : belle mise en page, de nombreuses photos (un peu petites, mais en couleurs), des textes très divers, cartes, extraits de journaux ou d'affiches, formulaires... qui servent de base à de nombreux exercices.Le premier chapitre est consacré à l'apprentissage de l'alphabet ouïghour, qui est une adaptation très pratique de l'alphabet arabo-persan. Une fois cet alphabet maitrisé, ce qui n'est pas très long, l'écriture est très facile car elle est phonétique, on écrit ce que l'on entend, ce qui n'est pas le cas en arabe qui, par exemple, ne note pas les voyelles. Ainsi, en suivant pas à pas la première leçon du manuel on saura rapidement déchiffrer et écrire des noms de lieux comme خوتەن (Khotan), قەشقەر (Kashgar) ou تۇپان (Tourfan).Le manuel contient un CD-ROM qui tourne très bien sur un macbook quoique le cadre des vidéos soit plutôt petit et leur qualité assez moyenne. Les fichiers audio sont très utiles. Ils gagneraient sans doute, pour un usage itinérant, à être convertis en mp3.Ce manuel de langue est aussi une bonne introduction à la culture ouïghoure. Les explications culturelles, comme les explications grammaticales sont claires et utiles.Cinq étoiles aussi parce que cela fait plaisir de trouver quelque chose de consistant pour apprendre le ouïghour. Il n'y a pratiquement rien en français et très peu en anglais.Un bémol cependant, ce manuel est conçu pour être utilisé en classe avec un professeur, dans ce cas, il vaut largement les cinq étoiles. Pour un usage en autodidacte, c'est possible, mais c'est à l'utilisateur d'être assez motivé, confiant, patient et méthodique pour mériter lui-même les cinq étoiles !Un petit plus pour ceux qui lisent le chinois, dans les nombreux documents authentiques qui servent de base au exercices, on rencontre souvent des caractères chinois (panneaux, enseignes ou formulaires bilingues).

CD cannot play, don't know why!