Lonely Planet Indonesian Phrasebook

With conversational Indonesian being quite simple, I was able to get a lot out of this little book. I used this book exclusively for about 3 weeks before travelling to Indonesia, and by the time I arrived I could produce simple sentences for travel purposes. The book doesn't provide you with any organized method of learning, but it does contain a grammar section that covers the basics, and after studying that section you can deduce a lot from the example sentences throughout the book. I tried to practice making new sentences by substituting words into the sentences given. The topics are relevant to travel and basic conversation, and the example sentences are appropriate. I've also found the table of contents and glossary very easy to use, and they help me rapidly find the section I'm looking for. It's a well organized little reference book and I still use it even though I've continued my studies beyond the phrasebook level.

How can a small book like this contain so much (that is actually useful)? Amazing! This book doesn't teach you Indonesian, and that's not the purpose of the book either, but it goes very far in almost doing so. I have an Indonesian friend, and she was impressed with the number of everyday and not so everyday situations covered in the book, besides being written by someone who really knows this foreign turf. I can attest to the nearly indestructible cover. And it is small enough to fit in most shirt pockets. If you already know some basic knowledge and/or understanding of Indonesian, this book will be of great help.

I was in Indo. recently and took with me an older version of this book, about 15 years older. It was less than half the size and was lacking in every way. There were even pagination mistakes. Anyway, enough about that.I have a virtual library of LP phrasebooks and they are all good, which is more than I can say for their guidebooks, which vary tremendously in quality. LP phrasebooks are always more complete, better organized, and offer more important grammatical and clutural information than any other series. "Indonesian Phrasebook" is no exception. Everything is easy to find, as long as it's in the book. It's also a nice size, has an attractive and indestructible cover and binding, and uses lots of fonts for ease of reading and information boxes about all kinds of stuff. I offers five sentences for gay travelers but only a page and a half on dating and romance. That's more than the Thai version, but the Latin American Spanish one puts it to shame with four pages. I guess they are just being culturally sensitive and don't want to turn a bunch of college students lose with too much? the first page of Dating and Romance gives you - You're beautiful. You're sexy, Let's make love. Do you have a condom? Out of this world! Can I stay? I'll call you. Do you want to be my girlfriend? and a few others. The next page then gives you four ways to say dammit! and then I leave tomorrow, I'll miss you, Let's keep in touch, and This relationship isn't appropriate. And that's it. Pretty lame, I thought. Where's all the sweet talk while you're spending time with him/her? I took off a star for that. Still, it's the best phrasebook there is.

If you are going to Indonesia and you feel you need a language guide, but you are not inclined to study the language by means of a graduated text book, you might like to consider this. You do get a very limited section on how the language works (ie grammar) but not enough to be really useful. What you do get of great value are subject grouped word lists and phrases that even include some of the colloquial language that you will encounter whilst on your travels.However, I believe that this little book grows in usefulness if you are studying/have studied the basic language and you need something to enlarge your vocabulary and boost your communication power in Bahasa Indonesia. The word lists can be a great help in filling in the gaps that some basic courses might necessarily have left in vocaublary while aiming to teach you to use the structures of the language. In this way, this phrasebook can be very useful.An Indonesian friend of mine who saw the cultural information in the book said that the author has definitely spent a lot of time in the country and has really done his homework! Some language courses completely neglect cultural information while they are concentrating on language (such as "Colloquial Indonesian" by Routledge) so in addition to the extra vocabulary, the cultural inforamtion you find here could really make a difference to your trip, as it is very easy for an unsuspecting westerner to make cultural gaffs and end up looking "sombong". In short, if you just want a travel phrasebook and cultural guide, then this is a good choice.