publisher | Ad Librum Aeternam

By Aida Vidan & Robert Niebuhr

Genre: Non-Fiction, Language, Language learning, Travel
Number of pages: 369
ISBN: 9780781814089
Format: Paperback (MP3 online audio)
Publication date: March 24th, 2020
Publisher: Hippocrene Books
Type: Book, language learning book, language learning textbook

*I received a free physical copy in exchange for an honest review. No compensation has been given, and I write this book review willingly. A big thanks to Priti Gress and Hippocrene Books!*

Introduction

I’ve been a fan of Hippocrene Books for a few years now, following them on social media and craving their books. As a polyglot, their books, both language learning guides and cultural books, seemed to be of quality and they’re quite varied. They cover languages rarely tackled by other language publishers, such as Croatian, Romanian, and Icelandic. I’m always looking for new resources and tools to improve my own learning, and I love exploring. So, when I contacted them, they kindly agreed to send me a few, including Beginner’s Croatian with Online Audio. I wanted to learn Croatian since I was fourteen years old (I’m double years old now… shhhhh), so it’s exhilarating to review this book for them. Plus, finding good quality Croatian language learning materials is hard, even more so in physical format.

A huge thanks to Hippocrene Books for sharing Beginner’s Croatian with me and helping my learning process! I discovered a great new resource, and definitely fell in love with their products.

Let’s break down its several qualities and few flaws together, shall we?

That way you’ll get a better idea to enhance your own language learning!

Let’s go!

Blurb

An affordable and modern guide to learn Croatian as a beginner from Hippocrene Books. It is made up of fifteen amusing lessons with colloquial dialogues, grammatical units, vocabulary and verb lists, and audio files in MP3 format (downloadable on their website). It features a History overview of Croatia, a bilingual glossary, declension tables, exercises and answer keys.

The Positive Sides

I’ll start with one of the best points about this book: the audio is free! And downloadable! Yep. No CDs—you get the audio files as downloaded MP3s, which is highly modern and useful as you can listen to them on your computer, iPod, smartphone, tablet, name it! Kudos to them! After which comes the price, which is very affordable for all the knowledge contained within its pages. Speaking of its pages, this is a quality book; its layout and format is well done, always followed. The language is excellent as I found no typos or mistakes, except in the Audio Track List at the end where it says “Dialgoue” instead of “Dialogue” a few times.

The cover is gorgeous and inspiring (look at it!), it makes you want to jump into it, much like with the language itself.

Also, the table of contents is really clear and even mentions what types of grammar explorations each lesson introduces you to.

Moreover, the historical introduction is priceless. It really helps understand Croatia and how it came to be. It also makes you travel a bit and connect with that country on a more personal level. The grammatical sections are clear, precise, and informative, and their instructions are clear and easy to follow and grasp. I love that there is an English-Croatian/Croatian-English glossary with the most useful vocabulary, a verb list with indications as to whether it’s a Perfective or Imperfective verb (trust me, you’ll be grateful this was included!), as well as declension tables (thank God for these!!! They’re life-savers what with cases and how to mark declensions in words), and a prepositions table!!! This is all so useful. I looooove when there is “extra” content (note: grammatical content) in such books. It makes my inner nerd (… more like the whole of myself, but shhh) thrilled!

Back to the free audio! The location of the audio files is made clear at the beginning (in the TOC) and on a single page at the end of the book. Also, the audio is fantastic! It’s high quality, sharp, and I love how in the vocabulary the woman will say one letter and word, and then it’s the man’s turn. We can hear both sexes! The dialogues are great, too! I love how natural they talk. The way the dialogues are used in audio is amazing. First, on one track, you have the dialogue said at a natural pace, but the words and expressions used are very much natural, what you’d encounter in a normal conversation with natives (wonderful info!). Then, on the next track, you have the same dialogue with pauses so you can repeat each sentence for practice! It’s brilliant!

As for the exercises, they’re very interesting as I had barely a headache while doing those—when exercises are hard or displeasing I get a migraine. Plus, they have answer keys at the end of the book, which makes it even more practical and useful. I love how varied the exercises are! We go from blank phrases to translations (whole paragraphs) to marking genders and filling in with the correct verbs. It’s different from most learning guides where you only have blank phrases and filling-in exercises. It made me so giddy! I loved two exercises in particular: translation and categorization! Translation is always fun (sue me, I’m a translator!), though daunting. But damn does it help to think in Croatian. As for the categorization exercise, I wasn’t sure about its effectiveness but I was proven wrong: it sears the words in your mind and you can recognize them afterwards.

Overall, I meant to study a few lessons throughout the book for reviewing purposes, but I loved it so much I found myself to be actually doing them progressively… So, surprise! I am now even more into my Croatian learning than I was before reviewing this language learning guide! Win, win!

The Negative Sides

My first negative side isn’t so much a flaw to me, but more of an acknowledgment that this could be lacking something for other Croatian learners. So, despite the gorgeous, colourful cover, there are no images and no colours inside the book. It might be too academic for some readers for it reminds me of high school and university textbooks. As for me, I don’t mind it as I love such straightforward books. I just wanted to mention it in case you find this an important aspect of your learning.

Unfortunately, the vocabulary, verb and greetings lists aren’t included in the audio. I would have loved it as sometimes we’re not sure how to pronounce those either, mostly the vocabulary. And especially in the beginning of our learning.

Lastly, the instructions for some exercises are not clear and precise enough, such as blank logical answers with no prior “logic” nor hints.

These last two points are really what I think could be improved in future editions of this language learning guide in terms of learning: more audio files and clearer instructions for exercises.

In Conclusion

All in all, thanks to this wonderful language learning guide, Beginner’s Croatian with Online Audio, I can now identify specific words in the songs and videos I watch and already remember two handfuls after only two lessons! It’s an excellent teaching manual for self-taught language learners and all kinds of language learners. For these reasons, and for the sometimes unclear instructions, I give this beloved book a rating of 4.5 stars out of 5. If you want to learn Croatian, I highly recommend this book. Don’t miss out on it or you’ll miss the opportunity to learn fast and well with pleasure!

If you want to learn more about Hippocrene Books, you can visit their Web site, you can also follow them on Instagram. You can learn more about the authors and their impressive credentials on Aida Vidan's official Harvard page and on Robert Niebuhr's official Arizona State University page. You can also add Beginner's Croatian with Online Audio to your bookshelves on Goodreads.

Introduction

When I started as a book reviewer eight years ago, I never expected it to get this big nor the greatly positive surprises it would come with. But the most important thing I’ve learned is how the publishing world works while being one of its gears.

I will show you what I learned and how being a book reviewer will help you on your path to becoming a published author. Because what’s better than knowing how it works from the inside and helping others succeed at the same time?

Be prepared to work a lot AND have fun while making friends or partners. I’ve learned so much and I am still enjoying the path I’m on, discovering new things and concepts. I promise, being a book reviewer will help you as an author. But it doesn’t happen overnight, you need to put in the work and the enthusiasm and diligence.

I’m sure you’ll find the rewards are more than worth it, though.

You will forge good and lovely relationships with authors

This is a bonus I never expected, but I am so grateful for. It’s heart-warming just to think about all the good relationships I made with authors. I started out on OnlineBookClub where authors can actually interact with our reviews. Afterwards, whenever I published a high-rating review of mine, I went and searched for the author on Twitter. And then I sent tweets to them along with DMs (when allowed) so as to tell them I’d be willing to read more of them and sending them personally the links to my review.

After a while, I noticed a few authors kept interacting with me, even on Instagram! It seemed we liked each other as people in the same business. I love being Internet-close with them because there’s a kinship and respect you don’t get from just posting your reviews.

I was given a great gift by reviewing them: friendship.

Notably, with these charming ladies and fellow:

Catherine Kopf (author of one of the most unique stories I know, The Breaking Order series)
J. M. Sullivan (author of one of my favourite retellings, The Transmissions Series). Read my review of Second Star here.
Chris Babu (author of one of my few favourite dystopian stories, The Initiation Series, and whom I also had great fun interviewing ). Read my reviews of the first two books here and here.
Marissa Price (author of my favourite Shakespearian retellings, such as Romeo & Juliet). Read my review of The Vault of Verona here.

I am grateful for all of them and I greatly encourage you to forge such bonds with authors as a book reviewer. They’re happy for the reviews and the time you give them. So why not nudge them when you particularly love their work? Of course, don’t invade their privacy! But just a nudge or lovely comment with your review will help. 🙂

Moreover, these relationships mean that you have an author circle! So when you become one (being published), you will already have author friends who can back you up and stand by you. Help and kinship are always welcome! So, don’t miss out on this opportunity.

You will forge meaningful relationships and partnerships with publishers

This is very similar to point one, but they don’t become your friends. Instead, you become colleagues or partners, which is great! They trust you will provide them with reviews, and you get free books and insider news. But what’s interesting as an author here is you get to see how promotion and street teams work from the inside as a book reviewer.

Why is this important?

Whether you choose to go self-published or traditional, you will need book reviewers AND a street team to help you with promoting your work with love. So if you learn about it, like I said, from the inside, chances are you’ll be rolling with it from the moment you’re ready to publish or be published! Also, publishers love when authors get in the train and know how it works and promote or actively participate.

So, I’d say it’s win-win in this case: you get free books and insider news AND you learn for your future on how to promote your books.

You will experience surprises such as interviews and cover reveals, which will teach you on how to proceed when your own time comes

Another important point is that you will encounter surprises such as interview opportunities and cover reveals! I have to say this is a delight; interviews are fun, if a bit stressful, and cover reveals are exciting and help the authors you like.

But again, why is it noteworthy?

Same as the above point, you will learn how to conduct yourself during interviews in the future. As for cover reveals, you will now know how to manage them, how to contact the book reviewers and your street team, and how to actually do a cover reveal. Okay, as a book reviewer, you might not manage it, but you hear about it from the publishers and authors so you can prepare the cover reveals together.

And that is precious information. It also takes away future stress from it—or helps to, at least.

You will learn about the publishing world and how it works.

Now, you’ll be an insider. Maybe not on the writing side, but definitely an insider. Why? You’ll learn how ARCs and reviewing work, how blog tours and book tours are planned, the publishers’ different catalogs and preferences, Web sites used and how they work with their people (that can tell you a lot about how they might treat their authors as well!). Finally, you’ll get to participate in insider surveys, develop ideas to promote books and reviews, and you’ll get an inside look on their publishing calendar and how it works (that applies to self-published authors too, only they’re the ones to decide when and how they publish).

Conclusion

Through meaningful relationships with authors and publishers and learning about the publishing world, you’ll find yourself grasping the big gears of how publishing works for when you’re done writing your own book. And you know the bonus? You’ll have a hella great time going about it, too! Whether you’re new or already published, I believe you can learn from being an insider—there’s always something new to discover!

Tell me, have you thought about reviewing? And if you’re a book reviewer or an author, has reviewing helped you?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment below!

See you next post, lovelies!