Yes the book is centered on the đĩa phương Bắc, the northern dialect, and yes the southern is more spoken outside Vietnam, but the northern is the official dialect as Mandarin is in China and it's what you year on the news, on government announcements, and among most educated people. The organization of this book is excellent, each chapter introducing a collection of related vocabulary as well as several aspects of grammar. We bought a copy for our teacher in Seattle and he has adopted it for his intermediate classes.

The recordings are helpful and all but a few listening exercises *are* in the book.

Not a beginner's book, but not too advanced for a motivated beginner to work into quickly. Good exercises, interesting cultural excerpts e.g. classified ads and poems. Highly recommended.

This book was written for a 200 level (second year) college class over two semesters. It will be very difficult to use this book alone to learn if you do not already know how to read Vietnamese to a degree as later on in the book it almost exclusively uses Vietnamese for instruction (English only being used to explain some words used for grammar)

Like I said before, this book is for a 200 level college course. The 100 level book is Let's Speak Vietnamese (http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Speak-Vietnamese-Introduction-Contemporary/dp/0979601517/). There is also an accompanying workbook that is used in conjunction with the book (http://www.amazon.com/Workbook-Manual-Accompany-Chung-Noi/dp/0979601525/). At the time of this review, both Let's Speak Vietnamese and the workbook to go along with Chung Ta Noi are not available.

The book is written with a Northern Vietnamese dialect so for Middle and Southern speakers, some terms may be unfamiliar. In my class (Taught by Professor Thúy-Kim) we also have access to a more updated version as hosted on the university (ASU) website that includes the Southern Dialect equivalent word in most cases.

This book is a good recourse for various grammar lessons as well as a more advanced vocabulary for people who already know Vietnamese to a degree (if you can hold a basic discussion and can figure out what you are reading) but I would not recommend this book to a beginner.

This book is HUGE. I have a huge library of language books and this paper back book is by far my biggest paperback book. Not in the terms of pages.... but in the terms of the book's footprint per se. The content is good in the book and it comes with 3 audio CDs. If you finish this book, your level of vietnamese will be pretty high.

I used this in my Vietnamese class in university.
Having lived in Vietnam, I've showed it to some Vietnamese friends. They say some of the words are quite antiquated, but overall it's fine.

I have worked with a number of texts, and this particular one fills a niche that I had not been able to locate before; Vietnamese culture explained in Vietnamese. The conversations are light and amusing, but the voice recordings are of poor quality, and some of the pronunciation isn't very clear (though, as with all languages, you have to learn to understand 'those people' too). I find especially useful that it is very possible to jump around to subjects that interest you most. I don't think it is necessary to do these lessons in any particular sequence, even though there is some building on previous knowlege. You need to find a native speaker to help you.

This was a great buy. Product came in on time and in perfect condition. On top of that, I had a great deal!

I have been learning Vietnamese for over five years have not followed any structured course or school, and this is the discipline approach I need. I have only been through Chapter 1, and it has a lot of new vocabulary with an emphasis on verbs. The vocabulary used is from North Vietnam and the Southern equivelents are not given. I like the info on Vietnamese culture in the exercises, and each chapter has some ca dao (Vietnamese proverbs) to learn. The CDs sound like a few college students gathered around a tape recorder, and the sound quality could be better. The listening exercises are challenging, with both North and South speakers represented. The CD does not give the English eqivalents to the dialog or vocabulary. Pure and fast Vietnamese only. Amazon says the book is only 19 pages but it is actually 400. Very comprehensive. I look forward to improving my Vietnamese with this book. Another good book at this level is Intermediate Spoken Vietnamese.

I found this book helpful to make progress with my Vietnamese. This book is your typical classroom book. It's great if you have a partner to do the exercises (I had a tutor, since I couldn't take the class). I especially enjoy listening to the dialogues on the audio CDs and try to understand the language as it is spoken in real life.

The book is divided into about 20 chapters plus a couple review chapters (personally I don't think the review chapters are necessary and the same vocabulary is repeated on the summary pages, which makes the book much longer, thicker and heavier); each chapter contains relevant vocabulary, dialogues, and exercises. The downside of the book for me is that it's somewhat Americanized Vietnamese (for Vietnamese people living in the US) except for the Vietnamese proverbs at the end of each chapter (which are a bit hard to understand without someone explaining it to you); having spent half a year in Vietnam, there is some vocabulary that is completely useless in Vietnam (like fast-food, vacuum cleaner, etc.). Many dialogues are also setup more for a typical American life style, not the current Vietnamese life style. Also, there is one guy on the CD whose pronounciation is pretty sloppy and simply not very good. All in all, the CDs are a strong point, though, and the book has been quite useful.