Vocabulary Building in Indonesian is a collection of Indonesian reading passages grouped around nine subject areas and coupled with exercises designed to improve the reader's vocabulary in both size and accuracy. The nine subjects covered are anthropology, language and literature, art, religion, education, population, agriculture, economics and politics. There are four passages on each subject, the first two specially written for the book and the other two taken from existing literature in Indonesian. Following each passage is: a list of words to help the reader with the passage; a set of questions on the text, in Indonesian and to be answered with Indonesian sentences; examples of usage for sets of words with overlapping/contrasting semantics (or, in some cases, similar sounds); explanation of subtle points of grammar where mistakes are often made; and a set of exercises where the reader is tested on the preceding by having to choose the appropriate word to complete sentences.

Vocabulary Building in Indonesian is aptly titled, and I'm finding it an extremely effective (and enjoyable) way of expanding my vocabulary and improving my understanding of my existing vocabulary (I'm a third of the way through it at the moment). This may, however, reflect my personal interests; someone without an interest in the social sciences might find the passages boring and some of the vocabulary esoteric. Vocabulary Building in Indonesian was obviously printed from typed copy, giving it that uniformity of formatting which yells "academic monograph". Unlike many such, however, it is clearly laid out and carefully edited, and is a very good demonstration of how one doesn't need a multiplicity of fonts and fancy graphics to produce an elegant and effective document.

April 1995

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Related reviews:

- books about the Indonesian language