Lingo Mastery 2000 Most Common Dutch Words in Context: Get Fluent & Increase Your Dutch Vocabulary with 2000 Dutch Phrases

I'm listening to the audio in the car whenever I'm going more than 10-15 minutes away, and I have noticed a big difference in how well I can understand my tutor, in just one week (which admittedly included a couple of 1- to 2-hour drives). I can now hear the separate words in his sentences, even when I don't recognize them. I'm not letting it distract me from driving, so part of this learning seems to be subliminal. I realize that the authors recommend reading along as one listens, but I'm trying to get fluent in understanding spoken Dutch and focusing on listening is helping to wean me from reliance on having to see the word to understand it. A number of reviews have said you have to buy both the print book and the audio book to use either, but that's not quite true -- you get a free PDF of the book when you buy the audio book, whether for cash or an Audible credit. The problem is that Amazon makes it hard to find the PDF (you have to select either "All" or "Docs" in Kindle to find the PDF), but it IS there. Get the Kindle-for-PC app, for your phone, and use your Kindle, and you can read along on one device while playing the audio on another. Of course, if you want a hardcopy, buy the book. In short, this audio plus printed combination is great. The sentences are reasonably complex, so I think I am getting a good feel for the language as well as learning specific vocabulary. I highly recommend the Audible version since it includes the PDF.

No index and no thematic order so... How is this supposed to be usefull? You should save money and juste invest in a good dictionnary.

I like that there is a book with this intent. I didn't know it was supposed to have companion audio recordings (that didn't come with my Amazon order)? Are the recordings just the same single sentence that is listed in examples? This book seems less for beginners. I'm past beginners and it's not as easy to use for for the following reasons. The main beef I have--each usage is not supplied an example. E.g. " 484 - recht [n, adj, adv] law; right; straight..." Only an example of straight is listed, of hanging a picture that isn't straight. Using it as a noun meaning "law" is not given. So I'm looking it up (somewhere else) and seeing how to use it, and to find out what article to use for that noun. A suggestion: if Articles for the nouns stood before the word, visual learners could take a "mental snapshot" for memory. Or it could follow the designation 'n'. As it is, 'De-' or 'Het-' appear only if the 1 example uses the noun version of the word's meaning. And only if the example does not use 'deze' 'die' or other neutral articles like 'een' Maybe this all has to do with my learning style....

Very useful for showing how a word is used, BUT as there is no index, you can't look up a specific word you want help with. Also, when a word has several meanings, only the context for the primary meaning is given. It could have been made much more useful.

I found the book lacking in important issues: there is no index, phrases (words) are not alphabetized, making it easy to locate them. It is informational, but rather frustrating to use.