A SIMPLE GUIDE TO SPOKEN SINHALESE: for tourists in Sri Lanka

I give this book a 3 out of 10. Not many English to Singhalese books are in print it seems so it is somewhat better than nothing and it is not expensive. However its very amateur. To the English speaking person, this is going to cause confusion. The pronounciation guidelines are poor, rarely distinguishing between the common 'th' and 't' and same with other letters. The spelling in Singhalese letters is not that clear on a lot of the pages. The translations are not that good at times as well, as I've learned from various Singhalese people. The electronic book has a 'link to a cd' to help with pronounciation, but it simply leads to the author's website, and after much searching, I could not find the audio lessons. There are mistakes in the English grammar and lots of mistakes in the translations, getting you and he mixed up a lot, and v's and w's mixed up constantly. The lessons are quite specific, like 'he has a lung infection' or 'she died of cancer'. But a lot of common phrases like, where do you go to buy vegetables' seem to not be there.

Ganna epa ban gana sera wedii