Customer Reviews

Dos mundos (Student edition )

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3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I think that "Dos Mundos" is an excellent resource for both teachers AND students. I disagree that study of the book needs to be accompanied by teacher instruction and supervision. The beauty of the text, in my opinion, is that it makes self-teaching very easy. The grammar section at the back of each chapter is clearly explained in English, and there is a complete vocabulary list at the end of each chapter.

The other beauty of the book is that it creates the closest thing to language immerson that you can get out of a book. There are many articles from Spanish-speakers, written in very natural Spanish.

As for the person upset about the Mexican Spanish, I can't say that I agree with you. I was pleasantly surprised because the book actually has samplings of the language from all over the Spanish world. But in order to avoid confusion (which would make sense), they stuck to one main form of Spanish - Spain Spanish.

I recommend this book for ANYONE - teacher and students (from beginner level write up to the advanced learner)

to the reviewer who says that every Spanish textbook should emphasize Mexican Spanish, there are many other countries other than Mexico that speak Spanish. It is pure linguistic chauvinism to state that vosotros shouldn't be taught. I also think 'vos' as used in Central American and the River Plate region should also be introduced in beginning Spanish classes. Limiting the accents that are offered and by refining the text as though Mexico were the only country potential Spanish speaker will visit is short-sighted and small-minded at best. The text is not meant to be used on an autodidactic basis.

If you have a choice, do not buy this book. If you must buy it for your class, seriously consider taking a different Spanish class that doesn't use this book.

This book is full of errors - typos, missing text and using words that haven't been taught yet. It goes on and on. This may be understandable for a 1st edition, but I'm referring to the 5th edition!

They also use a hard-to-read font (small and artsy-fartsy) on their illustrations. So when you see foreign words you can't tell if the word is Lan or Ian. That may seem picky, but when you're paying $200 for the book and workbooks, I expect better.

They also have CD's (they don't include videos for some reason), but it is painfully obvious that the CD's were produced for the ease of manufacturing, not teaching. If you plan on using these CD's while going through a chapter, you will find yourself constantly changing between 3 different CD's - because they don't layout the CD's according to the chapter. One part will be for cultural parts of the chapter, another for the vocabulary and another for the workbook exercises.

It did awake me to the different between Textbooks and what I'll call Free Market books. Textbooks, at least this one, doesn't have a reference section - putting all the numbers together, colors, etc.

Just look at the editorial description (above). It really says it all..."Dos mundos is designed so that class time can be devoted to exposing students to Spanish through the abundant activities and readings in the text, allowing the grammar explanations and exercises to be studied outside of class."

In other words, if you want to learn grammar and have it explained, don't use this book. Study it "outside of class." Why am I taking this class?

I ordered this product on the 3rd of August via expedited (2 day)shipping and it did not get here until the 13th of August!! Class started here on the 15th. The product itself was as it stated, so I can not complain about that. I would not use this shipper unless you have plenty of time to wait.