Customer Reviews

Fodor's Spanish for Travelers (Audio Set) (Fodor's Languages/Travelers)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The audio with this book has useful phrases that would be great to learn before your trip, however the phrases are spoken to quickly for a beginner to learn. Also, the format is inconsistent. In the beginning they start off first giving you the word/phrases in english followed by spanish. Then, without any warning, it changes to giving you the spanish word first and then the english. This makes learning even more difficult. This is not a good program for beginners. Maybe if you have taken spanish classes and know some basic spanish vocabulary, grammer, and phonics then this would be a helpful review. If you are a beginner like me with one semester in college completed years ago this program is not for you.

I'll get straight to the point: Do NOT buy this unless you have a basic, solid knowledge of Spanish already.
This CD set is comprised of phrases, first said in Enlish, then repeated in Spanish. The Spanish pronunciation is difficult to understand without the book in front of you- which is confusing to follow.
This CD set does not teach grammar, pronouns, tenses, etc. It only teaches phrases- complete sentences.
In order to benefit from this set, you will need to already understand some basic verbs and pronouns (gender and formalities) or you will become lost very quickly.

This CD set is only good if you need to quickly memorize phrases for traveling- but remember, you will also need to UNDERSTAND what people say to you. It's better to learn the basic language skills than to memorize, "Where is the bus station?" and realize you have no idea what the response means!

I recommend starting with a "Teach Yourself Spanish" course first. That will give you a good foundation.

My husband and I travelled to Spain for our honeymoon knowing very little Spanish (cerveza, por favor and gracias were basically it). This book helped us to communicate with ease. The book is organized by situation to allow you to find stuff quickly, and also includes a small dictionary. Its small size made it easy to carry with us everywhere. We also carried the Living Language Spanish-English dictionary to help us translate specific words, but to put them in phrases that actually made sense we used this book. We will definitely buy other phrasebooks by Fodor's for our next trip.

I have this book and several other Spanish language books. This is the best of the lot. It has a dictionary of most common words, a useful phase section with pronunciation and useful information about Spain and Latin America. It is worth every bit of the price. Es muy bueno.

I picked this up before a trip to Guadalajara, and it really came in handy. It was simple to use and full of exactly the words I was looking for. I practiced with the cassettes on the plane, and then I brought the phrasebook everywhere - shopping, sightseeing, eating out, and (unfortunately) to the pharmacy for, um, an emergency. It even helped me there, although I wish the situation to test that particular area of usefulness hadn't come up. Really a great buy and a fantastic way to stretch those two years of high school Spanish I barely remember.