Customer Reviews

Immersionplus Spanish: The Final Step to Fluency! (Immersionplus(tm) Audio Series) (Spanish Edition)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Learning to read, write, and speak a foreign language is challenging but the hardest step is listening and understanding. Native speakers seem to speak quickly and don't cooperate by using vocabulary words that you know! You can hold a very slow one-on-one conversation but the evening news blows by quickly with you recognizing only words here and there. This CD set is designed to help with this problem. It consists of 7 dialogues (for example, a couple discussing where to go for dinner). Each dialogue is presented 3 time - once at a native rate, once slowly, and again at a native rate (each in its own track). Additionally, a booklet provides the text in both Spanish and English. Each time you listen, you pick up more and more and get basic comprehension (rather than trying to literally translate word-for-word and losing track of the conversation). It's much better than turning on the Spanish channel on cable because you can listen to the dialogues over and over and, if you really get stuck, can look up the text. You need to be comfortable with a variety of verb tenses/moods (e.g., the subjunctive comes up often as it does in real life) so this would be most useful for an intermediate or advanced student.

This is what you've been looking for. An advanced Spanish CD that REALLY IS ADVANCED! This is one step below watching Univision.

A native of Honduras listened to this and told me that no one speaks this way. The speakers on the CD speak too clearly. EXACTLY!!! They speak at a normal speaking pace, but the pronunciation is more clear than native speakers. That is the only difference between this set of CDs and listening to actual conversation of native Spanish speakers.

It has a CD (accompanied by a booklet) with more than a few conversations about every day activities including golf, fishing, buying a house, eating out, etc... Each conversation has three audio tracks. The first is at regular conversation pace. The second is the same conversation but at a much slower pace. The third track is the same as the first.

You listen to the first track, improve your listening skills, but if you miss a few words you can pick them up on track 2 and then go on to track three to perfect your listening skills.

This does NOT teach grammar or vocabulary (although important grammar and vocabulary is used throughout the CD). It assumes that the listener already has studied basic, intermediate and advanced Spanish grammar. This tool is designed to accostom the student to hearing Spanish spoken by native speakers, and it is exactly what I've been looking for.

As the original reviewer has noted, of the four skills of hearing, speaking, reading and writing, the first, i.e. understanding the spoken language is the hardest for most students. Most intermediate/advanced courses present their material at normal native speaking speed - they usually justify this by saying "but that's how they speak, get used to it!" But I say you have to walk before you can run. What is the use of listening to stuff spoken so fast that you consistently fail to understand whole phrases? It is frustrating and discouraging. Here's where Immersionplus Spanish comes in with its repeated fast and slow tracks. You can listen a few times to each fast track and get as much as you can, then play the slow track. I found that this solved virtually all difficulties. With other advanced courses I could only resolve the difficult bits by referring to the transcript. How much better for them to be resolved simply by hearing them spoken more slowly. A simple and obvious idea, but this is where this course wins out over so many others. The dialogues are excellent too, lively, colloquial, everyday language. Great value.

I purchased 3 Advanced Spanish CDs to get ready for a trip to Mexico. This was the cheapest and most effective of the 3 programs I purchased. I am conversational in spanish, but not an expert speaker. I need refreshers to help keep my "ear" in sync with native speakers. This course was excellent for that purpose. The course includes a booklet with a full translation of the dialogue on the 3 CDs. The booklet was very helpful. I could read it at home and at my office and see the translation of words that didn't quite make sense. I learned several variations of words I've used in Spanish. I listened to the CDs multiple times and am pleased that it knocked much of the rust off my spanish listening and speaking skills.

This is a great product for the price (under $10 used!) if you are an intermediate or advanced spanish student. It provides multiple conversations in regular speed and reduced speed, with a booklet giving you the translations. I would reccomend to people not to view the booklet until you have listened to the conversations multiple times, because it is sort of cheating and won't help you very much. For the price, you can't beat this good practice. Perfect if you have a decent commute to work or regular drives. I work at a bar till 4am in a town 40 mins away and these CDs make the drive fly by.

The only thing I would say about this CD set I do not like is the horrible people/actors they hired for this voiceover. They COMPLETLEY lack any vocal inflection and it is not always clear when they are upset, happy, etc. They talk like robots would, so it is not really how a true fluent speaker talks. It is actually kind of funny though to listen to their lack of vocal inflection, and critiqueing the CD will help you learn more in my opinion. Apart from that this CD set is great practice, just do not expect to be fluent from listening to it. It should be solely one part in your efforts to improve your Spanish. Good luck!

The problem with many audio language courses is that they don't furnish a genuine audio context for learners. Consequently, even after completion of a course students are overwhelmed and discouraged at the sheer speed of the spoken language. Not so with Immersionplus Spanish Complete. First you hear the language at normal speed, then at a slower pace, before resuming at normal speed. I found that in the slower version I often picked up what I had missed initially. Ultimately, I could listen at full speed to whole sentences without translating, which is the true secret of gaining audio mastery. I have gone through numerous cd programs in Spanish and found nothing that excels Immersionplus. It's invaluable, not only for intermediate level students, but for those more advanced. Subject matter is pragmatic, drawn from situations one is likely to encounter in the everyday world. One tip: try not to look at your accompanying booklet in order to facilitate true absorption rather than memorization.

Not bad for the price but I wish the topics were a lot better. I did encounter some mistakes that included some conjugation errors and wrong translations, which were kind of frustrating. For example, in the first dialogue on page 2 the sentence "Dicen que tiene muy buena comida italiana" is translated as "It's supposed to have really good Italian food". To me it sounded a little odd so I asked around and everybody I asked told me that is incorrect. It should be translated as "They say that it has really good Italian food". The verbiage for "it's supposed to" should actually be "se supone que" and not "dicen que". I could point out a few more like that, but I just wanted to give an example. Honestly, I'm not trying to be a jerk but mistakes like this are kind of frustrating because I'm trying to perfect my understanding of Spanish as it relates to English, and for someone who may not realize it these types of errors could give someone a misconception about the true meaning. And although it is at an advanced level, I only found a small percentage actually helpful to me because many of the dialogues and expressions are specifically related to certain topics. For example, the dialogues in Part One include four topics: Dining Out, The Fishing Trip, The Ocean Cruise and Going Shopping. The dialogues in Part Two include: Going Golfing, Buying a House and The Election. I thought the dialogues for Dining Out and Going Shopping were somewhat helpful to me because it's more of what I would expect to encounter frequently. However when I was going through the rest of the dialogues for The Fishing Trip, The Ocean Cruise, Going Golfing, Buying a House and The Election I somewhat lost interest because it's related to very specific topics that frankly really don't interest me much even though it is in Spanish. Don't get me wrong. For the price it's not bad. Some of you might get better use out of it than I did.

Penton Overseas was on the right track when they devolped "Immersion plus" however, for some reason which escapes me, they decided not to go with all native speakers in the audio track; an error for which the student listener will likely suffer. One character in the dialogs named "Silvia" (who is obviously an English speaker) has some severe pronunciation issues typical of begining/intermediate Spanish students and should never have been used in a product like this where pronounciation is critical and students are likely to hang on every word. Could they not afford real Spanish speakers?

I like the concept of this product. You hear the dialogue at full spead then at slow speed and then again at full speed. In that regard, it is quite helpful. The speakers are native speakers which is even better. AND you can't beat the price for 3 cds and a booklet with all the dialogue and a translation. That is amazing.

My only drawback is that the readers read the dialogue as though they are somewhat zombified. It sounds at times like an automated robot is correctly pronouncing the words, but without any inflection - somewhat monotone. With that in mind, the dialogues are still interesting and well thought out and the pronunciation is correct, even if the rise and fall of the language is sometimes missing. I also have my doubts that the full speed dialogue is truly full speed. It is fast enough, though, to improve my listening skills, and, once again, for the price, it's a really fantastic product, more so than what I've said above may indicate.

I have been taking private instructions from an excellent Spanish instructor, Nina, who is big on grammar. She had recommended Pimsleur to me and my husband, also her student, and this has greatly helped both of us. I needed more, so was pleased to see Anna Rivera's notice of the ImmersionPlus course...for $15, it seemed a bargain.

Anna had given it only 4 stars, since both the audio and accompanying booklet had many mistakes. Nina listened to it for less than 2 minutes, and encountered 2 errors in the use of the subjunctive. She was appalled, saying she wouldn't give it even 1 star, as there is no excuse to publish something with errors in it.

She has strongly advised me to get rid of the course, as she says she works too hard to have us learn Spanish correctly, and finds this type of course to be counter-productive, and offensive to instructors as herself.

The author(s) need to correct the errors immediately and offer a corrected copy for free to everyone who purchased this, along with an apology.