185 of 196 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Teacher of Foreign Language Yet, March 16, 2006
This review is from: Latin American Spanish, Conversational: Learn to Speak and Understand Latin American Spanish with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon & Schuster's) (English and Spanish Edition) (Audio CD)
I purchased the Pimsleur's Conversational Spanish CD set with 18 lessons (not sure if this is the same, but close). I am a military brat and stand true to the belief that learning another language should start at the early elementary age. I retained more Japanese in 3 years, 24 years ago, than 3 years of studying Spanish at the high school level. Being in the construction industry, the hispanic community and workers have flourished, and with that my need to communicate with them. I have bought and tried other types of audio Spanish teaching media, but the Pimsleur's method is truly the only one that actually teaches you to think for yourself, which is what is actually going to happen when your in a conversation. To start with a conversation, and not memorizing all the verbs and their tenses and numbers, etc has made this very enjoyable and wanting to buy the entire volume. (I called directly today to order.) It's like starting to play an instrument: you don't want to learn all the scales and how to read music, you just want to be able to play a song or two right away, and that's what this Conversational Spanish does.
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250 of 270 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Plodding and Practically Useless Except for Pronunciation, January 6, 2007
This review is from: Latin American Spanish, Conversational: Learn to Speak and Understand Latin American Spanish with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon & Schuster's) (English and Spanish Edition) (Audio CD)
I disagree with all the glowing reviews, and seriously doubt any of the reviewers started from square one and felt they were prepared to visit a Spanish-speaking country from it alone.
Pimsleur does have a great idea, inspired by the Foreign Service Institute's approach, but the thing is it takes TIME. What's good about the method is you're drilled and drilled and drilled... what you learn here will stay with you a long time.
The flipside (and it's a big one) is that with all that repetition, you learn almost nothing. You'll learn the numbers (up to a hundred), how to tell time, how to order a generic beer (almost every lesson spends considerable time on this), and how to ask where a hotel or restaurant is.
But if the hotel is not "right here" or "over there," (the only possible answers, apparently) you'll have no clue. Forget about "turn left at the intersection and continue for two-and-a-half blocks." You can order a beer, but forget about a salad, the daily special, what the waiter recommends, a steak, some chicken, or tea or a soft drink.
You can go shopping but unless you want to buy "things" you'll come back with nothing. Nada! "Cosas" [things] is the only thing covered! Forget shirts, dresses, pants, maps, guides, film, cameras, books, hats. Forget about buying a plane ticket, a train ticket, asking for help, asking what's playing, finding the beach, a nightclub, a doctor, a cop, or even checking into the hotel that was conveniently "over there."
To get any truly useful survival skills with this approach, these eight disks would need to be followed by at least a hundred others. And with three hundred disks practiced over two years, I have no doubt you'd even be able to converse on a variety of topics, which I believe was Pimsleur's intention. But Pimsleur's eight disks is so tragically short of qualifying for tourist survival Spanish, that it's comical, as long as you're not the one using it.
There are better ways to learn, but they will require more effort on your part, such as drilling yourself on phrases, learning vocabulary, and (gasp!) some grammar. I would recommend
Easy Spanish Step-By-Step for grammar and essential vocabulary, and probably
Teach Yourself Spanish Complete Course (Book + 2CD's) (Teach Yourself Language Complete Courses) (or
Teach Yourself Latin American Spanish Complete Course) for audio, and adequate survival phrases. For getting beyond very basic, stock phrases, listen to the podcasts at notesinspanish.com. Don't neglect the multitude of other resources available to you there and elsewhere on the Internet as well.
Pimsleur's disks are still quite useful for practicing the sounds with time to repeat ... I'd recommend borrowing them rather than buying if that's an option. If not, you might try the course that inspired Pimsleur at fsi-languages.com, which is completely free.
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44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Only for the Novice, January 20, 2007
This review is from: Latin American Spanish, Conversational: Learn to Speak and Understand Latin American Spanish with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon & Schuster's) (English and Spanish Edition) (Audio CD)
I bought Pimsleur's Conversational Spanish in hopes of addressing my greatest deficiency in the language: the art of conversation. After reading so many positive reviews, I certainly thought that the product would help to that end. Sadly, though, its sixteen lessons stay on a very basic level, culminating with learning how to say "seventy" and "We want to eat with you," words and phrases I did not need a cd to teach me.
If you are starting without any Spanish background, this may be a good, practical item to buy. If not, I would recommend looking for another product.
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