Customer Reviews

Latin American Spanish, Conversational: Learn to Speak and Understand Latin American Spanish with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon & Schuster's) (English and Spanish Edition)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

While the Pimsleur method remains solid, this series accentuates the product's weaknesses. It's very, very basic, so if you know any Spanish you'll be frustrated. It also encourages you to call Spanish by its Castillian name, but avoids Castillian pronunciations (so what's the point? And won't most American customers be going to Mexico, where they don't speak with a Castillian accent?) Moreover, it has the usual assortment of bizarro conversations and statements (I have a lot of pesos at the hotel), including endless practice of saying "I am a Mexican, Ecuadorian" etc. 1. I'm never going to say this. 2. I get the general idea after a few repetitions. The strong suit of Pimsleur is that you learn what you learn very well, with excellent pronunciation. The weak suit is that you don't build a lot of useful vocabulary. I can now say, with near perfect pronunciation, "I speak a little (Mandarin, German, Spanish), but I don't speak it well." But I can't have much of a conversation in any of these languages beyond that.

I got this item for my husband, who had the French version and loved it! He tried a couple of other versions of someone else's "Learn to Speak Spanish" program because Barnes and Noble was out of this, and he was very disappointed. I then ordered this and he is very pleased. It helps you to learn spanish in a conversational way that immerses you in the language rather than just repeating back unrelated words that they tell you. My husband has never had any language training before, but wanted this because he deals with a lot of spanish speaking people in his work. We highly recommend this one.

Exactly what I was looking for! I drive to work, roughly 45 minutes each way, and always wanted this time not to be wasted. The length of lessons fits right-in with some 5 minutes to spare in case of an interrupting phone call. The course assume absolutely no off-time studying and no usage of printed material whatsoever. Additionally, being alone in a car, I am the most comfortable about pronouncing sentences aloud, compared to being in a real class (this I remember from my years at University) or at home with my family around (as of now, this would be the only other option).

The pauses after English prompts are just right. On rare occasions when I get destructed and miss a moment to try my Spanish guess, there is always time to repeat the Spanish after the recorded voice before the next English prompt comes in. New words and expressions are naturally mixed in with repeated ones from previous lessons, making ideal byte sizes of new material in every next lesson while keeping you from forgetting what's learned before.

There are 16 lessons in total. Of course, you can not stuck it all in your head in 16 sessions. If I feel that I miss more than 10% of prompts, I jump couple of lessons back. I had to jump to 4 after the first series of 1 to 6, then back to 6 after getting to 8 for the first time and so on. I went over number 12 today and feel confident about moving on to 13.

I was reading the reviews before choosing this course, and one of those complained about this being Latin American Spanish rather than European Spanish. For me this is an advantage: my goal is to be able to communicate with locals and personal during our vacations to places like Mexico or Dominican Republic. I was surprised with how perfectly the program fits the goal. Dialogs concentrate on general courtesy, saying basic things about yourself, finding your way around, social eating and drinking, buying thins, timing, counting... It feels like the material was compiled with somebody exactly like me in mind: the phrase "One beer, please" is introduced as early as Lesson 5, if I remember correctly. I am looking forward to impressing my wife and kids during our next trip.

I just finished all of the CD's and I feel like I learned alot. I really wanted a program that I could do in the car and use while walking.. ie something you don't need to constantly rewind. It was perfect!

Since I can't find a Part II of this Series, I purchased Behind the Wheel Spanish and I'm really not liking it. I've gotten used to learning each word individually with Pimsleur and with this new program it give you 20-30 new words and then says to memorize on your own time.

Highly reccomend Pimsleur

First I tried 'Learn in Your Car Spanish' by Henry Raymond.
Next I moved on to 'Conversational Spanish' by Pimsleur. Much slower learning pace. I returned 'Conversational Spanish' because it wasn't challenging enough for me. Still, I gave it a 4 star rating because I feel that the course has merits and is well produced.
I finally found the best course last. 'Behind the Wheel Spanish' by Language Dynamics. Amazing method and tons of vocabulary, not to mention
a great book and techniques for learning to use your own sentences.
I kept 'Learn in Your Car' and use it sometimes with 'Behind the Wheel Spanish' which I use, enjoy and benefit from most.

I got this CD series to prepare for an upcoming trip to Spain. I spoke no Spanish before these 16 lessons. I would say I got about as much out of this series as I could have reasonably expected. There are 8 CDs with 16 lessons--30 minutes each. The method is totally hearing-based, meaning there is no written content. One learns to recognize words by their sounds. I am a very visual learner, but I have been surprised how well this audio-only system worked for me. These 16 lessons cover the words and grammar one might use to address basic functions of a foreign-speaking visitor. The lessons do not cover past and future tenses of verbs and teach very little about plural nouns. But I do expect to be able find el hotel o el restaurante o el bano and I should be able to purchase items in stores or restaurants. For the fancy stuff, I'm hoping most people in Spain speak English.

This is a very good set of cd's and I'm busy learning conversational Spanish. I know French and these tapes are teaching me to think in Spanish and not French; and correcting my pronunciation. I knew the very, very, very basics of Spanish before this but I think I will be able to relax and converse much better in Mexico now!