Customer Reviews

Learn in Your Car Spanish: 3 Level Set : A Complete Language Course (Spanish Edition)

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

 

 

The previous reviewer's main complaint seems to be the lack of time given for a response to the dialog, however I must disagree. Although Spanish is my familys first language I never fully acquired the language and have had to resort to self study to supplement what knowledge I allready had. This being said, I feel that though the response time is admittedly breif I have not had any problems producing the repeated word or response once I have listened once or twice to a section. Language learning in this format is built upon repitition which not only trains your ear but programs words and phrases into your mind with little effort. As such, to reap the benefits of this type of "easy" learning you must listen again and again. ( I have found 3-4 times per section usually does the trick of locking it in my mind)

I have the audio cassette version of this course. I enjoy the way that it approaches teaching Spanish by building on words that you already know. I like the way that one is able to answer once and repeat twice after the native speaker replies in Spanish. I would give this course a much higher rating if it only gave you more time to reply. If you have to think at all to translate, then the native speaker is already giving the answer. Often there isn't enough time to repeat what the native speaker says afterwards if you knew perfectly what to say or simple said it back in English. I had a Spanish speaking friend try it and he couldn't reply in time. The pauses aren't long enough.
If one wanted to learn at home where a pause button is an option, then this woud be an excellent course. In the car, however, where a pause button is not an option, it doesn't work that well and is frustrating.

This cd set was easy to follow and well paced. On occasion the words were difficult to understand, but that is when the included booklets come in handy. Unfortunately, I had to return the set to library before I could finish it, so I am going to buy it.

In the last two and a half years, I have learned a LOT of Spanish, to the point that I can carry on conversations with people and understand a lot of what I hear.

I did this by using every learning source I could get my hands on, including 3 different audio CD learning systems. This series is the very first thing I bought, partly because the price was right. (I paid about $50 for the entire 9 CD set on Amazon in 2008. I now see the price is considerably higher, and let me tell you- this is a $50 Spanish learning course, and not a penny more!)

This one is absolutely, without a question, the worst of the 3 series that I listened to. (I highly recommend either of the other 2- Learning Spanish Like Crazy or Pimsleur.)

One thing necessary to learn a language is a lot of repetition. This series is just too boring to listen to over and over. In fact, I never made it through CD 9. I just couldn't do it. It was killing me!

The format is:
1. The narrator says a sentence in English.
2. You get time to say the same thing in Spanish.
3. Another narrator says it correctly in Spanish.
4. You get time to say the same thing in Spanish.
5. The narrator says it correctly in Spanish.
6. You get time to say it correctly in Spanish.

And then it moves on to the next sentence. But part of the problem with that is that the sentences aren't related to one another, so there is nothing interesting happening.

For instance, here are some sentences from Lesson 51, in order:

We turned off the lights
Did you smell the cake?
Did they receive some mail?
I swam in the ocean.
She entered the building.
He died yesterday.

Ok, obviously we are studying the past tense there. But other than the fact that every sentence is in the past tense, they are completely unrelated. And that makes listening to this CD series uninteresting, boring, and tedious.

I've found grammatical errors, and places where the audio doesn't match the written material. And the MP3 labelling is all messed up, so that if you copy it to your MP3 player, things don't appear in order. (You can use a program like MP3 Tag to fix that, but there are 115 lessons in the entire 9 CD set. That's a lot of editing!)

I rated this series 2 stars, because it's not a total loss. You can and will learn some Spanish with this. It's useful in that regard. But you can do SO much better.

The beginning tapes were great to help me regain the years of spanish that I took in high school and college. The later tapes went so fast and were fairly complex that I just gave up.

I ordered this and in the intertem period, moved. I provided Amazon with a phone # and the post ofice with mt change of address. The product was delivered the first week in dec to the old address and i have contacted the post office with the package numbers which i have and they have no record of the transaction.







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