Customer Reviews

Pentons Spanish 24 with Other (Penton's 24) (Spanish Edition)

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

 

 

Penton's Spanish 24 is an excellent value. Penton packs an enormous amount of material into this product and the price is great. This is actually three products in one.

Learn in Your Car is a very well organized and surprisingly complete course. It starts at the beginning and takes you to some pretty advanced stuff. Each lesson concentrates on one point of grammar. This is a good thing because after you finish the course, you can go back and find drills that you want to work on some more. Every lesson is a very short translation drill. This is a drawback because you don't get enough variety or practice. But it's good if you like to turn on your mp3 player whenever you find yourself with only a few minutes to spare. It's especially good if you're using it with a more comprehensive course.

VocabuLearn is nothing but vocabulary drills. You hear an English word, you say it in Spanish. You hear a Spanish word, you say it in English. Very boring, but fairly painless. It's a pretty good way to learn lots of words when you need your hands and eyes for other things.

Immersion Plus is probably the best part of the course, but you won't be able to use it until you've learned a good deal of Spanish. It is a series of dialogs. Every dialog is spoken at a normal pace, and at a slow pace. Transcriptions and translations are included. I wish I could buy 24 CDs of just this.

After having said all that, I would recommend using this course in conjunction with a more comprehensive course rather than alone. Don't believe the other reviewer who said that Barron's and Pimsleur are not Latin American Spanish. That's not true. Barron's is based on the FSI program which is set in the mythical South American republic of Surlandia. Pimsleur is a very neutral flavor of Spanish. Pimlseur is a much better introduction to the language than Penton 24. And the FSI programs are much more complete. Of course, both cost a lot more than Penton 24.

I started this course along with Pimsleur. Now I'm still using it along with Platiquemos, another version of the FSI program. If you're really serious about learning Spanish, that's what I'd recommend.

The concept is great and the execution not quite as great. If you complete this series you will have studied a ton of Spanish.
A pivotal piece of this is the 3 lesson Learn in Your Car series. You really need to use the booklets along with the recording on the first time through, but this series is the best of several I've tried in terms of balancing "really learning it" with "covering a lot of ground". Repetition of the same sections is a must, but it is easy to do on CD. The booklets include every word from the CD, plus a little neccessary explanation for some sections.
The vocabulary series and Imersion series are great additions to the basic grammar and vocabulary of the Learn in Your Car and they work in the car too.
My biggest complaint is that often the recording doesn't allow time for you to repeat the sentance or phrase before it goes on. This is especially true in the higher levels. In many cases, even the original recording of the phrase wouldn't fit in the space allowed to repeat it. However, this isn't always true and can be overcome by pausing.
Another minor complaint is that there are no general instructions on the best way to approach the series. Do you start with the phrases and go to the vocabulary later or vice versa, or both together.
Don't let my complaints disuade you. If you are committed to studying Spanish and in the car is the best place for you to spend time, this series is great. But if you can't ever review the booklets, then it might be more difficult.

Spanish 24 covers Levels 1,2,3 and holds 24 cds packed with a blend of Grammar/conversation, immersion, and vocabulary for three levels of Spanish learners. This is an exceptional package which blends the original 'Learn in your Car' language basics with expanded lessons on vocabulary increasing and three hours of conversations with 2-3 speakers at both slow and normal paces, for added impact. If only one major learning tool for Spanish is affordable, make it this package.

Lots of material for your buck. The "Learn in your car" segment has a booklet to go with the CD. I find this necessary, but you can,t read it while you drive. Also the spanish speaker talks to fast. He repeats it twice in spanish, both times fast. It would be better if it was slow once and then again faster. I also own the Pimsleur Spanish and also the methods of Michel Thomas. It gets rather old sticking to one system and I like using the other methods as a change of pace.

Out of all the language learning systems out there Penton's are by far and away the best and the best value. Spanish 24 packs an incredible amount of content into a single package and at Amazon's price the value simply cannot be beat.
Functionally, Penton's products are miles ahead of the competition. Barrons, Pimsleur and others are useless or worse than useless for someone wanting to learn Spanish as it is spoken in Latin America as they all focus exclusively on proper Spanish as spoken in Spain. Great if you are going to be spending all your time in Spain. But if you go go Latin America and (attempt to) speak as if you were a Spaniard you are going to get funny looks and probably will not be well understood. Do yourself a favor and leave the Barrons and others on the shelf if you are heading for Latin America.
The "Learn in Your Car" series is great, but better if you are able to use the accompanying booklets as you go along, not recommended if you are also trying to drive. But once you have gone through the CDs and the texts once you really no longer will need the booklets except for occasional reference. This also goes for the Vocabulearn and Immersion series.
Since the material is repetitive by design, it is easy to get stuck learning just the material on the CDs. This can be a trap and should be supplimented by listening to Spanish language radio stations as well, preferably talk radio so you will be exposed to a variety of voices and not just those of professional speakers. Not everyone you encounter in your travels will have perfect grammar and diction. Also, do yourself a favor and get a GOOD English-Spanish dictionary, the best one is Oxford's, the best value is Harrap's. Harraps, being a paperback, is the one I carry around with me.
All in all, there are no language learning products out there that are superior to Penton's and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

where you input:
information (vocab list)
program a set of rules (grammar)
and finally spit out results (fluency?)

or they are kidding themselves



there are 24 cds, i skipped arounds and ALL THE TRACKS are simply a vocab list. I admit that they had some soothing music in the background, but does memorizing words really help you?
Who the hell can memorize about 21 cds worth of vocab?
The last 3 CDs are conversations, but apperantly, you are not only expected to know all this, but become fluent in the language and spit out conversations on your own!

I hate to say it, but this is worse than rosetta stone. At it RS progresses from words to phrases, this here is just a vocab list.

This is a good choice for beginners to intermediate level of Spanish. I would have to say that this is a pretty good product for refreshing and reviewing what you have learned. I have found that I have forgotten a few things that were mentioned on the CDs, even while I'm listening to level 1. My level of Spanish is intermediate to almost advanced and since I do not used it everyday, I have forgotten some of it. The immersion CDs are very helpful in getting acquainted to speaking Spanish, even though some of the words and pronunciations are more biased towards Neutral and Central American Spanish. If you are trying to learn South American Spanish, you might also need a native South American Spanish speaking tutor to help you with the differences. South Americans use some words that are specific to that region and the intonation is also different. This is a good product for me overall. I use it mostly as a refresher so that I don't forget my Spanish. For some of the beginners that that have no foundations in Spanish, this may be a bit fast paced for you in the beginning. You might have to repeat it a few times. I have to repeat it a few times for the reasons mentioned above, and I am pretty familiar with Argentinian Spanish. I give it a 4 star because I feel that the included booklet should have been more detailed than it should be, especially for beginners. For everyone else from intermediate level on up, this will be a breeze for you. It's an excellent set of CDs for establishing a good foundation in Spanish.

I PURCHASED THIS SEVERAL YEARS AGO AND HAVE REPEATEDLY LISTENED TO IT. DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR, IT IS THE BEST PROGRAM OUT THERE FOR YOUR MONEY. THE CDS ARE ALL WELL RECORDED. THE PROGRAM COMES WITH SEVERAL BOOKLETS THAT GO ALONG WITH THE CDS.

Hello.
Pentonoverseas's spanish 24 course is good.
I got this course about 3 times already. I lost some of their cds in the past but I keep buying this course.
I showed this course to a friend of mine and he got the course too.
The cds just get down to buisiness in speaking fluent spanish and there NO nonsense on the cd with music or just saying little words.
All of the cds just talk in an english sentences and then after that say the spanish sentence.
These are great cds for getting the grammer correct.
Now when i had the cds i didnt read the book much untill i got to the subjunctive and other grammer things i wanted to read about.
They have written on the booklet to repeat outloud what you hear. I did that too and i think its good so you can speak good.
Anyways if anybody knows of any other spanish courses like this or good as this then please send me an email at [...]
Thanks

I found this very good, easy to follow and practical.
If you are in a crunch and have a chance to go through only a few of the first CDs you will be able to carry on a basic conversation during your travels to Spanish speaking country. If you can combine it with some real world practice aor maybee structured learning it will be an even better tool. I found it too soothing for the car though.