Customer Reviews

Plazas: Lugar de encuentros (with Audio CD's)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I have been teaching with this book for 2 years and the more familiar I am with it the less I like it and the more mistakes I find on it. It was not chosen by me and I hope we'll change it soon. The textbook and workbook have plenty of mistakes even though it is a second edition.
This book claims to cover cultural elements from most Spanish speaking countries but it only sets each chapter in a different country, with very little cultural information about each place. The "encuentro cultural" section is the only cultural information in the book (apart from the video section) and most times is inaccurate or just plain boring or not interesting at all. Another problem is that many of the communication exercises are not communicative at all and not very involving for the students. Finally, I think that a book which costs more than $100 should, at least, have more pictures and color pages and it should try to make learning a language a more rewarding and fun experience.

Despite the description the book does not come with the ilrn code or the CD-ROM of the book. If you need the ilrn DO NOT! buy here. If you buy the ilrn by it self it is hundred bucks. Amazon sent me two copies because they were not smart enough to know if the book actually came with it or they didn't ship it. Wasted my time and forced me to take a 0 on my first assignment. They did provide free shipping for both returns though and took them back without question. Book is good just don't buy from amazon.

Okay, chances are you HAVE TO HAVE Ilrn to take your Spanish class- You will NEED the BOOK CODE for Ilrn.

This book DOES NOT come with that. After you purchase this book, you will have to go online and purchase the online Ilrn for $94.95- you aren't saving any money.

My school offers a package with the book, Ilrn bookcode (to register online) and a dictionary for $191. You will either lose money or break even. Keep that in mind when you buy this book online- you most likely will have to fork out an additional $94 to use Ilrn.

The reality is that if you're looking to buy this book you're getting it not for casual reading but because your school requires it. So, you can ignore the reviews that discuss its shortcomings because your instructor is still going to require it.

All you care about it what is included and can I get it fast. If you buy the book NEW from Amazon you will receive the book, which includes two audio CDs. If you buy the book USED you may or may not receive the audio CDs, so read the description carefully. In both instances, at this price the book does not include the access code to iLrn: Heinle Learing Center or the Quia codes, which provide online access to workbooks, lab manuals, and e-books. You will also not receive the workbook. If you require the codes and workbook, then you will have to purchase them separately.

My recommendation is that before you buy this book, check with your college bookstore. Some bookstores sell everything as a bundle, whereas some, like mine, only sell them individually. If you can get it as a bundle then you might save a few dollars, or perhaps not, you'll have to make that comparison.

As for speed of delivery. Take the free shipping and it will add a couple of extra days to the delivery time. If you can't wait, then pay for shipping. In both instances Amazon has never failed me in deliverying within their projected delivery window.

If you need the ILRN Learning Center code (which is how many professors give and grade homework) then do NOT waste your money and buy this book. The audio cd that it says includes is basically the textbook on cd form, so then you have the hard copy and cd copy of the book. Its best to suck it up and spend the $160+ at the bookstore and get what you really need. Btw, there is a loose leaf version of this book thats about $30-$40 cheaper than the hardcover.

This book means well, it really does. However, I usually can get past somewhat poorly laid out textbooks, but this one really takes the cake.

First of all, for the exercises -- most of the instructions are unclear. It has a lot of "fill in the blank" exercises and you're sitting there staring at the problem without any real clear idea of what you're supposed to use. The part of chapter one on telling time confused the hell out of me and I spent half of the class period trying to get clarification from my teacher. The way I was reading it in the book was a lot more difficult to understand than when my teacher was explaining it.

The book also uses a lot of words that either are NOT defined in the book, or are very obscurely placed on another page. The book also has sentences that use verbs and articles that are not defined, nor does it say what the root form of the verb is, so when I am trying to look it up in my Spanish to English dictionary, I can't even find it.

I really really hate this book. I am also a 4.0 student who is in the Honor's program... so for me to hate a textbook is really saying a lot. Thank God I have Spanish-speaking friends. If I knew this book was so bad I wouldn't have taken this class, I would have taken German!

I like how this book presents new info fairly clearly in separate 'boxes' or sections, and it has a good review page at the end of each chapter. I'm using Plazas and Dicho y hecho for my regular Spanish class and my conversational Spanish class, respectively. I like Plazas better. Both books seem rather scattered to me; maybe I'm too old for current teaching methods. But Plazas is better at highlighting the new info and has a better and longer index.

I love how people gave this book stars based on having gotten their books fast or on time as if Amazon were somehow linked to Ebay. Of course they got it on time. This is Amazon. Ignore any reviews that rated this book on how quickly they received it seeing as of how they haven't even opened it yet.

You probably will have to buy this book for your Spanish classes, so you probably have no choice other than to cough up the money and use ten other resources to learn this language like myself and a ton of my classmates who did not take Spanish before or have fluent Spanish speakers in our family.

The Spanish instructor from Boston could not be more correct in his own review of this book. I am almost done with a 101 class, but I keep getting weird looks from my classmates who are native Spanish speakers. I have had to show them parts of my book to try figuring out where I am going wrong with my structure and grammar, but they keep showing me different parts of the book that are incorrect. I would say it was a culture factor and that every region has their own dialect, except they all point out the same things and tell me the same information after the fact without my promoting their response in any fashion.

I already know Latin with straight A's in the classes I've taken. I am excellent at picking up dialog and memorizing for future use. However, in many cases, this book tell you what to do but fails to explain why you do it so you can work future vocabulary to do you bidding. A good example was having to learn the conjecture of "de la" into the "del" form. I had to have a friend explain when you use "de la" versus "del" because the book simply doesn't tell you. It just says to do it, which is not a way to teach at all and gets you poor marks when you have to write papers.

Be warned and try to make a good amount of Spanish friends while trying to learn this. Also get another book and read it on your own. You will need it.

I have been using this text book for my Spanish 101 and 102 at the Seattle language academy and I find it very useful. The explanations in the book are clear and are based on English grammar. The exercises are helpful in testing out your Spanish skills. I like the summary at the end which is a useful reference tool. I recommend this textbook for a beginners course.

The book itself is not worth 120.00 when the code for the online site alone is 74.00. the book is worthless without this code. I can't believe i was fooled into buying this book. Returning asap!!