Spanish III, Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand Latin American Spanish with Pimsleur Language Programs [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

Pimsleur (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0743528956 | ISBN-13: 978-0743528955 | Publication Date: July 12, 2004 | Edition: Revised, 30 Lessons + Reading

Spanish is the official language of Spain and 21 Latin American countries, and is an official language of the U.N. Pimsleur's Spanish teaches an educated Latin American Spanish, with speakers from Colombia and Argentina in levels I-III, and from Mexico in level IV.

The Pimsleur® Method is scientifically proven to be your fastest route to nearnative fluency. Spanish III, Comprehensive includes another 15 hours of spoken language practice and one additional hour of reading instruction, and is designed to be used after completion of Levels I & II.

• The beginning 10 lessons offer you the chance to expand your vocabulary and increase your fluency to an even higher level. You’ll gain experience participating in many informal and some formal discussions on practical, social, and semiprofessional topics. You’ll skillfully form longer, more complex sentences, and most importantly, you’ll find yourself being understood, even by native speakers unused to dealing with foreigners. You’ll be able to join in conversations effortlessly, confident of being understood.
• In the next 10 lessons your skills will show everincreasing mastery of the language. Speaking with grace and complete naturalness, you’ll enjoy fluid conversations on many new subjects. Delving deeper into cultural norms and situations, you’ll find yourself responding effortlessly, and able to choose from a wide accumulation of vocabulary and structures.
• In the final 10 lessons, you’re nearing fluency with agile responses, and a naturalsounding, nearnative accent. You’re able to utilize the language in subtle ways, and speak using past, present, and future tenses. Selfconfidence soars as you experience the language and culture; no longer as a foreigner, but with a deepening insight into an expanding new world.

Reading Lessons are included at the end of Unit 30. These lessons, which total about one hour, are designed to give you practice reading Spanish and to provide vocabulary. Before you know it, you’ll be reading Spanish with the ease and flexibility of a native speaker. A Reading Booklet to be used with the audio lessons is also included in PDF format.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dr. Paul Pimsleur devoted his life to language teaching and testing and was one of the world’s leading experts in applied linguistics. After years of experience and research, Dr. Pimsleur developed The Pimsleur Method based on two key principles:  the Principle of Anticipation and a scientific principle of memory training that he called “Graduated Interval Recall.”  This Method has been applied to the many levels and languages of the Pimsleur Programs.

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Pimsleur; Revised, 30 Lessons + Reading edition (July 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743528956
• ISBN-13: 978-0743528955
• Product Dimensions: 13.3 x 11.5 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #255,487 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #32 in Books > Books on CD > Languages > Language Instruction > Spanish

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Skip #3, but 1 and 2 are good, September 14, 2006

By 

J. Billeter "organ guy" (Chatham,NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spanish III, Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand Latin American Spanish with Pimsleur Language Programs (Audio CD)

As others have said, Pimsleur is great for developing correct pronunciation and for getting comfortable speaking. In that regard, volumes 1 and 2 are excellent and gradually introduce more complex or idiomatic phrases as well as verb tenses gradually and in a natural way. Also, as others have said, you will not even remotely be able to say much (or understand much) if you ONLY do the Pimsleur lessons. You have to get a good vocabulary book (children's picture books are highly recommended), listen to Univision, etc., but getting grounded solidly in pronunciation and just the initial step of being able to put together sentences confidently is something Pimsleur 1 and 2 will definitely help in greatly. Course number 3, however, is a huge disappointment---it's not just "not good enough", it's actually extremely poorly done. Anyone who gets number 3 presumably has done 1 and 2 and is comfortable with pretty much any basic phrases (Muchas Gracias), how to do introductions (Mucho gusto in concerlo), filler phrases (No importa), etc. but in course 3, you will spend a significant amount of time simply repeating these same phrases over and over. There is also a completely mysterious enormous emphasis on certain phrases that end up taking up in total nearly an entire lesson apiece---for example, "un plato de la especialidad de la casa" (one plate of the specialty of the house). First of all, this is a phrase any reasonably knowledgeable person who has done lessons 1 and 2 could figure out without outside help---you don't need lesson time that you paid for wasted being introduced to something you can figure out yourself. But this phrase took up nearly an entire lesson. Other similar unimportant or phrases easily decipherable without help took up entire lessons. Very little in the way of additional verb tenses were introduced in the entire course number 3, and a very specific set of vocabulary was introduced entirely geared towards foreign engineers making business trips or going to conferences in Latin America (I'm not kidding---that's the vocab you get repeated endlessly and not all that useful outside of very narrow situations). So all in all, number 3 is really terrible and should be avoided even if you get it for free---it simply isn't worth the time. But number 1 and 2 are strongly recommended as good tools for getting to a basic "comfort level" from which you can really develop on your own.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Semi -disenchanted, November 2, 2007

By 

John (Kansas City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spanish III, Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand Latin American Spanish with Pimsleur Language Programs (Audio CD)

Here's a very honest review. I've been through all 4 levels of the Pimsleur Spanish Language programs (I, II, III, Plus). It took me about 18 months to get through it all with my commute to work. I went through each lesson multiple times, and I can now go back through the CD's and get probably 95% of it correct. It was an enjoyable introduction to the language, and an efficient use of my time (what else am I going to do in my car?). However, my initial hope was that I'd be able to understand Spanish conversations, radio, and TV. And I must tell you I get maybe 10% of it. Was recently in Dallas where there's lots of Spanish spoken, and I don't pick up much. The Mexican guys that painted my house...couldn't understand a word they were saying. I'm not giving up, from here I'll try more audio courses, classes, whatever is available. But if you're like me and read these reviews in the outset, don't be fooled, it's not all they make it out to be. It's ironic, but after going through their "advanced" courses, I'm still at a very beginner level. I wonder if some of these reviews are written by the publisher. And by the way, I found all 4 courses completamente gratis at my local library. Busca ahi primero.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PIMSLEUR DEVELOPS A SPEECH CENTER, January 23, 2007

By 

Doug Bower "ForTheTruth" (Mexico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spanish III, Comprehensive: Learn to Speak and Understand Latin American Spanish with Pimsleur Language Programs (Audio CD)

No where in the literature that Pismleur puts out does it claim to be the "end all" Spanish program. I mean, really! It would impossible to put everything you need to know in three short courses. What it claims to do, it does. It gets you to a certain level of SPOKEN FLUENCY and no more and no less. When I did the research for my book, "YOU CAN LEARN SPANISH or Any Language No Matter Your Age or Disposition," what I found was that Americans particularly have the most bizzare idea of what it takes to develop spoken fluency in a second language. The course, "FSI Programmatic Spanish", is one that should be done after the highest level of spoken fluency is achieved. What "FSI Programmatic Spanish" does is address material to the short and long term memory and not to that portion of the brain that develops a "speech center". If you want to know what a "speech center" in your brain is, just note how your six or seven year old child can communicate in his native language BEFORE ever learning what a part of speech is. When I went through the " FSI Programmatic Spanish" course so I could review it for my book, I thought it was dreadfully boring, mind numbing, and did not at all address the development of a Speech Center...Pimsleur, however does. Pimsleur is not "A" method for second language acquisition...it is "THE" method for beginning spoken fluency. One comes before the other. In fact, in my book, avaialable here on Amazon.com, I mention Pimsleur as part of the course of study for developing spoken fluency.