Customer Reviews

Spanish Now! Level Two Audiocassette Package: 2-90 Min. Cassettes

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I enjoyed SPANISH NOW! Level 2 mostly because of the complete and intense instruction on the various tenses, working its way from the Present Indicative to the Past Anterior. If you have a firm grasp on elementary Spanish, this might be the book for you. SPANISH NOW! Level 2 teaches Spanish optimally by itself, but I've found that this workbook functions even better with a vocabulary handbook, because SPANISH NOW! Level 2 tends to focus more on the grammar and ultimately the verbs. SPANISH NOW! Level 2 is ideal for the beginner or intermediate highschool or college Spanish student, or for those who want to be able to read and write in Spanish. Finally, this book is NOT for those who solely want to become conversational in Spanish, because it focuses on reading and writing ability along with sentence structure.

As a teacher of adult Spanish, I am always looking for good instructional books, and I am frustrated at the lack of quality, comprehensive, adult learning books. Spanish Now 1 was pretty darn good, with reading sections, easy, comprehensive grammar, and nice excercizes. But, suddenly in Spanish Now 2, they run through all the tenses, with very few excercizes, no stories to read in class. My students need to learn each tense in time, so they can practice and master it,not be confused by the rush. While I'm sure this is a good book for those wanting to review grammar, who already know it, as a learning book, it's just too fast, and not helpful as a teaching tool. Thanks, but no thanks. lisa

This Spanish Two book moves rather quickly, but if you liked Spanish Now Level 1, I think you'd like this one as well. It's more advanced than the basic High School Spanish 2 Public School Textbooks (at least in Texas), and expects that you're fairly well-versed in most Grammar points from Level 1, but allows for a little review here and there.

I like the set up, but the vocabulary list per lesson is overwhelming at times for any high schooler. I would not suggest using this book with any student under the 10th grade level. Private tutors, as another reviewer said, will benefit greatly from it, and I have used it in my own small private classes, but I supplement with other materials, and go fairly slow, to ensure absorption. As a review for someone who wants to brush up on their Spanish 2 knowledge, I think it would be excellent. On your own, as a first time Spanish 2 student, you'd have to be VERY motivated, but the stories at the beginning of each lesson make it worth the money, I believe.

For much younger students, try Flip Flop Spanish (of course, I'm a bit biased!)

Sra. Gose
Author of Flip Flop Spanish: Ages 3-5: Level 1 & Flip Flop Spanish: Ages 3-5: Level 2

I have Kendris' book of verbs and it's a good straight forward resource. The Spanish Now! Series is very common at the large bookstores and I picked it up because unlike most bookstore titles it had a level two book for intermediate students. What I find difficult is that as a bookstore title it really is designed as a textbook for a class room situation; not really surprising given Barrons' business segment. Be that as it may, this makes the book nearly impossible to use for self-study. In every chapter there are examples and exercises where you're supposed to converse with a classmate or listen to what the instructor reads to you. Beyond that, the exercises are repetitive and uninteresting. For self-guided study look elsewhere.

This is James from James Spanish (the learning Spanish blog). This comprehensive work book takes you through a variety of exercises designed to test and strengthen your Spanish skills. Spanish Now! Level 2 is designed for intermediate students who already have a good grasp of basic grammatical elements as well as a working vocabulary. The course takes learning Spanish to the next level, exploring more complex tenses and grammatical concepts.

Although there is some review from Level 1, you should be comfortable with basic grammar and tenses before embarking on this book. The lessons are longer and more demanding, with more theory and less simple exercises. That said, it can be assumed that if you are moving on to Level 2 that you have a desire to strengthen your grasp of Spanish, and this book will certainly help you towards that goal.

Rather than being a plain reading text, this book is more like a classroom workbook, with exercises to be filled in and completed at each stage.

The sample texts at the start of each lesson include all of the vocabulary, which is then thoroughly explained afterwards. In this way, your natural curiosity drives you to learn, in contrast to most other learning formats which provide the bare bones of the language before then giving an example of how they can be used.

Lessons are clearly laid out in a simple format that caters to an intermediate student wanting to learn more, without any of the typical games or tricks used in books for beginner learners.

The book includes many useful reference resources such as a chart for irregular verbs. The focus is on reading and writing Spanish to a high degree of technical accuracy, and gives a good grounding in verbs and grammar.

Don't expect to be able to race through this manual. Take your time to study each element and understand it in order to complete the exercises. In this way you will walk away with a solid understanding of the trickier parts of the Spanish language and be a few steps closer to fluency.

If you have already mastered basic Spanish, have a large amount of vocabulary, and can hold a basic conversation but are looking to improve your sentence structure, and accuracy of speaking and writing the language then this is a great book.

In closing my review of this product, I'd like to share with you the three Amazon products that I have found most helpful in my pursuit to learn Spanish. If you are truly serious about achieving fluency, I'd recommend getting all 3 of them if you can afford it.

1. Lights, Camera, Spanish (Book + DVD): Learn Conversational Spanish by Watching a Romantic Adventure This is actually a 90 minute movie for Spanish-language learners. It gives the option to watch the movie with subtitles but I'd recommend not using them to improve your Spanish. This "movie" also includes a workbook so that you can reinforce the Spanish vocabulary words and phrases from the film. The workbook also has lots of exercises to keep you engaged in the film. But be prepared to hear Chilean accents. Although pleasent to the ear, the accents from Chile are very different from most Latin American accents.

2. Verbarrator Version 1.1 (Windows Version) This software replaces the traditional verb conjugation books and makes learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an interactive and fun activity. This should be a required resource for anyone who wants to improve their ability to conjugate Spanish verbs. Especially anyone who is challenged by the drudgery of learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs and who is looking for a new way to make learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an easy and fun activity

3. Diccionario esencial de la lengua espanola de la Real Academia Espanola (Spanish Edition) If you are really serious about speaking the language fluently, then at some point you will need to replace your Spanish-English dictionary and get a pure Spanish dictionary with both the vocabulary words and the definitions entirely in Spanish. I use this one because it was highly-recommended by a friend from Spain who teaches Spanish. According to him, this is the most highly regarded Spanish dictionary among Spanish teachers on the university level.

I have used Barron's Educational Series' materials ever since junior high and up through graduate school teaching undergraduate Spanish. Spanish Now!: Level 2 is a good supplementary text. I have written a review to Barron's of 11-pages' length wherein I have detailed some grammar mistakes and other points to be improved. Let it be said that almost every textbook or dictionary is necessarily a work in progress. With that said, Barron's/Kendris commit horrible errors when it comes to the constituency of the Spanish alphabet post-1994 reforms. The alphabet consisted of 29 letters before the reform, and 29 letters after the reform. There are other minor accent mark and spelling errors in the work and I hope Barron's will improve the next edition/printing when it comes out. This is still a worthwhile book for intermediate students of Spanish.

I like Barron's Spanish products, and LOVED Spanish Now I. In fact, I've recommended it to a number of friends and am buying two more today. So I was very excited to see there was a level II. I bought it, looked through it, but never got beyond the first chapter for working it. BORRRRRING!! The first one was so humorous and made you want to go to the next chapter. This level was the same dry old stuff I've seen in too many other books. Sorry, but I vote it down.

This is just to say that the wonderful book SPANISH NOW! Level 2 by Kendris has two audiocassettes for listening and speaking practice in a separate package. It's great! ISBN identif is 0-8120-8465-9. Five stars!

I know several students that are using this book for private lessons ,and they found it extremely useful.They can use at home or in class, there is no tricks, the chart table for irregular verbs is great!Also the brief explanation of each issue in alphabetical order at the end of the book ,is an excellent source.The exercises in each Unit enhance the learning process. I strongly recommend this book( level 2) for intermediate students.Congratulations to the author!.Please, publish, Spanish Now! level 3!.

The book is pact with information and the teacher's manual with answers is a necessity, even if you have a tutor you still going to need it.
It is though very hard to finish the book, I am still struggling after almost a year of purchasing it!