Customer Reviews

Spanish Plus: Learn to Speak and Understand Latin American Spanish with Pimsleur Language Programs

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first - see the review for the cassette version of this product for additional info. Now, I am a big Pimsleur fan, own several of their products, think it's the best system to teach spoken language. But, it is obvious to me that Spanish Plus was developed as an in-house product - all of the new vocuabulary and situations are related to publishing. I don't mind that they made an in-house focused product available for sale - I'm enough of a Pimsleur addict to want it. But, they charge the same for it as for the heavy duty courses that really teach you - I, II, III - in Amazon prices about [dollar amount] per CD. I would have felt better paying less - say [dollar amount] per disc since it's obvious that the normal consumer is not its focus. This is nowhere near as educational for the majority of people as the main program. It's fine to run through some new combinations of the words and grammar that you know, but the new content vocabulary is all publishing. What I REALLY want from Pimsleur is a review of the verbs and vocab of I,II,III together with new vocabulary related to broader content. And with a little less repitition of simple things that are already well learned.

I can't be as kind as some of the other reviewers. This course is just awful. The packaging says "At the completion of this course, you will be able to speak and understand Spanish at an advanced level". But this is not true at all. The main focus of this 10-unit course is on conversations related to the publishing industry. There are many words that you are asked to repeat, which were already introduced in the Pimsleur beginner-level courses. How many times do you need to repeat "Vivo en Estados Unidos" before you understand it? Also, I can't imagine why the designers of this course think it's useful, at an advanced level (or any level for that matter), to repeat place names such as "Montevideo, Uruguay" using a Spanish accent. This course may give you the opportunity to practice some of the Spanish you've already learned in earlier courses, but you will learn very little that's useful in the real world, unless you're planning to become an editor, or to write and publish a novel.

I love Pimsleur but I have to agree with the other reviewers. The vocabulary in the Plus series is a poor choice. However, it is another ten lessons of conversational practice and there are a few good nuggets presented as well.

So in short it is a something of a let down after the first three series but it is still worth it especially if you pick it up used.

Over the years I've tried one sit down Spanish class, two CD-ROM classes, several books, and two audio-classes in Spanish. The Pimsleur Spanish I, II, and III have been the best for actually learning to communicate orally, and I'm a great fan of the series.

While there were some good things about Spanish Plus (which is supposed to go after Spanish III) I was slightly disappointed. The good things are that you hear a greater variety of native speakers here than in the first three courses, which is helpful in improving your ear, and the format is the same excellent Pimsleur format. The not-so-good is that the choice of topics was not great. The whole thing is about books and authors, and while you gain some useful vocabulary incidentally, I would have been happier if they had filled in some of the big holes in the series as far as practical language goes, like how to tell your doctor what's wrong with you, or grocery store dialogues, etc., rather than talking about detective novels, publishing companies and editors. If you do the Pimsleur tapes, you will immediately be able to communicate orally to some extent, which is more than than I can say for a lot of Spanish courses. But be prepared to supplement the vocabulary and grammar with other books if you want a reasonably complete working vocabulary.

A better choice of topics for these Spanish Plus tapes would have made them more useful.

I rated the first three Pimsleur cd's very highly. This one however seems to have been done for their own employees as its almost solely about publishing. So if you are a publisher then the new vocabulary will be helpful, otherwise I don't think you will find the new vocabulary particularly useful.

I used Pimsleur Spanish levels 2 through 4. Both 2 and 3 were excellent and I listen to them repeatedly to keep up my fluency. They are a much better choice than the more heavily advertised Rosetta Stone. However, as many other reviewers have noted, level 4 is specific to the publishing industry and it really doesn't teach you that much additional grammar or vocabulary. A bit more on the imperative, and some idiomatic phrases, but really rather thin. I have searched and searched through resources. The two very best I've found are Show Time Spanish by linguaphone.com which is geared to the intermediate to advanced student (their Coffee Time Spanish is for lower level students), and LoMasTV.com. Lo Mas is a library of video clips arranged by difficulty level from beginning to very rapid idiomatic Spanish, and it features a variety of Spanish accents and includes useful features like a choice of both Spanish and English subtitles (or none at all), a flash card feature, and a fill in the blank game. It also includes a slow mode with intonation correction so you can slow down some of the real motor mouths. All speakers are native speakers. I find LoMas more helpful for learning specific words, especially how to write them. On the other hand, I like to use Show Time Spanish when I'm exercising or walking around and am not sitting in front of a computer. I also like it because each podcast is almost half an hour of fluent Spanish, with very little English interruption and the material is structured to focus on certain grammatical or idiomatic features. The host, Mark, is Scottish, and you hear his strong accent when he speaks English, but his Castilian accent is almost native speaker perfect, and he often features guests from Latin American countries so you can hear both main accents. They speak rapidly, but take care to intonate clearly, which is not always the case in the telenovela clips at LoMas, for example. Both LoMas and Show Time have free sample videos and podcasts respectively, so you can check them out. I subscribed to LoMas about three months ago, and just subscribed to Show Time now that I have an Itouch. A two season subscription to Show Time is about the same cost as Pimsleur 4, and you will learn a lot more. LoMas is also about the same amount. They are both excellent resources, and both companies feature additional languages if you want to add a third or fourth language to your toolkit.

I have tried a variety of language learning products (Rosetta Stone being the most notable exception) and Pimsleurs is hands-down the best method that I have tried. With no knowledge of Spanish, after three levels of Pimsleur, I have developed a working knowledge of the language that has enabled me to speak and understand at a level of basic competency. No other program that I tried actually has you USE the language. They may claim to introduce more vocabulary, but Pimsleur will have you using and retaining your new words. Most programs tend to run through endless lists of vocabulary that quickly drown the user in a sea of new words. Pimsleur carefully introduces related words a little bit at a time and has you apply those words in short conversations. After you give the answer, Pimsleur gives the correct answer, so you can hear if you said it correctly. That said, Pimsleur Plus is a bit of a disappointment because there are only 10 lessons (as compared to 30 lessons in the first three levels), most of the vocabulary focuses on the publishing industry, and one of the speakers is hard to understand. I purchased Pimsleur Spanish Level IV which was released in 2010 and which remedies my concerns regarding the Spanish Plus program (now out of print). They use a different (and understandable) female speaker in Level IV, and the lessons and vocabulary are helpful. See my complete review on Level IV. An excellent and cheap companion is the book "Spanish Made Simple," which compensates for some of these Pimsleur shortfalls.

Best way to learn Spanish! My husband, a doctor who uses Spanish in his work, and my dayghter, who is a 5th-year Spanish student, have both loved the Pimsleur language programs.