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30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good for vocab, not so hot on the grammar, March 6, 2006
This review is from: Teach Yourself Beginner's Spanish, 3rd Edition (Book & 2 CDs) (Teach Yourself Language) (Paperback)
This is a strange little book... There is no colour, so it's not the most inspiring to work through, however as each chapter is relatively short, it's not hard going. Each chapter is arranged around a theme, listed below:
who's who
where are you from?
More about yourself
how are you?
our families
moving around
arrivals and departures
wishes and requests
tastes and preferences
personal matters
between friends
make yourself known
at home
free time
travelling in Spain
I don't feel well
let's go shopping
eating and drinking
some practical matters
talking about the weather
accents and dialects/signs and notices/grammar
Each chapter is between 4 and 8 pages, so you can easily read a chapter in one sitting, or in my case, before going to bed.
As each chapter is based around a theme, gramatical constructs and verb conjugations are presented in a rather ad hoc manner, which makes this book no good as a reference. However I do find it useful for picking up vocabularly around the themes mentioned above. The 2 CDs nicely complement each chapter and provide useful pronounciation guidance.
Do note though, that this book only covers the present and present progressive tenses for the most part, although it does cover the useful "Quisiera" - "I would like"
I do feel that this book falls somewhat short - it doesn't really know what it is trying to be, or who it is trying to appeal to. It is neither a quick fix to basic spanish or a more comprehensive introduction to the language. It seems to fall between the two stools of Elisabeth Smith's "Teach yourself Instant Spanish" and Juan Kattan-Ibarra's "Teach yourself Spanish". I read the former in under two hours, it's really for those who want the very basics for a week long holiday on the beach. The latter to me looks like it could offer a more robust introduction to the language.
In summary, good for vocabulary building and an easy introduction, but you will be left wanting more and it is useless as a reference to grammar constructs. 3 stars.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Will introduce you to the language, but won't be your only resource, May 14, 2010
This review is from: Teach Yourself Beginner's Spanish, 3rd Edition (Book & 2 CDs) (Teach Yourself Language) (Paperback)
This book does a few things very well and the rest poorly. The beginning few pages and first couple of chapters (coupled with the audio cd's of course) will do an excellent job teaching you proper pronunciation. The alphabet is gone through slowly, and then they will teach you how to put together sounds by having you pronounce the names of cities in Spain. It's fun and you get to learn how to speak while learning about the geography of the country.
The book will also do a fairly good job of teaching you some basic, useful phrases. However, until the very end of the book, it teaches you how to say things only in a very formal manner, which you would not be using if you are hanging out with younger people, or in a typical restaurant (not high class). They suggest that its better to be too formal than too informal but you'll probably get some odd looks from the guy at the bus stop when you ask him: "Pardon me sir, but would you please be oh so kind as to direct me to the nearest lavatory".
The book is organized as a tool to get you speaking basic phrases fast for use on a quick trip or holiday, and as such, there isn't much cohesion from unit to unit and you feel like you aren't understanding why things are said the way they are, but just regurgitating. Often, the exercises will ask you for an answer, and give the proper response in a grammatical form that you havn't learned in the book; if you are like me and want to know why, you'll spend quite a bit of unnecessary time on each chapter scratching your head as to whats going on.
There is no explicit grammar instruction so you'll not be able to create your own phrases in the language you'll just have to work with what you're given in the book. While the book will serve as a good introduction to spanish and teach you some useful phrases, I would not recommend using it as your only resource, even for beginners.
I'd recommend using this book, or other books or tapes to learn the basic phrases and pronunciation of SPAIN spanish, and then trying out the Pimsleur Spanish tapes, and the book Getting Started with Spanish: Beginning Spanish for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age. You can use Pimsleur to practice pronunciation and phrases, and learn the grammar and vocabulary with the Getting Started book. Once you a good chunk of the way through the first pimsleur set and the book, the Practice Makes Perfect series is a great way to practice conjugation, grammar,and vocab.
Note that this book is for the spanish as spoken in Spain. Most of the pimsleur tapes and the Getting Started book are spanish as it is spoken in Mexico. Just be aware of the pronunciation differences when you learn.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book to begin with, October 8, 2010
This review is from: Teach Yourself Beginner's Spanish, 3rd Edition (Book & 2 CDs) (Teach Yourself Language) (Paperback)
I started out with book and was also using Behind the wheel spanish 1 and found it to be quite useful in combinations with my audio lessons. This book gave me visual identification to go with oral pronunciation. I think this is a great book and it really gives you a good running start. IF you are just beginning then i would say grab this book and Madrigals magic key to spanish and a Audio course such as Pimsleur (beginning course) and or Behind the wheel spanish 1. that is a good start and will yield results based upon my own experiences with these.
Good luck
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