Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Spanish: Complete Course (Teach Yourself Language Complete Courses) (Spanish Edition)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have an earlier edition of this book, but I assume not much has been changed in this edition. This book is a good, solid introduction to Spanish. It's not a quick fix - there's lots of grammar, vocab., dialogues, etc., but if you're willing to spend some time reading, memorizing, and practicing, this book has most of what you need to know to begin speaking grammatically correct Spanish.

I have been using this book and cassette combo as the basis of my Spanish studies. It contains all the methodical recitation of grammatical rules of conjugation and sentence structure that are only alluded to in the "learn by listening courses" everyone swears by. Having learned French by the old fashioned method of learning grammatical rules and memorization of conjugation and vocabulary expansion, I find this book a great guide - a good foundation for my studies of Spanish. This not the "painless" learning method everyone wants but for those who want to be able to say more than "Quiero una agua fria" - this book is for you.

I am not impressed with Teach Yourself Spanish. I have a number of criticisms. First, there is the tedious intro on the disc. Second, there is basically more English (British English) on the discs than Spanish. Third, there is no real practice built into the design of the audio portion. You get to hear a quick dialogue. If you want to hear it again you can "go back and listen again," but this impractical with a CD (and a cassette, too); practice should be built into the plan without requiring constant fiddling with controls. One could search for the spot where the dialogue begins, but it would be hard to find that spot, and one might end up in the middle of the dialogue. Then one's ear is immediately exposed to English again. There are no "spaces" for you to repeat. There is no breakdown of the dialogue so that you can start to understand the bits and pieces. There is no pattern buildup or practice. In short, I see little pedagogical methodology behind this course.

I also found it irritating that I was unable to ascertain from the Amazon listing whether the Teach Yourself series edition for Latin American Spanish had a CD portion, but it appears that it does not, so I ordered the "regular" Spanish course.

For the aural portion of learning a new lanaguage, I find the Pimsleur method to be much more effective. Yes, they go slowly, because a lot of practice and repetition is built into the design. You will learn the phrases if you just do the tapes and repeat as directed. For quick fixes and profitable use of car or housework time--say, on numbers, or food, or telling time, or restaurant expressions--I recommend the "Learn in Your Car" series put out by Penton OVerseas Inc. The units are short and to the point. The packaging is compact. Starting about three weeks before going to a Spanish-speaking country for the first time, and knowing not a word of the language, I listened to the half-hour Pimsleur lessons up to the intermediate level while doing the dishes; on this basis and also the "Learn in YOur Car" CDs plus my ever-handy pocket dictionary when I was in Costa Rica, I was able to make my way, get directions, buy tickets, etc. And I encountered very few people, say, in the bus stations or on the street, who spoke a word of English.

For serious self-teaching, I believe that one really needs a school course with a serious language-lab portion, which contains all the pattern drills etc that one needs in order to get enough practice. The rule of thumb is that one must hear a new word, phrase, or gramamatical construction 50 times and/or use it at least 10 times in order to learn it. These language lab components seem to be generally unavailable to the general public, which is stuck wtih lightweight audio components that cannot really get you much past the travellers'-phrase level.

N.B. This review may not apply to first-time language learners, but if you already know another romance language then read on...

While studying abroad in Italy, I took a trip to Spain for a week. I picked up the only book written in English about learning Spanish that I could find in Florence, and started going through the book about two weeks before I left for my trip. While in Spain, I spoke nothing but Spanish and had almost no communication problems. While Italian and Spanish are quite similar, I still think the book was great - it teaches you the structure of the language as well as vocabulary, allowing you to not just mindlessly repeat memorizations from a phrasebook, but instead successfully put together exactly what you want to say based on knowledge of the actual language. Highly, highly recommended!

The CD's begin by asserting that the course can be used at home, in the office or car. Yet the recording constantly refers the student to follow in the text. Try it while driving, a challenge if not frustrating, to say the least. And without the text to read & follow (while driving), one is quickly lost & confused. That precious time while driving is critical to me because I am just too busy otherwise. So, I hit STOP/REJECT & listen to the news (in English). Further, the CD constantly refers the listener to "Practice by going over this again". And then the CD does not go over it again, but merely continues with Spanish conversation unintelligible & too fast for the beginner

My son gave me for Christmas "Eyewitness Travel 15-Minute Latin-American Spanish, a complete course with book and two 60-Minute CD's". By comparison, this course is much, much better, more elementary in the beginning & more methodical.

I've had Spanish in high school 20 years ago so some stuff is familiar. I was hopintg to learn how to conjugate verbs, numbers, and simple stuff. But this starts out as if you know the language and have p;roblems speaking it. I'd have rather purchased Spanish for Dummies.

This book is better classified as a phrase book with snippets of explanations rather than a proper language textbook. It's about 90% comprised of phrases to memorize and the rest with partial explanations.

The biggest problem with the book is that it seems to avoid establishing basic, concrete concepts upon which to build. Introduce a concept, let the student/reader practice it a little bit, and then expand on that principle with a variation or some added vocabulary. That is what should have been done. Instead it was groups of expressions put together by topic.


There is never really any foundation established, it's just thrown together. I would really have appreciated more time spent on explaining the mechanics/building blocks/grammar of Spanish followed up with exercises practicing those newly learnt concepts. THEN, new expressions and vocabulary could be taught, using those newly learnt concepts.

To be honest, the book seemed dummied-down, marketed for those who don't wish to understand or have to think too much and will never really make true progress in the language.
If this book were marketed as a phrase book, I would not be complaining now.

I have reviewed many learn Spanish C/D's, tapes, books, etc.
I think this is probably one of the best programs out there.
It is designed for people traveling in Spain and uses Castillan Spanish.

I purchased the CD version, and really can't believe the CD interface does not go with the units in the book. One must guess as to which track goes with which chapter. This makes it almost impossible to easily pick-up where one leaves off. This is such a simple concept to master for someone creating a CD/Book combination, it simply is amazing that they didn't take the care to make navigation with the CD and book easier.

The language progression is mish-mash at best. All in all, I could use this book without the CD altogether, but the book itself seems to follow no logical progression.

There are plenty of good books and programs out there, please don't waste your money and time (as I did) on this poorly constructed program.

a good text for beginners. Using it in conjunction with a beginner class. The CD is helpful; however, the speakers talk quite fast