Customer Reviews

Ultimate Spanish Beginner-Intermediate (CD/Book) (Ultimate Beginner-Intermediate)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a good product like all Living Language Ultimate products are. I have two complaints about this one though. Number one is that there was way to much time spent on the Spanish of Spain with vosotros. If this had been all Latin American countries then this would have been almost perfect. The vast majority of Spanish speakers live in Latin America. As far as I know I have never encountered a Spanish Speaker from Spain here in America even though I know there are some here. Many different Latin American countries were represented which I felt was a good idea. My other complaint was the lack of a written transcript of the four hours on the go audio. The set includes 8 hours audio with 4 hours designed to be used with the book and 4 hours to be used while say drving without the text which is 400 pages and filled with great information on grammar, vocabulary, and cultural notes.

This is Anna Rivera editor of the Learning Spanish Products Reviews site and author of Anna Rivera's 1000 Plus Most Powerful Spanish Words (Spanish Edition) and Anna Rivera's 800 Plus Most Powerful Spanish Phrases (Spanish Edition). I am also a native Spanish speaker and a professional Spanish instructor.

Ultimate Spanish Beginner-Intermediate is a very comprehensive course covering both Castilian and Latin American Spanish. The speakers speak at a pace that is not too slow and not too fast to understand. Unlike many Spanish courses designed for beginners you will walk away from this course with a huge vocabulary. And the more words that you know in Spanish the better you can communicate. Another great feature of this course is that it has lots of dialogs covering numerous topics. Here are just a few examples of the topics of conversation that you will hear: banking, going to the theatre, being a victim of a crime, sports, going to the movies, watching television, at the post office, looking for employment, at the gas station, in the pharmacy, at the electronics department, traveling by train, renting an apartment, renting a car, buying a computer, at the beach, at the doctor, at the airport, and so many other topics. I advise that you listen to these dialogs over and over again so that the new vocabulary words stick in your head.

After you finish with this, then you can start the next course in the series: Ultimate Spanish Advanced (Book) (LL(R) Ultimate Advanced Course). I have happily recommend this product too many of the readers of learning-Spanish newsletter.

Word of caution. You can buy the books separately for both the Beginner and Advanced Ultimate Spanish courses. Be sure that what you are ordering isn't just the textbook for either course, but the complete set of CDs. Both this course and the advanced course contain 8 CDs - 4 of which are to be used "at home" and the other 4 contain similar content but are designed to be used "in the car" to reinforce what you have learned at home.

There also seems to be some confusion with the correct name of this product. I have 2 identical CD products of this same course. Once is called Ultimate Spanish Beginner-Intermediate and the other is called Ultimate Spanish Basic.

This product is very comprehensive in scope. You will not find a better product on the market than this one. This is the real deal: read, write, tune your ears with 40 dialogues, all the grammar-tenses & moods, and hundreds of vocabulary words. I had to buy a lot of different spanish learning products before I realized this product has it all.
If I were to choose between Mastering Spanish by Barrons or Ultimate Spanish by Living Language, my pick would be Ultimate Spanish because it is easier to follow and understand.

This book is really great for beginners. Instead of taking a traditional approach for theoretical learning of a language, It takes a practical approach by introducing dialogues between 2 or more people and then going into the verbs and nouns and vocabulary introduced in that dialogue.
This gives enough confidence to start to speak after first few lessons.
Lessons are short and therefore motivates older learners to sit and go through the whole lesson without distraction or boredom.
Besides that cultural notes and pronunciation explanation helps understand the text better.

I bought the book and cds to try to teach myself Spanish. While the cds are useful in repeating phrases over and over, where the Spanish does stick, that can be done with any cd. I agree with Randy that WAY too much time is spent on vosotros- which I find silly considering that the actual percentage of the Spanish speaking population that uses vosotros is incrediblly small.
One of my biggest frustrations where the book and cd don't match. My best example of this is Lesson 8 C & D. In 8C, both the book and the cd say not to use "tener" with the personal "a". About 1 min. later, in 8D on the cd ONLY, there is an example of "tener" being used with the personal "a". The sentence "Tenemos a los abuelos in America" may be correct, but it's in direct conflict with the rule given just before.

My biggest frustration of all with the cd is the accents. For someone new to Spanish, there really is no point in using different accents. That is equivlant to someone learning English for the first time and having to listen to people from Australia, New Zealand, England, South Africa, the U.S. the South, U.S. Northeast (e.g. Boston & NY), and U.S. Northeast. Really, if a person is beginning a language for the first time, use the "cleanest" accent and let the person LEARN the langauge, maybe get a little handle on it. THEN introduce the other accents. Personally, there are too many occassions where I don't have the faintest idea what the speaker from Spain is saying because I simply can't get past his accent.

I also dislike the use of vocabulary when one of the words had not been introduced. In the beginning of the book, these sentences are too small to figure out the word's meaning by context.

I gave this book two stars because it IS slower paced than Master Barron's (mentioned by another reviewer) and because if it's for basic Spanish for traveling, then this would work. However, for if one actually wants to know Spanish fluently, then I would begin a different route. This is not the best buy for the money.

This is one of the best Spanish courses on the market. One of the big complaints about series like Teach Yourself and Colloquial is that there's simply too much English on the CDs. Not so with Ultimate Spanish - the four CDs meant to be used with the book are in Spanish only. The other six CDs - the four on-the-go discs, vocabulary, and travel phrases - have English on them, but they're meant to be used alone. The set also comes with a flashcard CD-ROM which, while I wouldn't buy it by itself, will prove useful for some people - plus any extra practice is never a bad thing.

I recommend using Ultimate Spanish alongside books like Easy Spanish Reader and the Practice Makes Perfect Spanish workbooks.

Excellent reading material on a trip to Punta Cana in the D.R. For those that may not realize, the Dominican Republic is a Spanish speaking country. If you had, for example, at least Spanish I in high school or middle school, then you have a better foundation to get more from this book. If you don't have any Spanish background, then the book is still very useful, but I would guess that it may also be a bit confusing.

Unless your Spanish teacher in school allowed you to take your Espanol book home with you when the class ended, I would recommend this book a very good and inexpensive (esp. considering the price of school books) learning and "brush up" tool.

Given the inexpensive price, I give it 5 stars.

This book has a nice mix of Spanish conversations, rules for grammar and cultural information. The variety makes it easy to stay interested. It also gives English translations for all of the conversations and answers to the questions, so it is easy to be sure you understand. There doesn't seem to be any particular order to the grammar presented, so if you want to look up something specific (like what is the past tense of a word) you have to dig through the table of contents. There are also a few typos, which could mess you up if you don't have a teacher going through it with you.

I learned Spanish (as a native-born American English speaker) nearly 50 years ago from two Spanish text books that were both written several years before that. When I recently had occasion to re-learn Spanish, I looked for a text that would be up-to-date, including terminology from the computer age, as well as current usage. Ultimate Spanish Beginner/Intermediate does a good job of that, and includes 10 CDs that demonstrate the pronunciation of many common words and sentences. It also includes many cultural notes and lectures that explain conditions in many Spanish speaking countries. The challenge any Spanish textbook would have, including this one, is adequately covering terminology from the many different Spanish speaking countries. (Think of trying to include the many variations in terminology and usage in English from England, the United States, Australia, and the many other countries where English is spoken by many of the citizens.) The same challenge exists in trying to portray proper pronunciation from many different countries. (Again, think of the many variations in pronunciation of English words, even just within the United States, let alone in other countries.) Ultimate Spanish does a good job of at least portraying the fact that one may expect to find variations in usage and pronunciation among the various countries.

I have found Ultimate Spanish very useful for my purposes and have enjoyed using it. The reasons I did not give it 5 stars are that I felt the CDs could have been somewhat more inclusive (more vocabulary, more sentence examples), and the text has a few (not many) fairly obvious editorial errors.

This is James from James Spanish (the learning Spanish blog). A high quality book, this text deals with many of the topics that new Spanish beginners must come to grips with in order to study the language. It is not an overly simplified book however, and treats grammatical subjects in enough depth to also be a useful tool for more advanced students.

Trying to process the various elements of learning a foreign language can be overwhelming. There are vocabulary lists, grammatical rules, sentence structures, idiomatic phrases and much more. This book gives a much needed structure, organizing topics in a clear and easy to grasp manner that allows you to deal with one topic at a time, while still getting a feel for how everything comes together.

All of the lessons are presented clearly and use sample conversations to illustrate how a concept is used in `real' language. This way of learning is more natural and intuitive than studying paragraphs of text or short sentences and immediately immerses you in the type of scenario where you might want to put your Spanish to use.

Each chapter deals with a specific scenario, such as work, introductions, health, relationships or likes and dislikes. A dialogue in Spanish is given, followed by pronunciation notes and lessons. Grammar used in the example is explained, and definitions for vocabulary are also provided.

In this way you can become comfortable speaking Spanish in a specific scenario while learning general language tools which you can apply to other situations.

The emphasis on conversational Spanish is also acknowledged through the pronunciation notes with are inserted throughout the book. It is a good idea to practice saying the text out loud, referring to the pronunciation guide to make sure you are saying the word as correctly as possible. This will give you more confidence when you come to speak Spanish with a native speaker.

Each lesson is short enough to prevent boredom and allows students to get value out of even short study periods. The chapters cover just enough information for you to understand a topic, without dragging on and becoming dull.

Cultural information, notes and facts are included in the book too, which also keep you interested and motivated. These add some vitality to the text, and can be refreshing during a difficult study session.

This book is a great introduction to Spanish for beginners, and also a nice study tool for intermediate learners who want to reinforce their knowledge.

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 only because it was highly-recommended by a friend from Spain who teaches Spanish.