keith said:
Hi to all!
I know I have read it somewhere on this forum about Spanish language CDs. Any advice on this would be much welcomed.
Before I left for Spain, I used a couple of CD packages to hone my Spanish skills.
First, I used the
Pimsleur Basic package while driving to and from work. With Pimsleur, you won't gain a lot of vocabulary, but their method does help with learning (at least with my style of comprehension). Depending on the package you buy, you get between 5 and 10 CDs, each with a 30-minute lesson that tends to be travel oriented. The comprehensive package is pretty expensive, but the introductory/basic ones are fairly cheap.
I also used
One-Day Spanish, by Elisabeth Smith. One-Day Spanish is good because it focuses on useful travel phrases (ordering food, asking directions, etc.) using European Spanish (vs. Latin American Spanish). It's a single CD that's only about 70 minutes long, and it's kind of like a play/dialogue between Elisabeth Smith and a fellow airline passenger named Andy. She's teaching him Spanish on the plane ride to prepare him for his Spanish holiday. If you have a time crunch, this is the one to get (and if you take an iPod, you can easily burn it onto the iPod for some refresher work while in Spain). It also comes with a phrase pamphlet, which I wish I hadn't forgotten at home.
Between the
Pimsleur and
One-Day Spanish (along with what I picked up on the way, and also some words that bubbled up from HS Spanish), I managed to do things like ask for directions and order food. The two packages complement each other, and you can get both for a cheap amount.
I tried using an inexpensive package called
iSpeak Spanish, which is geared for an iPod. It's basically a bunch of travel-related phrases you can load onto your iPod. You'll also be able to see the phrase go across the iPod screen as you hear it. Sounds good in theory, but I never used it. Can you imagine a clerk waiting for you to spin thru your iPod for the right phrase to order coffee - and then talk to him with plugs in your ears? Better to memorize such phrases, or have a small phrase book handy.
After returning from the Camino in September of this year, I decided to throw myself into learning Spanish (I took two years of it in high-school back in the 80s, but I wasn't very disciplined back then). Right now I'm enrolled in an adult continuing education course at a local community college (non-credit). The course is 7 weeks long, and meets twice a week for two two-hour sessions. We're working in groups writing dialogues, and also using a
Spanish Middle/High School 100 Reproducible Activities workbook from Frank Schaffer publications, and a portable
Berlitz Latin American Spanish Phrasebook and Dictionary. Our "final exam" will be going out as a class to a local Mexican restaurant and ordering everything in Spanish. It's been a fun way to meet people and learn in a different (and fairly cheap) way.
I asked my instructor (a native Mexican) for some self-study suggestions, and she recommended
Destinos.
Destinos is a Spanish language soap opera on DVD that's designed to help the viewer learn Spanish in an engaging way. Depending on the packages you get, it may come with workbooks and audio helps. However, you have to order it from the publisher, and it's pretty spendy (I've yet to bite the bullet and buy it, but I'm leaning in that direction). Here's a link to some info:
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0 ... ter_view0/
I'm also using CDs to learn Spanish during my commute. I tried
Michel Thomas's Speak Spanish for Beginners 10-CD package, but I didn't like his method - it was hard to understand him, and his one-after-the-other methodology didn't fit my learning style, and I got bored with it. I also didn't care for the
Living Language travel language CD - too fast for me (although to be fair, I only tried their French CD).
However, I have found two CD learning programs I like so far:
Behind the Wheel Spanish, and
Learning Spanish Like Crazy.
Behind the Wheel Spanish is pretty good - the instructor (who speaks his part in English) has a decent, if somewhat monotone, manner, and his Spanish speaker is clear and easy to understand (as some Amazon reviewers have stated, he kind of sounds like Antonio Banderas). Level One comes with a book that has various written exercises that complement the 8 CDs. The CDs are broken down into various track lengths, so you can go back and forth as you wish. Levels Two and Three are also available, but I haven't bought them. The only drawback to the Level One set is a somewhat 2nd-hand production quality. The CDs are packed directly on top of each other in the plastic case, and the CD tracks are a bit uneven (lessons vary in length, and the endings can be funky - some go on in silence for a long time, others cut out a bit too quickly).
Learning Spanish Like Crazy is the spendiest one I've tried, and I'm not too far into it. But even so, it's my favorite. The speakers are clear, and the method suits my learning style. Others have said that it not only copies the Pimsleur method, but improves upon it. I'm only on the 4th lesson in the Level One package (there are 30 in Level 1, 2 30-minute lessons per CD). Even so, I like how they avoid making repetition boring. The packaging is decent (although one of plastic holders arrived with external damage), and they offer bonus downloads such as extra lessons and .pdf transcripts. So far the main packages come in two levels (available separately) with a total of 60 lessons (1-30 is Level 1, and 31-60 is Level 2). But you can get the Light or Super Light versions for cheap if want to try it out.
Beside
Destinos, I may also try the
Rosetta Stone software package. Like
Destinos, it's pretty spendy. But there is a European Spanish package, which is cool, since most of the ones I've cited focus on Latin American Spanish (which is close enough).
I bought the products I tried either from Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com. As I did, you might want to spend some time on Amazon reading the reviews for various Spanish instructional products. And again, if your time is limited, you might want to focus on the travel-oriented or intro versions to get those essential phrases down - like ordering cafe con leche - or my favorite: vinto tinto! ;-)
At any rate, I wish you buena suerte learning Spanish. The little I learned certainly helped me on the Way. Buen Camino!
