Customer Reviews
Early Learning Spanish - By: Mrs. Michelle Macdonald, 20 Aug 2010 
I bought this as I have a Spanish friend coming to visitin September & wanted to be able to hold a conversation with them, using their broken English & my hopefully new found knowledge of Spanish. Whilst I really enjoyed the course & found it easy to use, I was a little disappointed that both this & volume 2 concentrate more on the tourist type subjects than actual conversation. Having said that, my knowledge now is undoubtedly better than when I started & at least I can deal with the socialising side of their visit! It would be great if Collins brought out a Spanish Conversation audio coursein the same format.
Good but let down - By: Mr Fahaji, 23 Jul 2010 I wanted an audio book which would introduce me to the Spanish Language & get me up to speed pretty quickly. Before buying this CD the only Spanish I knew was 'Hola', 'Gracias' & 'Adios'.
I would have given this product 5 stars, for the following reasons:
- The CD is easy to use, simply put it into the computer & rip the tracks. It also transferred onto my MP3 player without any problems.
- The dialogue book is clear. Some have said it's too big, but it is supposed to be used for learning/reading with the CD, it's not a phrase book to carry around town with you!
- It is excellent for listening & learning to pick out words, because the people speaking do so fairly quickly, & representative of how a spanish/latin american might speak to youin reality.
- The audio book does focus on situations which are likely to come up. I.e. - rather than learning how to say "I have 2 brown cats who livein the garden", you learn how to order a drink, hire a car, make a room reservation, ask someone if they fancy going to a nightclub (ha, honestly).
- The people speaking/teaching/introducing aren't overly annoying or patronising. The nature of an audio course like this means there will be quirks which you might find odd, but generally it's fine. It might sound snooty, but I trialled another audio book & couldn't stand it because I found the american person really irritating!
So, why only 4 stars? Well the most important factorin learning a language is surely that you learn the correct words. I have friends who speak Spanish (or actually are Spanish), & they have told me that some of the phrases you are taught on this CD are not what people would actually say. For example:
- "Queria" to mean "I would like"/"I want". Apparently this is never used, instead "Quiero" or "Me gustaria" would be.
Even though this is only one example, it leaves me wondering how much of the dialoguein this audio book is correct (In terms of what gets used, not just technically sound).
It is a shame, because the positives far outweigh the negatives, it just so happens that the one negative is a really important one!
Yo no podía hablar español, pero ahora puedo - By: Aj Norbury, 06 Jul 2010 
este producto es absolutamente increíble, yo ni siquiera podía mantener una conversación con un gato español. Ahora, después de aprender español con fluidez de estos fácil de aprender cd's me puede tirar hasta los más aptos señorita con mi encanto lengua de plata. Gracias de Collin, mi polla nunca ha sido más húmedo.
Really easy! - By: Ms. Margaret Wilson, 19 May 2010 I've tried to learn languages before with little success but these CDs are excellent. I just listenin the car on my way to work & I can repeat the phrases without being self-conscious! Money well spent. Gracias!
'Hasta la vista baby' was all I knew...until now - By: Mr. W. Coles, 14 Apr 2010 I've had audio tapes before & although they are much of a muchness, where this one stands outin particular is that each tiny chapter (Or track) is actually only around about the length of a song, 3 - 5 minutes which make it really quite manageable. You can play a few back to back & get a quick verbal injection of a few phrases or key words that you need to swat up on, previous audios I've had were 30 minute blocks & lets be fair playing the word repeat game with anyone for half an hour is tough enough let alonein a foreign language, so these little bite size portions are really digestible.
One thing I did find though - as a beginner, is that the woman seems to skip over the sentences pretty quickly & I found myself initially rewinding to see what was said on the more difficult to pronounce words.
Overall, don't expect to be able to pull Penelope Cruz (Even if she does speak English) after using these tutorials, but don't be surprised if you can forge a reasonable basic understanding of the native tongue. A good bargain at this price.
...I actually bought the combo of this plus the Collins Phrasebook & the dictionary, mainly because they're the same colour if I'm honest but they're good companion pieces...
