Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 An easy way to learn basic Spanish June 26, 2008
B. Tam
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was a simple language course that gave a basic grasp of holiday Spanish. The audio cd was great to listen to in the car and repeating the words (with the windows wound up). The layout of the book was easy to follow and combined with the cd, gives you an opportunity to learn some basic words, useful for a holiday.
 This did not add to my knowledge of Spanish, (and I don't know that much) June 19, 2008
b4-its-2-l8 (London)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This package comes in 3 out of 4 parts; 2 CDs, 1 book with the 4th part being accessed via the Internet.
CD1 entitled "Use me with the book" - containing 99 tracks, based on the 10 sections in the book.
CD2 entitled "Listen to me anywhere" - containing 73 tracks, again based on the book.
1 multi-coloured book
(The book contains the website address).
Those are the physical properties, now for the product itself; first I have to disagree with the previous 4 + 5 star reviews - this is NOT a 'language' learning package, it's a 'noun' learning one.
I started off with CD2 as it says it can be listened to anytime, independently from the book so I popped it in the car and listened while I drove to work and discovered that claim is nonsense. If you're new to Spanish and haven't already used the book, this CD won't help much as it primarily provides lists of nouns in Spanish without giving their English equivalents. It gives little in the way of explanations so I thought that information must be stored on CD1.
After a few days I tried CD1, and found it gives even less information, but even more lists of nouns! (For clarity, that's the same nouns repeated, not lists of new nouns). This CD works ONLY in conjunction with the book. Even though there are 99 tracks here, they're not that great, e.g. some tracks are only 2 words long.
The book has 10 themed sections spread out over 208 multi-coloured pages with large colourful writing; this may well be a useful learning aid but it also helps to disguise the fact there's not a whole lot of information on each page. In all, it has the overall feel of an infant school book.
And this brings us to the crux, this course feels more about promoting Mind Maps (Trademarked by Tony Buzan, who claims he invented them but what he really invented was the name - now that's crafty marketing for you!). However, Mind Maps for me aren't the be all and end all of learning techniques - to be frank - I find Tony's style of Mind Map to be quite garish and so don't work so well for me as other less colourful, more simplified spider diagrams.
Nonetheless, I still hadn't tried out the internet link, which I thought was a neat twist to make the learning genuinely more interactive but sadly is was just more of the same; in digital instead of on paper.
It's a shame because this package seemed to offer something special but in the end it's not much better than a rehash of other, better done work by others.
This book gives no information on Tony's own language ability, which is interesting as I'd like to know how many languages he's managed to learn using his 'revolutionary technique'. I suspect not as many as he'd like us to believe. I also suspect Carmen Garcia del Rio, who's named briefly inside the book but not on either the book cover or outer box, is the real Spanish brains behind the text in this book.
I've given this 2 stars instead of 1 because it tries to be inventive with a multimedia approach.
Great Way to get Started May 16, 2008
Glen Allan (Renfrewshire, Scotland)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I have tried to learn Spanish before and have always switched off.
The Mindmap method worked really well for me as it allowed me to visualise how the words fit together.
Highly recommended for anyone starting out to learn spanish.
 Did not work for me I'm afraid April 28, 2008
DavyA (Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The packaging is fine, the approach to learning the language is however, a personal thing & sadly, it just didn't work for me.
Not much else I can say, there are so many other comparable "learn a language" packages on the market. You pays your money you takes your choice.
Ola! A fresh way to learn a language April 15, 2008
Mr. A. G. Smith (Totterdown, Bristol, UK)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I chose this as I had recently been on a trip to Spain and found Spanish very easy to pick up, so i wanted to expand my somewhat limited vocab. I was pleasently surprised to find that Collins have broken away from the 'recite and repeat' model of language learning (that your French teacher at school will have been oh-so fond of) and have taken a different approach to 'mapping' a new language on to your brain's left side. By incorporating learning techniques that have been proven in other fields with some success (such as 'mind mapping'), this CD and booklet understands that repition is not sufficient for ensuring true depth of understanding and mastery of a language. Instead, it asks you to come at the material from the 'bottom-up', and understands how your brain deals with language. This is a pretty revolutionary way of teaching languages, and is one which takes in the accumulated knowledge of science and psychology with great effect. I haven't had the time to use this as extensively as I would have liked, but I do feel that I am progressing at least as quickly as I had when I was actually in Spain, which is no mean feat for a take-home language kit.
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