Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Limited value without the CD/cassette February 14, 2008
Cait Weston (UK)
Chapter 1, exercise 1: "Listen to these key phrases..." In other words, this book is really designed to be used with the audio materials and is of fairly limited use without them. The rating is for the book on its own, as I bought it. My problem now is that I can't see how to buy the audio material separately!
 From a teacher's perspective - not great September 27, 2006
C. E. Skirrey
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is a surprisingly poor course by BBC standards. The audio tapes were unpopular with my students - too fast and confusingly constructed. The book does fulfil the role of providing basic survival phraes but will ultimately frustrate anyone who wants to understand how Spanish works in order to progress further. Its gramatical explanations lack clarity and their ordering is illogical. Other BBC courses are much better. The allied website is reasonable, but of course you can access that anyway without buying the book/tape combination!
Still you've got to admire their marketing - it and its other European language counterparts are now the mandatoryset texts at our teaching institution!
 Excellent grounding in Spanish February 14, 2006
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
This language package is a great way to start learning Spanish, as it gets you through all the basics you would need on holiday - practical things like ordering food, checking in at hotels and understanding numbers and how to ask how much things cost. For Spain it's absolutely ideal, although for Latin America some things are different in some countries. Having said that, most people I know who have visited Latin American countries such as Ecuador with a little Spanish found they were understood.
The really helpful thing about this package is you can get as little or as much out of it as you choose; you can choose to learn the grammar thoroughly, as some is provided in the back, or you could use it for a very quick grounding before you go abroad. I would highly recommend it.
Useless in Latin America April 30, 2005
Diego Riv (Croydon, South London, UK)
47 out of 79 found this review helpful
You will not be understood if you use this course to learn for Latin America. It is not only the different vocabulary. The differences go much deeper. To start with, some letters are pronounced differently. This is mainly the case with s, z, x, ll. Then some expressions are quite different. For example for hello and good bye, you don't say 'que tal?' or 'hasta luego'. You say 'que hubo?' and 'chao'. When it comes to directions, people don't say 'recto' but 'derecho' and you must not use 'coger' which has a bad meaning. And there is more to come, like different language structures. You don't use 'vosotros', the past tense is different, etc, etc. All in all, you will be helpless if you rely on this course to learn for Latin America. Better buy a better one!
Excellent method to teach tourist Spanish June 30, 2004
47 out of 56 found this review helpful
I have used TALK SPANISH to teach Spanish for holidays and have found it extremely useful. It covers all the necessary travel elements a student needs, is well graded and has plenty of useful exercises. Grammar is well explained and the tapes are lively and easy to follow. They are ideal for self-learning.The only snag is that the course has been designed with the audio-learner in mind. Therefore it has little text and the lay out is somewhat dull, lacking in pictures or colour. If the BBC were to create a pictorial version of this book, it would sell like hot cakes. At present, there are very few tourist Spanish courses on the market, and this is an excellent product. I have learnt some Greek using the Greek version and have found it equally approachable.
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