Smile UK Store - Quickstart Spanish

Manufacturer: BBC Active

Average Customer Rating:

Binding: Audio CD
Dewey Decimal Number: 420
EAN: 9780563471073
Format: Audiobook
ISBN: 0563471077
Label: BBC Active
Manufacturer: BBC Active
Publication Date: 2003-03-06
Publisher: BBC Active
Studio: BBC Active

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Editorial Reviews:

No reading, no writing, no problem!

140 minutes of Spanish to help you speak Spanish now

Join Susana, Miguel and Alex for 24 hours in Barcelona: listen to real Spanish and learn how to find a place to stay, get around town, order in restaurants, hit the shops, have a drink, enjoy the night-life... and all the time build up your Spanish so that you can speak with confidence.

Designed specifically for those of you who don’t have much time on your hands, Quickstart Spanish is a quick and simple introduction to Spanish. With no reading and no writing required, it concentrates only on the essential language required for a short break abroad. The course is broken down into short, relevant, easy-to-learn categories, allowing you to grasp the basics of Spanish, without having to master any complicated grammar or phrases.

Audio

Each section gives you time to listen, followed by time to reflect with a step-by-step explanation of the dialogue, and finally time to practice and recap
Conversations between friends introduce you to a range of weekend-break scenarios, ensuring that the language you learn is relevant to your needs

2 x 70-minute CDs, and a booklet containing tips and dialogue transcripts

Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: good
Comment: this is a useful cd to have and it does help you to learn spanish wherever, as long as you have a cd player with you.

but if you have time to spare sitting in front of a computer screen i would recomend going to the bbc website first, it offers all that this cd offers and more for free and in a similar format called mi vida loca which not only offers audio( like the cd ) but video and is a hell of a lot more interactive.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Quickstart Spanish - simply brilliant!
Comment: I have bought a number of spanish courses, from Michel Thomas (god bless his soul) to GCSE bitesize. Yet still I could not piece together a simple sentence, let alone a conversation. I have one or two friends who are fluent in speaking spanish, but when I tried to speak I turned into a blithering idiot - the words just wouldn't come out, my brain just wouldn't work fast enough. Then I read the reviews on quickstart Spanish and thought - I must give it a go! Even though my bookshelves are already groaning under the weight! However, it's the best thing I've bought so far!I'm not saying that all the other stuff isn't equally as brilliant, but this just pieces together all the bits that are floating around in my head. It's fairly basic stuff, like ordering things, and counting, money and time etc, but they way that it is taught suited me down to the ground. You are firstly prepared for what is going to be in the unit, then you hear a conversation, then they pick out bits of the conversation and talk about grammar, then you are encouraged to have a go, and finally you hear the conversation again - at which point you say 'oh my god, I understood every word of that'. Anyway, thats enough rambling on - I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do!

Customer Rating:

Summary: An excellent basic introduction to Conversational Spanish
Comment: The problem with most language products "for beginners" is that they are prone to being very arbitrary and unstructured, and that they suddenly race ahead round about chapter 2. In doing so, this can often put even the most enthusiastic learner off for life. Thankfully, this product from the BBC does not fall into that category. This is indeed for total beginners and really is a step-by-step guide to learning a decent modicum of transactional and tourist-friendly Spanish.

The product is themed around three friends on a day trip to Barcelona. The layout is clear and user friendly (this is helped by the pocket-sized accompanying booklet).

Repetition is a strong point here. Each section is thoroughly dealt with and there's no disappearing over the horizon with a battery of verb tenses or unusual vocabulary that you'll never actually use.

If you're serious about learning a new language, then I would recommend that you probably get about 6 different products for beginners. If it's Spanish that you're after then this should be one of the 6 in your 'starter kit'. The price is also very reasonable.

The only downside for me is that it's on CD and personally I prefer to learn languages from good old-fashioned tapes (as it's much easier to manipulate the track).

Overall, a very good intro and recommended.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Brilliant!
Comment: I've tried a couple of other CD courses (including Linguaphone) and this one is by far the best. The CD is clear, each conversation is repeated 3 times, they give you tips along the way and unlike other CDs, they tell you what each individual word in the sentence means as they go, which is really helpful for the next time you hear them. Each conversation is also included in a booklet, which is really useful for learning the spellings.

If you want to learn some basic Spanish conversation for a holiday or course i really recommend this CD!

Customer Rating:

Summary: A Great and SIMPLE Intro to Spanish
Comment: Not having much time on my hands and yet wanting to learn some basic conversational Spanish in preparation for my forthcoming holiday in Spain, I bought 'Quickstart' together with a couple of other beginners approaches to the language (on CD).

Compared to the other Audio approaches that I have listened to (Michael Thomas and Pasos) I found Quickstart to be the most straightforward and the simplest and the least boring by FAR!

The tape follows the travels of 3 Spanish friends in Barcelona and it also covers some basic Spanish cultural tips which are very useful (eg, the common protocols when speaking in shops and where to buy stamps from etc).

A real strength of the approach is the use of native Spanish speakers on the tape (indeed I could listen to Miguel's sexy tone for hours!!!!)

Seriously though, I have found it a simple, quick and fun approach to learning the very basics in conversation with the added bonus of a little booklet included, showing the written form of all of the conversations. I think that some linguists may frown upon the lack of formal grammar etc... but as a quick and fun intro to some basic converasation it is great! (and not half as boring as Michael Thomas...yawn or the school book approach..Pasos.

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