Beyond the Basics: Spanish (Coursebook) (Complete Basic Courses)

By Living Language

Book Overview

Our best-selling language series just went Beyond the Basics ! Now there's a fantastic new way for language learners to take their Spanish to the next level and go Beyond the Basics ! Ideal for people... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400021618
• ISBN13: 9781400021611
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Living Language
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 4.2" x 0.9" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Start to get the hang of speaking and understanding Spanish

After listening to the CDs over and over, I began to understand the cadences of the language. I could also repeat the phrases pretty well. Some of the chunks were too long without a break, and I just couldn't get them all at once, even after I'd listened many times. My CD player wouldn't go back a few seconds, so I couldn't listen to bits over and over the way I wanted to. I plan to transfer the CDs to MP3s so I can put them on my audio player and will be able to go back a few seconds at a time. Overall, I liked these CDs and the workbook. The course didn't seem too advanced for me, but I've had quite a bit of Spanish (six semesters college level), and can read pretty well. I just never got the hang of understanding and speaking much, so these CDs help.

Good listening practice

As mentioned in another criticism, this unit might be a bit too advanced for someone who has only had a beginners course. Of the three component language skills - reading, speaking, listening - I have found "listening" (with comprehension)to be the most challenging. This course is one of the best for practicing listening at conversational speed. At first I had some difficulty comprehending the CD dialogs while driving the car. However, I found that using the detailed transcriptions in the textbook helped with understanding, and repeated listenings did the trick. A wide range of useful vocabulary is covered.