Teach Yourself Spanish (English - Spanish)

By N. Scarlyn Wilson

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• ISBN: B0032TL27G
• Release Date: January 1965
• Publisher: Fawcett Publications
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.37 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Grammar Translation

Norman Scarlyn Wilson's "Teach Yourself Spanish" is my learning method of choice. In the 1980's I went to Spain for the first time, and was handicapped by my inability to speak the language. I resolved to learn it to a basic level before returning the next year. So I took my mother's copy of Mr. Wilson's opus, and resolved to do one lesson a day on the Underground as I commuted across London to work. The first few lessons were fairly easy, but soon I had to slow down. Nevertheless, the next year I was able to carry on conversations with my new Spanish friends, and after a couple of weeks I was really getting into it. I love this book. It is clear, informal, systematic, progresses by easy stages, and deals with useful topics rather than abstract sentences about the pen of my aunt. I also tried the modern version by Juan Kattán-Ibarra (just-published at that time). I found it unusable. The reason is that the Wilson version was first published in 1939, and thus uses the grammar-translation method of teaching. This is how I learnt French and German in school, and it works for me. It did not, though, work for about 60% of my classmates, who at the end of four years were able to recite tables of German verbs, but not to put a sentence together. Which is no doubt the reason for the modern revision in methodology. If you learn best by systematic explanation and analysis/synthesis (as I do), then, this (the Wilson version) may suit you. If you learn better by imitation and immersion, you may do best with the Kattán-Ibarra version. The latter, however, has corresponding cassettes (now CDs), which the 1939 edition (unsurprisingly) does not; so if you have no live source to talk Spanish with, this may be the major consideration. Should you decide to go with this version, there are a couple of fairly obvious caveats: * Pesetas are now euros. * Wilson endorses the Castilian lisp; but as I spend all my time in Andalusia, I gave that up pretty quickly (after trying to say "ascensor" to be precise). You may wish to consider doing the same. ¡Suerte!