Ultimate Spanish: Advanced: Book

by Living Language

Book Overview

After eight years as a struggling artist and waitress, Nancy Ring decided to find a 'survival job' that would bring satisfaction as well as survival. Armed with only chutzpah and a love of baking instilled by generations of her family, she answered a newspaper ad seeking an assistant pastry chef. So began a roller coaster ride of apprenticeships in New York's high pressured, ego infested and sometimes rat infested, kitchens. In this culinary memoir,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609802534
• ISBN13: 9780609802533
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: Living Language
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Intensely Advanced Spanish Course

I'm a gringo who can speak & understand Spanish as a 2nd language, but my skills are rusty & native speakers have told me I have a strong accent. I've taken numerous Spanish CD programs during the last 2 years. This program is by far the most challenging. You need to understand Spanish or this program won't work for you. If you can watch a Spanish TV station and at least understand most of what is being said, this program will work for you. If not, go for something more intermediate. There are 8 CDs in pairs of 2 CDs. In the first set, you listen to a dialogue of native speakers in "real-time" speed and then the same dialogue is spoken more slowly for you to repeat in Spanish. In the second set, a very similar dialogue is presented along with grammatical lessons and more repeating or translating sentences. My only frustration with the CDs is that I'm quite often not quick enough to repeat the entire phrase before the CD moves on to the next phrase. Some of the sentences are so long that I wouldn't be able to remember the entire sentence in English. This is easily overcome -- I've just had to replay several lessons over and over before I was able to "check off" all my comprehension, translation and speaking assignments. For added interest, each dialogue is set in a specific country and centers around a genuine cultural point of interest. The book is very helpful. It expands on local dialects and regional interests for the targeted country in each lesson. The book includes exact translations of the dialogues on the CDs. This is the best audio course I've found to practice and improve my Spanish skills. I highly recommend it for gringos who can already communicate and want a truly advanced challenge to expand vocabulary & speaking skills.

Great product for intermediate-level speakers

I am really enjoying these CDs...some people said that the Spanish was spoken too quickly...if that's your feeling, I say you're not an advanced speaker and you'd be better off looking for an intermediate level product. I wish that actual native spanish speakers spoke so clearly! It's true that folks do speak more quickly than your average spanish language training CD, and that's a good thing - the hardest part of "speaking" Spanish, for me, is understanding what other people are saying! Also, some reviewers mentioned that the CDs use the "vosotros" form - that's true, it does, but not too much, and it is used in some parts of the world, so I think it's a plus to have it in there. Overall, I would give this product 4.5 stars - but that's not an option, so I'm going with 5. I would like to have seen more content - more practice with grammar rather than vocabulary, etc. - but overall a great product for intermediate-advanced students.

A great resource for the advanced student

I LOVE these CD's. I was a Spanish minor in college (5 years ago) and have travelled extensively in latin america. These CDs provide the perfect challenge for me. They are definitely NOT for the student who has not already had all the grammar. I can't imagine actually learning subjunctive from these tapes. What they do do is force the student to speak complicated sentences quickly and without pausing. They also introduce tons of great idiomatic expressions that i never learned in school--but have heard travelling. The vocabulary you learn with these tapes is very sophisticated, especially the stuff about business and economics. Other people have commented about the book--i can't really add to that because I use them exclusively in my car. What I have seen of the book seemed like a great complement. Again, I thought these were a great resource for someone who has good spanish but wants to take it to the next level or keep it up between trips.

Excellent tool-learned a lot!

Due to the dearth of material for the high intermediate/advanced Spanish student, I would say this is a "must-have" The conversations are very helpful; reading along in the book helps cement them in your memory; and the cultural notes and grammatical notes are helpful as well. There have been reviews noting with reason that at times the native speakers speak so rapidly and slur the phrases that some are difficult to understand. (of course, this is how it is in real life!) I have found a useful trick is to listen to the tape on a handheld tape recorder and slow down the playback speed...you will then have no trouble deciphering the phrase, and then can listen at regular speed. The conversations are lively and emotive. If the price seems prohibitive, check out the zshops and ebay- there are some great deals!

Modern textbook for advanced learners. It is a real bargain.

This is a wonderful textbook for advanced students of Spanish. The twenty lessons have dialog, notes to the dialog, grammatical explanations and culture or business notes. A short test is included in each lesson. There are also readings for each five lessons. The level of the dialog, when read in the textbook, is somewhere between intermediate and advanced. The conversations are placed in setting of different Spanish speaking countries, including Spain. They cover various, mostly contemporary themes, which greatly reduces boredom. The grammar reviews are somewhat basic and the advanced learners usually only have to look through them quickly. The beauty of this course is accompanying CDs or cassettes. The eight CDs are divided into two parts, dialogs and exercises. In the dialogs, the conversations in each lesson are recorded, with and without pauses to repeat. In the exercises, part of the conversation is used for translation and other exercises. It is true that they do not include comprehensive grammar exercises, such as substitution, transformation and so on, I do not think it is a big deficiency, because at this level, you are supposed to have acquired the basic practical knowledge of Spanish grammar (for example, you should be able to express yourself with correct conjugation of verbs). And becoming familiar with and able to speak fluently various sentences like those in this book is a better approach. In this regard, the CDs are really remarkable: the dialogs are recorded at natural speed and there seems to be no compromise for less advanced learners. Just imitate them and try to speak them as they are spoken, at the same speed, and you will be amazed how much you have advanced. In sum, I found this course very useful and at this price, it is a real bargain.