¡Dímelo tu!

Rating:
Summary: The worst textbook I've ever had to use
Review: Executive summary: I have to agree with the reviewers who say this is a horrible book, at least for an introductory text. In the computer business they talk about programs being "user-friendly," and somebody then coined the term "user-hostile," which I feel applies to Dimelo Tu (4th edition). To be frank, it is the worst textbook I can remember ever having to deal with. It might be OK, however, if you have had Spanish in the past and need a refresher. On the positive side, this book (plus my current Spanish 101 class) has given me a greater sympathy for what it must feel like for the poor struggling English-learners, or people who have a learning disability, who are forced to sit in classes where they feel totally lost and are made to feel stupid and to feel that school is pointless (I do some volunteer work with kids like this).

Further details: Before I get into specific issues I have with the text, here's a little about my language studies background: over my lifetime I've had 3 years of high school & college French, and then in college, a couple of quarters of modern Arabic, a couple quarters of Classical Greek, a year of Japanese, about a year and a half of biblical Hebrew (in grad school), and then some adult ed classes in Hawaiian. I've gotten good grades in all of those, and so I think I have a knack for languages (I just haven't stuck with one long enough to get fluent). But now I live in California and I thought I should really learn Spanish, which doesn't seem like that difficult a language, especially having had French.

My biggest general complaint about this book is that they consistently (and deliberately--see my point #4 below) throw a lot of Spanish at you which you haven't been "introduced" to (i.e., with English translation). I think that may be OK for an intermediate-to-advanced book (you have to learn to use a Spanish-English dictionary someday), but it just causes frustration for the beginner, and turns them off to what could be (and ought to be) at least somewhat enjoyable.

For an example of what they do, here's the above paragraph the way they'd present it to a beginning English student (with "words" that they haven't taught you yet):

My biggest xlksoiujf about this book is that they woumjwly and uiojwkmfly throw a lot of Spanish at you iouujw you haven't been "jwmflksued" to (i.e., with Euxkjsl translation). I think that may be OK for an xkljlsk-to-s;lkjfwuu book (you have to mnloljf to use a Spanish-English dictionary somecmc), but it just causes frustration for the beginner, and quisxs them off to what could be (and yermd to be) at least somewhat nmjlkjsable.

Now if you're somebody that wouldn't be thrown by this, and who would enjoy the challenge (and the constant, and often fruitless, trips to the Spanish-English dictionary), or you don't mind the feeling of being confused or made to feel stupid, then you might get along OK with this book.

Here are some specific frustrating things I noted as I've begun to work with this text (I'm through Chapter 3 so far):

1) Starting with the title--it isn't translated anywhere that I could find, and so, as a total beginner at Spanish, I consulted the book's built-in Spanish-English dictionary, and "dimelo" isn't there. Right off the bat, I felt the book was being unfriendly. (About six weeks into my class, I've finally learned enough Spanish to have some idea what it means, and that's only because my instructor skips ahead.)

2) Preface: they list the various section headings they'll be using throughout the book, such as ¿Eres buen observador?, and again, all are untranslated Spanish. Very bad for a beginner book.

3) Organization: they always tell you to work through the "green pages" at the end of each chapter (which explains grammar points) before doing each section (or "paso") in the chapter itself. There are three pasos per chapter. So it's like having to read a textbook printed in this order: chapter 4 (part 1), chapter 1, chapter 4 (part 2), chapter 2, chapter 4 (part 3), chapter 3, chapter 8 (part 1), chapter 5, chapter 8 (part 2), and so on. What is the sense in this layout??? And the organization (or lack thereof) gets worse if you also try to do the exercises in the various sections of the accompanying "Student Activities Manual" (see my points #5 & #11).

4) Methodology: they are explicit about having you make "intelligent guesses" and the fact that "you are not expected to understand every word you see" (see pp. xvii-xviii). If I wanted to listen to people talk at me in Spanish that I can't comprehend, I can do it for free by turning on the TV, or I can read it (or rather, expose my eyes to it without comprehension) for free on the Web. When I pay over $200 for a class and the textbooks, I was kind of expecting to be TAUGHT, not just have incomprehensible words thrown at me. What really got to me was on page 35, where they say that "frequently students just stop listening when they hear the first word they don't understand" and then they call this a "bad habit." If they recognize that this is a common reaction, then I think it's foolish to create curriculum (again, for an INTRODUCTORY course) that is basically designed to provoke this kind of response. Please let the poor beginning student get a BIT comfortable with Spanish before doing this!

5) How to use the accompanying "Student Activities Manual" is poorly explained (p. xiv). It doesn't clearly tell you that the book is divided into 2 parts, and that part 2 (starting on p. 281) is to be used in the language lab, where you'll listen to sound clips that are separate from the ones on the audio CDs that came with the book. Here's a case where if they'd provided a literal translation of the Spanish title (Cuaderno de actividades y manual de laboratorio, "Activities Notebook and Lab Manual"), it would have been clearer that this is a 2-part workbook. (FYI, part 1 consists of exercises you can do based on readings in the main textbook; they don't seem to be dependent on the included audio CDs or the lab CDs.)

6) The alphabet (p. 17). How on earth can we be expected to properly pronounce the alphabet from reading letters on a page (without their even providing a phonetic spelling)? They're also not on the audio CD that came with the book. An introductory book that doesn't teach you how to pronounce the alphabet??? You get a bit of the alphabet (not complete) if your school's language lab has the lab CDs and you listen to them, while following along on page 283 in the Student Activities Manual. Maybe the teacher's edition tells the instructor to go over the alphabet orally in class, but ours didn't (I think he's as confused by the book as we are).

7) The first practice exercises in the main text (p. 7): all the instructions of what we're to do are in untranslated Spanish, using words we haven't been introduced to! Then on p. 12 they're suddenly translating the occasional word or phrase, but leaving other unfamiliar ones untranslated. Same thing happens on p. 48: some of the first example sentences in the Chapter 1 green pages use a couple of words we haven't been taught (verdad, entonces), and then the next group of examples are translated (but they still toss in another word that wasn't in the chapter's vocabulary list, "hoy"). Why are they so inconsistent? Was the publisher unable to afford an editor to catch these things?

8) Activities Manual, first exercises, p. 3 (exercise B, #3): they ask us to analyze a phrase that is nowhere in the model chapter--¿Qué hay de nuevo?

9) Chapter 1 green pages: they teach you the SINGULAR subject pronouns here (p. 48) and the PLURAL ones later, on p. 54. I guess it's debatable but I think they should all be taught together so you can see them all together (and most other language texts I've had have displayed all the subject pronouns together, I believe).

10) Page 55, point 1.6 A. The text explains that "masculine singular adjectives that end in -o have four forms." The immediately following table shows eight forms, with the feminine ones included. No further explanation is provided about the feminine forms.

11) Another comment on organization of the two books as a system: I'm beginning to see that if you want to cover a topic you have to (a) read the green pages, (b) read the corresponding preceding chapter pages, (c) read/do the activities manual pages, (d) listen to the audio CD that came with the textbook, and (e) listen/read/do the lab exercises with the separate lab CD. In addition the publishers offer (for an extra charge, although our language lab has it) some interactive software, called "Dasher," that I've only just glanced at so far. This whole system seems terribly dis-ordered, or maybe it's designed to split everything up into separately paid-for products, to get some more money.

Thanks to the Amazon rating system, I looked up other (higher-rated) books for learning Spanish. One that gets 4.5 stars is Barron's "Spanish the Easy Way, 4th ed" by Silverstein, Pomerantz, & Wald. I borrowed it from my local library and at a quick glance it looks pretty good, and much friendlier.

So if your school uses, or is thinking about using, Dimelo Tu (4th edition), I'd print off all the Amazon reviews and show them to the head of the Spanish Language Department (unless they're one of the book's authors!).

Rating:
Summary: Very good for lower level courses
Review: goo

Rating:
Summary: This book was very unhelpful.
Review: I am a student of Spanish. This textbook contains a number of errors, jumbled phrases. The glossary is terrible. I have to recommend going with another textbook if you are thinking about teaching Spanish or learning Spanish.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Good Book
Review: I have finally finished this semester in college and I can honestly say that Spanish with ¡Dímelo Tú! has been wonderful. It is a very good book - definitely one that I will keep and not sell back to the book store. I love it!

Rating:
Summary: A Very Good Book
Review: I have finally finished this semester in college and I can honestly say that Spanish with ¡Dímelo Tú! has been wonderful. It is a very good book - definitely one that I will keep and not sell back to the book store. I love it!

Rating:
Summary: finally, a book that takes the student seriously
Review: I have read some negative reviews about this textbook, and I think they are unfair. The order in which the content is presented and the fact that Spanish is the main language used in this textbook are not reasons to give it a bad review. I have taught Spanish using this book for many years now, and the miracle happens every time: students acquire as much Spanish as they can during their first year of Spanish.
Despite these 3 or 4 bad reviews, this book is a bestseller, used in the most prestigious colleges and universities.

Rating:
Summary: VERY CONFUSING!
Review: I just completed my first semester teaching from Dimelo tu and am pleased. The textbook and workbook include web sites and internet search words pertaining to the countries highlighted in each chapter. The nice, big accompanying workbook is divided into two halves, one with lots of written practice exercises, and the other entirely devoted to listening exercises (with accompanying cassettes or CD's). The instructor video is so-so. The testing workbooks have some good material. As for the textbook, there seem to be abundant activities and exercises. All of the main grammar is explained on green pages at the end of each chapter, following the vocabulary. Each chapter treats one country, with brief passages on that country, past and present, and a famous personage from there.

Rating:
Summary: Dimelo tu has abundance and variety of materials, inc. web
Review: I just completed my first semester teaching from Dimelo tu and am pleased. The textbook and workbook include web sites and internet search words pertaining to the countries highlighted in each chapter. The nice, big accompanying workbook is divided into two halves, one with lots of written practice exercises, and the other entirely devoted to listening exercises (with accompanying cassettes or CD's). The instructor video is so-so. The testing workbooks have some good material. As for the textbook, there seem to be abundant activities and exercises. All of the main grammar is explained on green pages at the end of each chapter, following the vocabulary. Each chapter treats one country, with brief passages on that country, past and present, and a famous personage from there.

Rating:
Summary: horrrible, horrible book
Review: There are not enough words in English or Spanish to describe how badly this book is put together. I am working on my second degree and I have never come across a book like this. It is broken down into endless sections and none of them are labeled in English. This is supposed to be the book for entry level Spanish but 80 percent of it is in Spanish and you don't have a clue what to do with the exercises in the first chapters because the directions are all in Spanish and beginning learners DON'T KNOW SPANISH. There are icons beside some of the lessons that are supposed to mean something but many of them do not have a key to explain what they are. You are supposed to figure out what lesson plan goes with what tape and that is also all in Spanish. The lady that teaches me who has been teaching Spanish for years and even get thrown at times. I cannot believe I was forced to pay $80.00 for this mess.

Rating:
Summary: VERY CONFUSING!
Review: This is by far the worst language instruction book I have ever used. The format is very confusing. For whatever reason, you are instructed to read the end of the chapter first before attempting to follow the dialogues and exercises at the beginning of the Unit. By the middle of the first chapter, full articles are written in Spanish without any translation. I was completely lost. While many of the students loved our Spanish instructor, they dropped the class because of this textbook.