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Rating:  Summary: Useful for Some; But Not the Best Review: I found this book to be useful at first, but I later changed to "Spanish Made Simple" (Jackson, Rubio revised by Nemethy; make sure you get the 2004 edition). The latter book is not nearly as "simplified" as "Spanish in 10 Minutes", but I found the more methodical approach, reviews, and review tests to be more conducive to study. Make sure you also get some means of audio instruction to get the pronouciation right. I used the Pimsleur CD's which are very expensive but easily the best. (Look for them in your library first.)
Rating:  Summary: Pretty close to awful Review: I have passed this book up numerous times at the bookstore because of its obvious oversimplicity. Imagine my surprise when I enrolled in an "advanced" Spanish class given by a local organization, and I was given this book! I've been studying Spanish on my own for about a year, so I'm hardly an expert. But I found that this book is meandering, condescending and may even be crippling to the readers. Why? Because in its effort to avoid traditional teaching patterns, it does not give a language learner the vocabulary they need to further their studies. I'm not even referring to Spanish vocabulary -- I mean English! Never once does it mention "conjugation" or "tenses" or "subjunctive" (even though it uses the subjunctive at times, which could confuse the learner). What's wrong with that is it denies the learner the opportunity to use outside materials to augment their learning. There are myriads of books and websites about verb conjugations, but how can someone look them up if all they know is "the plug-in method" or "word patterns?" The book requires the reader to write everything three times. Three is not a "magic number." Some words can be learned immediately. Some words have to be repeated 20-30 times to sink in. The book begins by teaching you to ask questions, and I can practically guarantee that even those who finish the book will not be prepared to parse the answers if given by a real Spanish speaker. The artwork is childish and universally bad. The writing style is condescending. The concept that someone can learn a language in 10 minutes a day is so fallacious it is ludicrous. My pet peeve is in the English text, peppered with Spanish words. In most cases this is fine, but it gives the false impression that one can get by merely substituting Spanish words for English. Also, I've studied enough Spanish to think of the pronoun "Usted" in the third person (because that's how it's conjugated), yet they use it to replace "you" in most circumstances. It grates on me like fingernails on a chalkboard to read things like "When usted go," "if usted do" and "Usted have learned..." The only thing which has prevented me from giving this book a one-star rating is the inclusion of those cute little labels which can be very useful for building vocabulary. The flashcards are a good idea, but there are far too few of them. Maybe this book is good for little children or for people who have practically no language aptitude, no intention of being conversational someday or those having no previous exposure to the langage, but the adult learner with some language skills (even in English) and a curious mind might want to pass on this book. You can get a lot more bang for the buck elsewhere.
Rating:  Summary: Este libro esta muy bien! Review: I've never tried to learn Spanish, however, living in Southern California, it is now a necessity. Therefore, I wanted a book to give me the basics so that I could have an immediate ability to speak Spanish. This book has given me a very good basic foundation. The only way to make this book better would be to include CDs with pronunciation so that you knew you were pronouncing them correctly (although it does have the phenetics for the words). For me, this is a good way to "get my feet wet" and begin the learning process. I do 5 chapters a week, then use the weekend to review, and I also make practice tests to test myself. This works really well for me and really enables me to drill the information.
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