Conversational Spanish in Nothing Flat (8 One Hour CDs/200 Page Illustated Text/Answer Keys & Tapescript)

Rating:
Summary: Audio CD's very POOR quality!
Review: Despite the praises of the quality of this package by other reviewers, the audio CD's are very poor quality. They appear to have been done on a home computer, complete with bubbles in the CD labels. Worse, they used the blue type of CD-R's, these are the least dependable (shortest life) of any CD-R's you can buy. The generic packaging is also poor, the CD's popped out of their cases and several got scratched in shipping before I received them. If you choose to go with this package, I would make a copy on your home computer with better quality CD-R's. Whatever you do, don't leave them exposed to excessive light. The CD's are generally in single format style, occasionaly you get to repeat a word twice. I prefer to repeat twice. This is really a book based program, in the back it has a transcript of the "optional" CD's, which is a good feature. The book is like a workbook with word lists, sentence construction and short stories. There is only the amount of grammer needed at this level, which is fine with me. The book would be more useful if it included an index or at least a table of contents, so you could go back and review information easliy. The book by itself at a reasonable price may be OK, but I would not buy the audio CD package, if I were to do it again. As an adult learning Spanish, I have found the Pimsleur tapes and a basic Spanish text are much better then this package.


Rating:
Summary: Simple and Fast Way to Converse in Spanish
Review: From Berlitz to Pimsleur, I would say that all Spanish courses have good and bad points.
What makes Conversational Spanish in Nothing Flat so good is that it gets you speaking the language right away and then builds on those basic concepts throughout the course.
The structure of this course, beginning with how easily a novice learner can begin saying his or her own sentences in Spanish almost immediately, gives even the shyest person confidence to speak Spanish.
Most courses, despite their good points, shoot you right down in the beginning. You just don't feel like you will ever make it! Language Dynamics overcomes this feeling of 'overwhelm' by giving you simple yet useful basic bits of language to improve upon daily.
First you crawl, fall down and then walk.
Most foreign language courses expect the baby learner to run a marathon without the opportunity of learning to walk first.
Conversational Spanish takes the time and effort to take you from the crawling stage, to the tottering stage, picks you up when you fall down, teaches to speak real Spanish little by little and then you just take off.
No course does what this one does and for these reasons I highly recommend you try it.

Rating:
Summary: Buyer Beware!!!!
Review: I bought this CD set to further my spanish, however when I recieved the CD's and played them I came to a horrifying realization! These CD's are exactly the same as Behind the Wheel Spanish (by the same author) only with a different name stamped on the box!!!! Buyers beware! If you own Behind the Wheel Spanish don't buy this or vice versa! Behind the wheel spanish is really good but this whole experience makes me cautious ... !


Rating:
Summary: Excellent Product and Quality
Review: I have been delighted with both the results I have received and the quality of my Conversational Spanish course. The clarity and diction of the speakers on the CDs is wonderful. With this approach to language learning, you don't even have to rewind or switch tracks. The review is already 'built in'. It's perfect for the car because you just pop in the CD and the rest is automatic. If you miss something, rest assured, it will be reviewed at a later time.
This method is far more advanced and streamlined than any I have experienced. It cuts through all the baloney and really gets you speaking conversational Spanish fast!

Rating:
Summary: Recommended - good value also
Review: I highly recommend this course. As others have said, the Spanish pronunciation of the instructor is impeccable (but the moderator's is the opposite).

There is quite a bit of repitition on the CDs, which is very beneficial to the learning process. However, after going through four of the CDs and the first part of the book, it is my opinion that to get a command of the language you MUST read and study the book. It isn't a summation of the CDs at all. It contains new words and is a much better guide to constructing sentences than the CD. For those of you that want the convenience of audio, rather than having to read, you may want to do what I am doing. That is, go through the book and tape record what you are havig difficulty remembering (car playback). Or, record the questions and answers out of the book - this is helping me to form sentences.

Downside - there are too many typos in the book.


Good luck

Rating:
Summary: CD Quality and Course Better Than Pimsleur
Review: I just returned my Pimsleur Spanish course for a $200.00 dollar refund because 'Conversational Spanish in Nothing Flat' totally smoked the Pimsleur course in all major categories. My categories are as follows:
1. CD Quality. I feel that despite the fact that Conversational Spanish does not yet have multiple tracks, the quality of the recordings and the CD quality is much higher than that of Pimsleur and other competitors I have tried.
2. Voice Quality. This is where I feel Conversational Spanish is the unquestioned leader among all Spanish courses I have tried. Superb diction and voice quality throughout, but especially the native Spanish speaker. Obviously a voice professional (probably radio).
Play the CD to any native Spanish speaker and they'll tell you 'Now that's good Spanish'.
3. Price - Dirt cheap for what you're getting. Pimsleur offers no written material. With this course you get the 8 CDs plus the 200 page written text (and answer keys).
4. Excellent focus on communication - This course got me speaking practical and useful Spanish right away. Pimsleur charged me and arm and a leg and I still couldn't communicate effectively after the course.
Overall: A great value, high quality product and a wonderful effective method.

Rating:
Summary: CD Quality and Course Better Than Pimsleur
Review: I just returned my Pimsleur Spanish course for a $200.00 dollar refund because 'Conversational Spanish in Nothing Flat' totally smoked the Pimsleur course in all major categories. My categories are as follows:
1. CD Quality. I feel that despite the fact that Conversational Spanish does not yet have multiple tracks, the quality of the recordings and the CD quality is much higher than that of Pimsleur and other competitors I have tried.
2. Voice Quality. This is where I feel Conversational Spanish is the unquestioned leader among all Spanish courses I have tried. Superb diction and voice quality throughout, but especially the native Spanish speaker. Obviously a voice professional (probably radio).
Play the CD to any native Spanish speaker and they'll tell you 'Now that's good Spanish'.
3. Price - Dirt cheap for what you're getting. Pimsleur offers no written material. With this course you get the 8 CDs plus the 200 page written text (and answer keys).
4. Excellent focus on communication - This course got me speaking practical and useful Spanish right away. Pimsleur charged me and arm and a leg and I still couldn't communicate effectively after the course.
Overall: A great value, high quality product and a wonderful effective method.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT COURSE FOR THE CAR!
Review: I live near a big metropolitan area and I do lot of driving (and sometimes trains) every day. I bought Conversational Spanish 8 CDs with the expectation of learning some Spanish during my two hour daily commute. I couldn't have underestimated this course more. I learned A LOT of Spanish during my commutes and what I have learned I owe to this great course. The thing that makes it so effective for me is that all the Spanish comes with English definitions so I don't have to stop the CD to go look up meanings.
Add to this the fact that Luis (the native speaker) always repeats enough so that if you space out for a second, get honked at, or whatever, you still catch the lesson.
My impressions of this course are that it is simple, easy to understand, and effective at getting you 'conversational' in Spanish fast.
I find it nearly unbelievable that I am able to speak as much basic Spanish as I now do in such a short period of time.
By the way .... The book is great too. (When you're not driving of course).

Rating:
Summary: Duplicate Product
Review: I ordered this and Behind the Wheel Spanish for my husband for Christmas. Imagine our surprise when we found out that these two items are IDENTICAL, except for the titles. Even though the prices are different! Conversational Spanish even costs more, leading you to believe the products are different. So be careful. And while the lessons are useful, the format is the same as those of taped lessons - all they did was copy the tapes to CD's, so the instructions to rewind and play the sentance again don't work. Also, there are long silences where the tapes wind to the end.

Rating:
Summary: It's a Sweet Effective Method, and Inexpensive
Review: It seems like lots of people want to learn to speak a foreign language these days and I'm one of them.
I loved this course because it is easy to learn from, fast and effective, very reasonably priced, requires no reading but does come with a complete illustrated, translated text with answer keys for review.
What more could you ask for?
I've tried various methods and courses and have written reviews for a few. This one is the best. For $69.00 dollars, it's a steal.
Language Dynamics Conversational Spanish in Nothing Flat is an excellent course for a number of reasons.
The method is superb. The ability one acquires to create even original sentences from a very small fund of vocabulary is a true accomplishment and gives momentum to your learning experience.
A lot seems to be said about the quality. My course and CDs were perfect.