Rating: 
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: From all the rave reviews, I thought this would be a great product but I was really disappointed. Each lesson is just words repeated in English then in Spanish. First a woman says a word in English then a man repeats the word in Spanish. They do cover phrases but it is the same format. There is no examples of conversation and no chance for you to practice conversation. The booklets that come with the program are very small about 3"x5" and don't really explain all that much.
Rating: 
Summary: A solid introduction to spanish for the seriously selftaught
Review: I have purchased numerous spanish learning systems/books in my efforts to teach myself the language. This is by far the best for those without a tutor, inasmuch it assumes no prior experience with the language, comes with text to check out the audio and verify, helps you with accent and proper pronunciation, and is not overpriced. Very focused lessons with no wasted space or time. But it is all learning and serious business, those needing entertainment based learning will need to search elswhere.
Rating:
Summary: Learn in Your Car Spanish
Review: I have recently made the acquaintance of a Mexicana lady who speaks little or no english. I was instantly taken in by her smile and good nature and wanted more than anything to be able to communicate with here. I tried several books, etc and then this program. Now, I am only on Cassette 3, however, it has really improved my Spanish. I listen to the cassettes (even the ones I've mastered) whenever I can (my kids hate it!), but little by little, I realized I was understanding more of what my friend was saying and was communicating with her with much less effort than before. It's not an overnight miracle, but over time (about 2 months, so far), you begin to learn. The key is to listen to them daily.
Rating:
Summary: Way to go Penton!!
Review: I started on this series about 3 weeks ago and listen on the way to and from work (45 minutes each way), and feel confident that I could get through a CD every 2 weeks, going at a leisurely pace. I'm on my second CD now. At the end of the series one should have a good mastery of the basics with a lot if not all of the tenses. The pronunciation is clear and concise and the books from each of the three levels are small enough to slip in my back pocket to glance at whenever I have downtime at work. You can't beat the price either. Way to go Penton Overseas!
Rating: 
Summary: Not for me.
Review: I tried to use this while at work. I figured I'd just listen to the CDs over and over and eventually learn some Spanish. I was realistic about it. I didn't expect to learn it over night but rather over a few months. It was impossible for me to put the English word to the Spanish word without using the small book that came with it. I would hear the word in Spanish and not know how it was spelled so I didn't comprehend. (Yes, I'm that new to the language) I eventually couldn't use it at work since I was paying too much attention to the CD.
I don't expect learning a new language to come easy but damn this was boring. I'd be better off watching the Spanish channel or maybe renting a bunch of Spanish DVDs with subtitles.
Rating: 
Summary: This Set is Work, but Worth It
Review: If you are serious about learning Spanish, this will help you. However, it moves too fast to be your ONLY method of learning. You also need a beginning book or beginning class. This helps you listen for understanding and pronunciation. It starts with words and short phrases and moves quickly to longer sentences. Each lesson builds on the ones before, with concepts adding quickly. You hear it first in English, then there is a pause and you try to say it in Spanish. Then you hear it twice in Spanish, with a pause each time for you to attempt it. You learn much faster if you do try to pronounce it, as they recommend. Cut it off in heavy traffic, it requires concentration! I've been using it for a year, and have completed 2 of the 3 levels. My comprehension and pronunciation have improved tremendously as a result!
Rating:
Summary: Offering 111 lessons that teach the listener the basics
Review: Learn In Your Car Spanish from Penton Overseas is nine-hour audio experience offering 111 lessons that teach the listener the basics, simple words and phrases, sentence structure and clear conversation in conversational Spanish. Divided into beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, with recordings from professional native speakers and enhanced with an accompanying "listening guides" with text and grammar notes, Learn In Your Car Spanish is a superbly organized and presented audio experience for enriching one's language and communication skills while making productive use of travel or commute time.
Rating:
Summary: I Love it!
Review: My package arrived earlier this morning. I have already finished 1 of the 9 CDs. I finished so quickly not because there was not much content on the CDs. Just the opposite. The first CD actually has 17 lessons. I finished so quickly because I could not stop listening to the CDs. They are so much fun. I found myself driving around the block several times so that I could listen to the lessons over and over again. I know that my pronunciation is improving with this course. I am doing an immersion method of learning Spanish and I am doing about 2 or 3 home study courses at the same time, including LearningSpanishLikeCrazy.com which I also recommend to anyone that wants to learn Spanish without sitting in front of a computer for hours or reading Spanish books.
I know that some of the reviewers did not like Learn in Your Car Spanish. I suspect it is because this is the first Spanish course that they ever bought. I guess it would help if you already have some experience with the language.
Rating:
Summary: Tres bon!
Review: No more shouting at waiters in English for me now. I am fluent enough now in the language of Cervantes and Iglesias to sing the Macarena, order a beer, and discuss the implications of feline narcolepsy on the North Sea fishing industry. The main reason I haven't awarded it the full five stars is because I was looking for a book on Spanish omelette making, and bought this in error.
Rating:
Summary: Your car may need a jump start
Review: Penton Learn In Your Car Spanish is a strong program and an excellent value under one very important condition: you will struggle with this mightily unless you have some prior background in the language. Key disclosure: I last studied Spanish in high school over 30 years ago, but during the past few years IÕve taught myself Italian using predominantly the Pimsleur Series, which IÕll talk more about later. The fact that I took six years of Spanish in school and more recently studied Italian were pivotal factors in my ability to use the Penton materials effectively.
The Penton package comes with 9 language CDÕs (three each for beginning, intermediate and advanced levels), several printed booklets that contain transcripts of the CDÕs, 3 ÒbonusÓ CDÕs I guess IÕd call them that present the series philosophy on how to learn a foreign language, and a compact and rugged travel case that conveniently houses everything above. While in a sense the inclusion of printed materials is antithetical to a product called Òlearn in your car,Ó their presence is extremely helpful as a reference when you canÕt quite hear whatÕs being said on the audio track, and also to explain some basic grammatical concepts that would be incomprehensible otherwise. Both the booklets and the carrying case are factors in why I rate this package as an excellent value.
Like many similar do it yourself courses, Penton relies on trying to ask you in English to say something in the language youÕre learning. On the surface there is no rhyme or reason to the order of what they present or the way it sequences through the progress of the course, but over time the subtle reinforcement builds knowledge and confidence. On the plus side, they pack a lot of grammar and vocabulary into these nine CDÕs. I found the treatment of verb conjugations and tenses to be especially thorough. YouÕll get credible exposure to present, past, imperfect, conditional, future, and imperative tenses, which was way beyond my expectations in such a low-cost product. ItÕs a terrific refresher and I think it worked great for me since I was able to connect back to both Spanish and Italian, even if the Spanish was buried deep in the attic of my mind.
On the negative side, as previously expressed, I believe newcomers to the language will find themselves baffled by the presentation. You first hear a sentence in English, then there is a very short pause, then the sentence is rendered in Spanish, followed by another short pause, and then repeated in Spanish followed by a final pause. You are supposed to repeat the Spanish each time you hear it. This is the basic methodology behind the entire course. The instructions would have you believe that just by listening to it over and over again you will start to internalize the Spanish and it will all make sense. I just donÕt think this works very well. It requires an enormous leap of faith reminiscent of the ÒThink MethodÓ employed by the scam artist Dr. Harold Hill in The Music Man. However, if youÕve previously studied Spanish or a similar Romance language, you can quickly get a grip on whatÕs going on and have it make sense from the beginning. The other frustrating issue is that itÕs a natural tendency to want to be able to say something immediately after you hear the English for the first time. But they donÕt give you enough time to do that so even on a repeat listening youÕre frequently talking over the speakers.
I suspect that the underlying construction of the Penton series required the inventor to supply the three ÒbonusÓ CDÕs that explain how to learn a foreign language. These are entirely generic and apply to any language you might want to study. The narrator sounds exactly like the ÒZen GuyÓ in the Joe Frank radio broadcasts. You may well disagree with me, but I found these three discs to be virtually useless and almost insulting. If the course materials themselves are good, I donÕt need to hear some guy droning on about how he himself learned 18 languages while controlling his breathing and standing on his head.
Back to Pimsleur for a moment. The Pimsleur CDÕs I bought to study Italian (Levels 2 and 3 are also reviewed by me on Amazon) cost roughly five times more each than this Penton program. I found the Pimsleur approach, while fundamentally similar from a teaching methodology, to build more logically and therefore to make it easier to learn from scratch. But despite the manufacturer claims, in either case you canÕt really succeed if you donÕt supplement the work in your car with printed materials. At least Penton recognizes this overtly while Pimsleur doesnÕt, and I think youÕll find the transcripts that come with Penton to be of considerable help.
Following about 4-6 weeks of more or less daily listening to Penton, I went to Mexico with my family for a vacation. I started in the moment we arrived with a lively discussion with the young man driving us to our hotel from the airport. Even in a resort where most of the employees were supposed to speak some English, I was largely able to conduct my conversations in Spanish and received a lot of compliments and a few incredulous looks when I ventured to try something more ambitious than the present tense. I give the Penton product a lot of credit for my performance, but again, itÕs hard to know how it would have worked out if I was coming to the language for the first time.
To sum it up, I donÕt think you can go wrong with this if youÕve ever studied Spanish before, even if just a year or two. But if you havenÕt, all I can say is, Òmuy buena suerte,Ó cause I think youÕre going to have to work really hard and you'll need all the luck you can get.
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