Rating: 
Summary: Excellent!
Review: A very effective way of learning a language. I listened to the Pimsleur Spanish CD:s (boxes 1, 2 and 3) again and again (48 CD:s all together) over a period of 1 year, in the car and at home, and I feel that I have made tremendous progress.
Rating:
Summary: worth every penny
Review: But if you are reading reviews for Pimsleur's Spanish III you probably already know it is worth it.I will admit that sometimes I thought the vocabulary choices were weird, but I realize they cannot cater to everyone. It seems strange that Pimsleur would teach "My son plays tennis" and not "I have lost my key/luggage/backpack/wallet" though. That is where a good pocket dictionary comes in handy. Now, on to French I...
Rating:
Summary: Great Program to begin learning Spanish
Review: By the time you're done with this program you'll be able to communicate confidently, but you'll also have only a handful of words at your disposal.
There are many other books and programs out there to help you continue where you left off, but above all of them I recommend Platiquemos - it will help you to go all the way to fluency if you stick with it.
Rating: 
Summary: Not nearly as good as levels I and II
Review: Compared to Pimsleur Spanish Level I and Level II, this course sounds like a very rough draft. In fact, it's a first edition, whereas the others are second editions; you'll notice the difference. Recording quality here is inferior (but acceptable), and the teaching is often rushed and confusing. However, it's still better than any other recorded language course I've tried, and I'm marginally glad I bought it.
Rating: 
Summary: Lacking even the basics
Review: I agree with the reviewer from Boulder. Close to eight hundred bucks for the I,II,III Spanish series and two very ordinary verb tenses are ignored ( The imperfect past, and the simple future). These two verb tenses are used so much in common speech that anyone studying Spanish who lacks them will be very confused by ordinary conversations. Maybe there should be a Spanish IV.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent start
Review: I bought the Spanish 3 set series when my boss informed me he was sending me to Venezuela for 3 months. Unfortunately, he sent me to Austria instead. Nevertheless after knowing no more Spanish than si, senor, amigo and adios I have found that using the tapes quickly enabled me to develop a basic conversational ability in Spanish that I have been able to use in practical contexts. During the start up of a new technology factory we had a dozen Venezuelans from a similar operation training our operators. Their English was variable and the Spanish that I had learnt enabled me to express and understand ideas in Spanish quite easily. Whilst leaving me far from fluent I believe it has enabled me to develop a sound basis for further language development when using it in the real world. The Venezuelans, as with any nationality, appreciate people that make the effort to learn their language so the value is far higher than the words and sentences you recite. I listened to the tapes in my car on the way to work each day and spoke aloud for the responses. The Venezuelans commented (genuinely) that my pronunciation was excellent and I believe that is one of the main advantages of this method of learning languages. You will not become fluent, will not be able to construct sentences that cover all of the ideas that you wish to express and not be able to listen in on native speakers talking and understand everything they say but you will be able to have meaningful one on one conversations that will enable you to build on what you do learn through the tapes. I am now "hooked" on the Pimsleur tapes and intend to learn other languages using this method ...... when I can afford to.
Rating:
Summary: Great for learning or reviewing spanish.
Review: I bought this Spanish III without buy Spanish I and II. I studied spanish 30 years ago but never spoke it much. I had to guess whether or not this Spanish III was at my level. I got lucky because it is perfect for my level. It covers the many tenses of grammer, while using common verbs and expressions to form the dialogs.
In the past I have purchased 2 other Pimsleur audio products, include Chinese. I have found them all to be excellent products and highly recommend them to others. My immediate goal is to service spanish speaking customers at my work.
Rating:
Summary: Great for learning or reviewing spanish.
Review: I bought this Spanish III without buy Spanish I and II. I studied spanish 30 years ago but never spoke it much. I had to guess whether or not this Spanish III was at my level. I got lucky because it is perfect for my level. It covers the many tenses of grammer, while using common verbs and expressions to form the dialogs.
In the past I have purchased 2 other Pimsleur audio products, include Chinese. I have found them all to be excellent products and highly recommend them to others. My immediate goal is to service spanish speaking customers at my work.
Rating:
Summary: Solamente Tres Estrellas
Review: I finished all 3 levels of Pimsleur Spanish. The course is satisfactory. Perhaps a little better than satisfactory. Pimselur's question/answer method is very effective in helping you think in Spanish. And the audio is very sharp. I also like the fact that the speakers are native Speakers of Spanish unlike courses such as Michel Thomas which uses non-natives. Also repeating my answers before and after the native speakers really helped in my pronunciation and developing a real Spanish sounding accent. So why do I only give it three stars?
After finishing all three levels and spending the money that I spent, I still cannot understand native Spanish speakers or "Latinos" when they are speaking among themselves. Pimsleur Spanish also equips you with a rather limited vocabulary. For the last three months, I have been studying with the lessons from Learning Spanish Like Crazy. The Learning Spanish Like Crazy course has a teaching method very similar to Pimsleur's Spanish. In fact, I remember reading somewhere on the Net that Learning Spanish Like Crazy was started by a disgruntled Pimsleur Spanish customer who finished all 3 levels of the course and felt that the Pimsluer Spanish that he had learned was so "formal" that it screamed "GRINGO."
In my opinion, completing all three levels of Pimsleur Spanish can leave someone disillusioned into believing that they will really be able to understand native Spanish speakers when they speak among themselves. The Learning Spanish Like Crazy lessons start out with the native Speakers speaking at about the same pace as the Pimsluer Spanish speakers. But as the course progresses, the speakers in Learning Spanish Like Crazy tend to speak quicker or more at the same pace that natives actually speak. I think that's a more realistic approach because native Spanish speakers tend to speak Spanish very fast.
I also noticed that the narrator in Learning Like Crazy tends to speak less and less English as the course progresses. Unlike the narrator in Pimsleur Spanish who speaks an excessive amount of English. In fact, the narrator in Pimsluer Spanish apparently does not speak any Spanish. And that certainly did not help in my comprehension of rapidly Spanish speaking natives.
To sum it all up, Pimsluer Spanish is a good course. But don't expect to finish all three levels and be able to understand natives when they speak among themselves. It's not going to happen. If you want to not only speak Spanish fluently, but also understand it fluently, I think that Learning Like Crazy is the better of the two.
Rating:
Summary: pretty good
Review: i have gone through all three levels of pimsleur spanish and found them quite effective in helping me lock away in my memory what is probably the core of the language. i can converse with native speakers at work in ordinary chit chat and am complemented upon my pronounciation. i have no doubt i would be ok in an area where nothing but spanish is spoken. what undoudtedly helped was the fact that i had for severl months before starting this series studied grammar books and bilingual reading books. if not for that i probably would have had some problems with this series if i had started it with no previous knowlege of the spanish as i am one of those visual learners...hence the 4 stars and not 5. no one source can make you fluent. but attacking it with several differnt types of sets including fsi, vocabulearn, slang sets, verb sets, and practicing with native speakers can bring you very close. do you have to have formal instruction? no not really...i knew someone who took three years of spanish in high school and still could not order dinner. what you really need is a huge appetite for what you are attempting to master and some logical common sense planning! pimsleur is a great place to start!
| 
