Ultimate Spanish Advanced (CD Pkg)

Rating:
Summary: Modern textbook for advanced learners. It is a real bargain.
Review: This is a wonderful textbook for advanced students of Spanish. The twenty lessons have dialog, notes to the dialog, grammatical explanations and culture or business notes. A short test is included in each lesson. There are also readings for each five lessons. The level of the dialog, when read in the textbook, is somewhere between intermediate and advanced. The conversations are placed in setting of different Spanish speaking countries, including Spain. They cover various, mostly contemporary themes, which greatly reduces boredom. The grammar reviews are somewhat basic and the advanced learners usually only have to look through them quickly. The beauty of this course is accompanying CDs or cassettes. The eight CDs are divided into two parts, dialogs and exercises. In the dialogs, the conversations in each lesson are recorded, with and without pauses to repeat. In the exercises, part of the conversation is used for translation and other exercises. It is true that they do not include comprehensive grammar exercises, such as substitution, transformation and so on, I do not think it is a big deficiency, because at this level, you are supposed to have acquired the basic practical knowledge of Spanish grammar (for example, you should be able to express yourself with correct conjugation of verbs). And becoming familiar with and able to speak fluently various sentences like those in this book is a better approach. In this regard, the CDs are really remarkable: the dialogs are recorded at natural speed and there seems to be no compromise for less advanced learners. Just imitate them and try to speak them as they are spoken, at the same speed, and you will be amazed how much you have advanced. In sum, I found this course very useful and at this price, it is a real bargain.