Mastering Spanish, Level 1 (with Audio CDs)

Rating:
Summary: Hard work produces results...
Review: I have an older edition with 12 audio tapes. As pointed out elsewhere, the "textbook" is a reduced version of the original, and is clogged by the most annoying amount of transliterations. I find the drills really valuable, and feel like I am actually SPEAKING Spanish instead of reading it. I feel it is well worth the price, assuming you have the perserverance (sp?) to stick with it, and it does require disipline. If you did the three courses through to the bitter end while drilling the vocabulary separately, you would know a ton of Spanish.
From a learning perspective, the most difficult thing about tapes (and maybe even the CDs, although I have no direct experience and Barron's was not much help when I inquired) is their lack of usable indexing. If, say, each tape is gone over from start to finish 4 times, there are yet sections which require many more repititions. To do this on a "walkman" tape player is difficult at best. Here is where the "bookmark" feature in a language lab really shines. I thought about a dictation transcription machine, but I really don't want yet another piece of electronic equipment.

Rating:
Summary: Hard work produces results...
Review: I have an older edition with 12 audio tapes. As pointed out elsewhere, the "textbook" is a reduced version of the original, and is clogged by the most annoying amount of transliterations. I find the drills really valuable, and feel like I am actually SPEAKING Spanish instead of reading it. I feel it is well worth the price, assuming you have the perserverance (sp?) to stick with it, and it does require disipline. If you did the three courses through to the bitter end while drilling the vocabulary separately, you would know a ton of Spanish.
From a learning perspective, the most difficult thing about tapes (and maybe even the CDs, although I have no direct experience and Barron's was not much help when I inquired) is their lack of usable indexing. If, say, each tape is gone over from start to finish 4 times, there are yet sections which require many more repititions. To do this on a "walkman" tape player is difficult at best. Here is where the "bookmark" feature in a language lab really shines. I thought about a dictation transcription machine, but I really don't want yet another piece of electronic equipment.

Rating:
Summary: Teaches the Language - But not useful vocabulary
Review: I have done the FSI series twice with Barrons, with Platiquemos, and the last two levels of FSI Spanish that are offered by Audio Forum. The FSI learning Spanish method is very effective. I would be tempted to say it's as good as Pimsleurs Spanish. The downside of all of the FSI Spanish courses is that the vocabulary is outdated. FSI Spanish teaches you how to say phrases such as "war planes" (aviones de guerra) and "bomber squadron" (escuadrones de bombardeo). A couple of my college friends who are native speakers and that teach Spanish on the side have recommended LearningSpanishLikeCrazy.com for a course that teaches Spanish that you can actually use. I just started that course recently so it would be premature for me to attempt compare it with FSI. But at least I can say that the Learning Spanish Like Crazy lesson plan has taught me more practical vocabulary so far. The course comes with a bonus lesson on non vulgar insults in Spanish that has already taught me how to say "shut up," "fatso," "she's stuck up," and "his breath stinks." I know you are probably thinking that you would never want to insult someone in Spanish. But I think there's a greater chance that I'll want to insult someone in Spanish than I will want to ask them "where does the bomber squadron land?"

I have also heard that the bulk of this coure is available for free on the Net without violating any copyright laws because it is considered a U.S. Government public domain publication.




Rating:
Summary: New cover, same content
Review: I originally learned Spanish years ago with the Foreign Service Institute Basic Course in Spanish, and purchased Barron's previous edition of "Mastering Spanish" a couple of years ago thinking it would be easier to use than the original. What I found was that it was a copy of the 1957 original--but the page sizes had been photographically reduced from letter-size to 9" x 7", making the text very small and difficult to read. The previous edition of Barron's Mastering Spanish on Amazon had numerous reviews, many of which pointed out usability problems: small, indistinct text; too-fast and sometimes indistinct speech on the audio; an intrusive and not useful phonetic alphabet which dominated and sometimes replaced the normal Spanish; and a preponderance of political/military situations and vocabulary inappropriate for most users. By comparing Barron's with the FSI original, I found that Barron's is nothing more than a photocopy of the old original; the audio is also a copy.

My curiosity was therefore aroused when I saw on Amazon that Barron's had a "new edition with new references, and up-to-date vocabulary and idioms". Unfortunately, the "new" is limited to a twelfth compact disk, which does contain some valuable information. However, it does nothing to address the problems with the previous version (and with the almost 50-year-old original) which numerous reviewers had commented on in Amazon's pages.

While the content of Barron's Mastering Spanish (and the FSI original) is perhaps the most proven, effective way to learn to communicate in Spanish, the usability issues militate against its successful use by any but the most dedicated and stubborn students. The fact that it is almost in its entirety a copy of a U.S. Government public domain publication may also help explain Barron's relatively low price. Not having to invest in development is probably a big help in keeping cost low.

Another problem is that Barron's sells the first half of the FSI program as a complete course, promising that learners will "master grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary..." as they "...gain command of the spoken language." Well, that's true as far as it goes, but if the FSI program, of which Barron's is a copy, is considered the model, it only goes half way. Those interested in a truly modernized version of the Foreign Service Institute approach will have to look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Load this onto your iPod
Review: You can load all 12 cd's onto your iPod (via iTunes and a little manual editing of the track lists), after which this massive library of 1940's introductory Spanish tutoring is at your fingertips forever. My iPod is the old 5 Mb wheelie model, and the 12 hours of instruction barely makes a dent in its capacity -- not bad, considering that I have Barron's Mastering Japanese (Jordan!) on there as well.

I really respect and appreciate these old Foreign Service Institute packages. I find the English speakers very odd, and wonder if some of that rapidfire 1940's Radio-style delivery is an artifact of the old reel-to-reel tape mastering everyone used to use. It was nice, as someone who reads newspaper-level Spanish passably well, to be included in the intended audience of "serious students" of Spanish.