Spanish With Ease: Day by Day Method (Assimil Language Learning Programs, English Base)

Rating:
Summary: Assimilate Spanish Effortlessly
Review: Assimil programs are based on effortless assimilation of the language material. I believe that Assimil programs are most popular language learning programs in Europe.

From the very beginning you are immersed in the language - the program has 109 lessons on 478 pages and 4 CDs with approximately 3 and half hours of audio entirely in Spanish.

Each lesson contains short dialogues and is accompanied by any notes and grammatical explations, which are also reviewed later on. Throughout the book are interspersed cartoons and jokes making learning of Spanish even more enjoyable and fun.

Note: The tapes / CDs that accompany the book are spoken with Castillan pronounciation - Spanish spoken in Spain - not in Latin American.

Once you're done with this book, you can continue onto the next volume - "Using Spanish".

Rating:
Summary: Fun, Informative, and Well-Designed Courses
Review: I don't think you really can learn a foreign language on your own. But as far as these self-studying tools are concerned, Assimil's Spanish with Ease shows that they have put in the thought and effort to design the courses. It is well worth the extra money (compared to other self-taught Spanish books.)

Let me first tell you what this is not. It's not a phrase book for tourists and is not a comprehensive Spanish grammar course, and it doesn't give you a free dictionary. And you need to sit down and read the book to learn (I simply don't buy the "All-Audio" model by Living Learning.) But if you are serious about learning Spanish on your own (i.e. actually going through all the lessons), Assimil is a very effective tool.

For example, the book is printed in Spanish on odd-numbered pages and corresponding English on even-numbered pages so that people could refrain from "cheating" by looking up the English. The lessons are mostly interesting dialogues that could arise in daily life. It provides informative footnotes that explain idiomatic usages. It gives a pretty detailed grammatical appendix (including some irregular verbs) and variations of regional usages in a dozen Spanish-speaking countries. It also have very fun cartoons to go with the lessons. The accented syllables are boldfaced.

Rating:
Summary: Fun, Informative, and Well-Designed Courses
Review: I don't think you really can learn a foreign language on your own. But as far as these self-studying tools are concerned, Assimil's Spanish with Ease shows that they have put in the thought and effort to design the courses. It is well worth the extra money (compared to other self-taught Spanish books.)

Let me first tell you what this is not. It's not a phrase book for tourists and is not a comprehensive Spanish grammar course, and it doesn't give you a free dictionary. And you need to sit down and read the book to learn (I simply don't buy the "All-Audio" model by Living Learning.) But if you are serious about learning Spanish on your own (i.e. actually going through all the lessons), Assimil is a very effective tool.

For example, the book is printed in Spanish on odd-numbered pages and corresponding English on even-numbered pages so that people could refrain from "cheating" by looking up the English. The lessons are mostly interesting dialogues that could arise in daily life. It provides informative footnotes that explain idiomatic usages. It gives a pretty detailed grammatical appendix (including some irregular verbs) and variations of regional usages in a dozen Spanish-speaking countries. It also have very fun cartoons to go with the lessons. The accented syllables are boldfaced.