¿Sabias que. . . ?, Beginning Spanish (Student Edition + Listening Comprehension Audio CD)

Rating:
Summary: Two Words
Review: BO-RINGGGGGGGGG...when is someone going to write a good foreign language text book that gives the students interesting stories in addition to verbs and grammar. How about a story about Mariachi bank robbers who hold a small Mexican town captive while their leader (we can call him El Loco Uno) holds the mayor's daughter captive. After a band of rebels (these are good rebels not bad ones) catch word, they quickly dispurse to the village, where they find El Loco Uno holding Marietta (the mayor's daughter) at knifepoint. The leader of the band of rebels, Rico, throws his lassoo out but misses, and instead catches Mariettas poodle, who is barking nearby. This is key later in the story. So now El Loco Uno is angry, and he sends his men after the rebels. They engage in bloody war for a long time. Finally, after many men have died, Rico sees El Loco Uno eating a sandwich. Rico sneaks up behind him and tries to strangle him, but El Loco Uno picks up his fork and stabs Rico in the neck. Rico stumbles backward, struck with pain, and El Loco Uno kicks him in the groin. Rico falls down, and El Loco Uno pulls out his knife, ready to finish Rico. Desperate, Rico searches for a weapon, but instead finds a small ball of fur. In a last ditch attempt to save himself, he picks up this ball of fur, which happens to be muffin, Marietta's dog, and hurles it at El Loco Uno. Now ordinarily muffin would be frightened, but what El Loco Uno doesnt know is that a piece of turkey is stuck to his lower lip, and muffin is very hungry. Anyway, the story ends with Marietta falling madly in love with Rico. Now that would be an interesting book.

Rating:
Summary: Horribly boring. Horribly overpriced for what you get.
Review: I am a freshman at the University of Illinois, and will complete my foreign language requirnment for 2 semesters using this textbook. The book is not insightful, and I felt so frustrated attempting to learn the vocab, that I would often turn to online translations for answers simply becuase the book falls short in providing enough of a background for students to engadge in the language on their own. Additionally, the given material is dry and has little practicality for anyone legitimately seeking to use Spanish on vacations or for a hobby. The exercises are tedious, and I can honestly say I didn't learn a thing thanks to the lack of substance in this textbook.

Rating:
Summary: Bad, out-of-dated edition
Review: I bought this book recently, when it reached my door. I found it was out-of-dated (the 3rd edition, instead of fourth or the lastest 5th edition) and there was no CD attached as it is said in the introduction.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible Book
Review: If you really want to learn Spanish this is not the book for you. This book is boring and unhelpful. I found my students to be frustrated and annoyed with this book. They did not feel it was a good resource. I found it annoying myself and it does not provide good activities for a college or high school level. In my opinion, the activies are a bit hokey.

Rating:
Summary: Groundbreaking text in communicative Spanish teaching
Review: The first edition of SQ blasted onto the market nearly 10 years ago and broke ALL the rules. It's a gutsy, interesting book that does what most other first year Spanish textbooks fail to do - gets you students using and understanding Spanish from the beginning of the school year! It is not easy to teach from Sabias que - you're going to have to work as hard as your students are, but the rewards will be amazing! This is not a teach-yourself Spanish text. It is meant for classroom use.

Rating:
Summary: Sabias Que: Beginning Spanish Third Edition
Review: This text is very informative. There are some pieces of cultural information about the Spanish-speaking world that give good insight into that culture. The one aspect of the book that I thought was not very useful, was the numerous group or team activities, because there are more activities than can be accomplished. (If the class time consists of three 50-minute sessions per week, and there are roughly 15 weeks per semester, the student doesn't benefit from these since most cannot be accomplished effectively due to time constraints.) If a few, rather than many, had been selected for the text, then not only could these be completed during class, but there would be more room in the text for other cultural passages.