Rating: 
Summary: Not As Good As the Original FSI Programmatic Spanish
Review: I am sorry but I don't like the Platiquemos as much as the original FSI Programmatic Spanish. Some things are best left alone and I think FSI Programmatic Spanish is one of them. I also didn't like the Barrons FSI Spanish as much as the original FSI Programmatic Spanish.
I did the original FSI Programmatic Spanish quite a while ago and passed the cassettes on to a friend that wanted to learn Spanish. I am doing the FSI Programmatic Spanish once again now (as a review). I just bought the LearningSpanishLikeCrazy.com Spanish course since everyone else was bragging about it and saying that they were getting good results. LearningSpanishLikeCrazy.com gives you FSI Programmatic Spanish one and two as bonus gifts. No need to buy them at www.audioforum.com when you can get them as bonuses with Learning Spanish Like Crazy. LSLC has also taken care of the problem with the poor analog recording of the original FSI by remastering it and making the sound recording digital.
While I was reviewing with the FSI Programmatic Spanish, I realized that I learned a lot quicker and grasped the Spanish grammar with the original FSI Programmatic Spanish better than I am doing with Platiquemos Spanish. I also noticed that the speakers in FSI Programmatic Spanish spoke at a pace that was more typical of the speed that Latinos actually speak. The speakers in Platiquemos were speaking slower than Latinos really speak. I felt that this did not prepare me for realistic everyday conversations with Latinos.
Rating: 
Summary: Easy learning with an excellent array of speakers
Review: I am the author of Platiquemos, and I am grateful to Amazon for the opportunity to clarify the technical issues raised by "Happypup". I have given 5 stars only because stars are required--not because I presume to rate my own product.The primary issue raised by Happypup is the speed of speech on the audio. The decision to moderate the speed was not taken lightly; numerous native Spanish speakers with decades of experience teaching Spanish to English speakers I consulted were unanimous in their opinion that the audio in the original 1957 Foreign Service Institute program (of which Barron's Mastering Spanish is a copy) was unnaturally rapid, and not at all representative of the way Spanish is normally spoken. The audio is not only for comprehension, but also represents models for emulation; trying to mimic the rapid speech of the original by a student could result in serious pronunciation errors which would be very difficult to correct. Correct pronunciation learned at a moderately slow speed can be speeded up; garbled speech resulting from trying to speak to fast is a serious impediment to communication. This was apparently recognized by the authors of the original FSI program--the speech in the second half of the original is markedly slower than in the first half. Happypup's comparison of the lengths of the "Conversation Stimulus" exercise in Unit 3 is only partially because of slower speech in Platiquemos. Most of the difference is because Platiquemos contains the "Narrative" portion on the audio which was omitted in the original and the Barron's copy. This was done in order to facilitate using the audio in a modern environment, i.e. without having to constantly refer to the text. This was also the reason for including English cues in the "Variation Drills". Unfortunately, there is no other way to make these drills flow smoothly without reference to the text--they are, in fact, a specialized kind of translation drills. Finally, the use of speakers with "Mexican accents". The Platiquemos audio has 18 voices (the original has 6), 11 of which are Mexicans (the original had no identifiable Mexican voices, 4 of the 6 sound like Caribbean dialect speakers). Not only are about a third of all native speakers of Spanish Mexicans, but the speech of educated Mexicans comes very close to typifying a standard Latin American Spanish. Platiquemos does contain voices from all of the major accent regions of Spanish (Spain, the Caribbean, and the Southern Cone of South America).
Rating:
Summary: A very good, complete course for learning Spanish
Review: I am writing this review to help anyone who is looking at making a sizable investment(in time and money) in a complete course in Spanish. First, a little about my experience. I have been studying Spanish for a long time, but have only really been studying hard for the past year. I am a self assessed Intermediate Mid on the ACTFL scale, so I really can't comment on the effectiveness of this program if you are a true beginner, although my sense of it is that it is better to have at least some experience before starting. Now, about Platiquemos. The Foreign Service Institute courses are widely acknowledged as the best complete courses for learning a foreign language. Platiquemos is based on the FSI Spanish course, updated to modern times. The strength of this course is that it covers the entire range of grammatical structures necessary to effectively communicate in the language. I'm really excited about moving through and finishing the complete program. I have completed the Pimsleur Spanish course in its entirety and while it is a very good course in its own right, its coverage of advanced grammar is lacking. I think the best one can achieve with the Pimsleur program is an Intermediate Low, although I would recommend it as a beginners program if you have the money. The other great advantage about this program is that one can learn at his or her own pace, although I would recommend that one practice at least something every day. My current pace is one unit per week(there are 55 units total in 8 levels), doing the lesson once daily M-F and twice daily on the weekends for a total of about 6 hours per unit, which is about what Platiquemos recommends. Now that I'm finishing up Level One, I think I can comment on some of the what the other reviewers have said. First, one reviewer has noted that the speech on the tapes is considerably slower than "normal" speech. While this is true I think(download some sample tapes from their website and compare it to a novela on Univision), I don't think this has a substantial impact on one's capability to learn. The reason for this is that most of the exercises are sentence length utterances, which minimizes any difference in speech rate. The same reviewer also notes that the prompts for the variation drills are in English instead of Spanish, which takes a little away from the effectiveness of the drill. I would have to agree with this assessment, but I don't think it's a deal breaker. Another reviewer stated that there is not enough time between exercises to complete the exercise. I can state that this is definitely not true. For each exercise, I have enough time to respond twice, once before the answer is given and once after the answer is given and before the next exercise begins. The reviewer himself states that he has enough time to think about the correct response, but not enough to speak it. But this is the point of the Platiquemos (and any other) program. The responses have to be automatic and instinctive. If you find yourself thinking about it too much, you need to practice some more. Another reviewer noted that the tape quality isn't optimum. The tapes do have a cut and paste quality to them. In addition, there are occasional discreptancies between the tape and the book, although there were only maybe about 10 in the entire level. So in summary, if you are really serious about learning Spanish, this is the course for you. It will be well worth your investment(hint: check out the Platiquemos website).
Rating:
Summary: A very good, complete course for learning Spanish
Review: I am writing this review to help anyone who is looking at making a sizable investment(in time and money) in a complete course in Spanish. First, a little about my experience. I have been studying Spanish for a long time, but have only really been studying hard for the past year. I am a self assessed Intermediate Mid on the ACTFL scale, so I really can't comment on the effectiveness of this program if you are a true beginner, although my sense of it is that it is better to have at least some experience before starting. Now, about Platiquemos. The Foreign Service Institute courses are widely acknowledged as the best complete courses for learning a foreign language. Platiquemos is based on the FSI Spanish course, updated to modern times. The strength of this course is that it covers the entire range of grammatical structures necessary to effectively communicate in the language. I'm really excited about moving through and finishing the complete program. I have completed the Pimsleur Spanish course in its entirety and while it is a very good course in its own right, its coverage of advanced grammar is lacking. I think the best one can achieve with the Pimsleur program is an Intermediate Low, although I would recommend it as a beginners program if you have the money. The other great advantage about this program is that one can learn at his or her own pace, although I would recommend that one practice at least something every day. My current pace is one unit per week(there are 55 units total in 8 levels), doing the lesson once daily M-F and twice daily on the weekends for a total of about 6 hours per unit, which is about what Platiquemos recommends. Now that I'm finishing up Level One, I think I can comment on some of the what the other reviewers have said. First, one reviewer has noted that the speech on the tapes is considerably slower than "normal" speech. While this is true I think(download some sample tapes from their website and compare it to a novela on Univision), I don't think this has a substantial impact on one's capability to learn. The reason for this is that most of the exercises are sentence length utterances, which minimizes any difference in speech rate. The same reviewer also notes that the prompts for the variation drills are in English instead of Spanish, which takes a little away from the effectiveness of the drill. I would have to agree with this assessment, but I don't think it's a deal breaker. Another reviewer stated that there is not enough time between exercises to complete the exercise. I can state that this is definitely not true. For each exercise, I have enough time to respond twice, once before the answer is given and once after the answer is given and before the next exercise begins. The reviewer himself states that he has enough time to think about the correct response, but not enough to speak it. But this is the point of the Platiquemos (and any other) program. The responses have to be automatic and instinctive. If you find yourself thinking about it too much, you need to practice some more. Another reviewer noted that the tape quality isn't optimum. The tapes do have a cut and paste quality to them. In addition, there are occasional discreptancies between the tape and the book, although there were only maybe about 10 in the entire level. So in summary, if you are really serious about learning Spanish, this is the course for you. It will be well worth your investment(hint: check out the Platiquemos website).
Rating:
Summary: My favorite program for learning Spanish so far
Review: I have completed the entire Pimsleur Program and Rosetta Stone program and have gone through several others books and tapes until I arrived to the series of Platiquemos recordings.
I'm not sure if there are few versions of this set (slower and faster), but I had no problem with the speed of the recordings. One reason that I particularly liked this program is because of its substitution exercises.
I did find it in the past easier to learn foreign languages using an assortment of different sources and reading as many different books in a new language as I can. This not only provides an additional variety, but you get to encounter the words and phrases in many different contexts.
I do like the fact that speakers from different countries are used on these recordings. It helps to develop flexibility. For that matter I like to listen also to the speakers from Spain to get used to different pronounciations.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Teaching Spanish Method but Lacks Vocabulary
Review: I have done the FSI series with Barrons, 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 only a day or two ago 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?"
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: I have used the Platiquemos course to teach Spanish levels 1 through 3 for the last couple of years and have found it to be very complete. After a little practice I find that I spend very little additional time preparing my classes. My students have all progressed very well and most plan to continue through additional levels of the course. Vocabulary and grammar from each unit are repeated and reviewed at intervals through all subsequent units and levels so that students don't lose old knowledge as they acquire new. I allocate 45 hours of class time to each level which typically gives me plenty of time for review and additional activities. Most students with no prior language background become "conversational" by the end of level 2. I highly recommend this course for serious students.
Rating:
Summary: and here's the downside to this program....
Review: I would agree with all of the preceding (positive) reviews and so will not go into what Platiquemos does right in detail (it's already been said!) - but there is another side to this which I would like to share and is why I have given this product 3 stars. There is no doubt that the FSI approach and system used here is both effective and time honored. There is also no doubt that the original FSI program is outdated, sometimes poor audio, boring book and speakers fast and hard to differentiate [available on amazon as Barrons levels 1 and 2 and levels 3 and 4 at multilingualbooks or audio forum (I have no connection to any of these companies other than having occasionally purchased their products) ]. Platiquemos does solve some of these problems by redoing all of the dialogs using male and female instructors from the Cuernacava School of languages in Mexico. This means the audio recordings are new and higher quality. It allows them to re-cast "juan" from the original as "juanita" and el senor White as Ms Smith. This is good as the increased use of female voices make the dialogs easier to follow as the difference between the male and female participants is easier to note than the old FSI where two similar sounding males spoke to eachother. It also allows a greater diversity of speakers, although all seem to have Mexican accents, so I don't think this is a strong point. The big problem I have is that after using the old FSI for levels 1 and 2 I then tried to continue for units 30-55 (Platiquemos levels 5-8) but they spoke TOO SLOW! I know this sounds contradictory but the old FSI tapes, while fast and hard to follow enabled me to understand *normal* speech at *normal* speeds. After a short time with Platiquemos I felt like my ability to follow at normal speeds was going backwards as it was training/practising my ear to only be able to follow at an artificially slow one. Yes, it *does* make learning and getting through the lesson easier, but I want to learn to speak and listen, and I felt the FSI did a much better job of this even though it was harder. Sometimes you get what you pay for (in this case in effort not necessarily dollars). I timed the part 3 dialogue in FSI - 33 seconds. I timed the *same* dialogue in platiquemos - 1 minute 8seconds - HALF THE SPEED! If you want to hear for yourself you can download the mp3s from the "platiquemos let's talk" homepage. The other aspect they have changed is either a benefit or a backward step depending on your perspective. For many of the variation drills rather than just having the Spanish as the old FSI had it also has the English on the tape (which before you had to refer back through the book for). This makes the new Platequimos easier to use *without* a book ie in the car or something, but it has the disadvantage that it changes it from a variation drill to a translation drill - and there are already plenty of translation drills! You need both and adding the english has destroyed the effectiveness of the variation drills. Overall, this is an excellent product and if you have a weak stomach for pushing yourself through lighting quick speech and dull photocopied books buy this over the original FSI course. However, if your aim is to learn to speak and listen to normal spanish speech - buy the old FSI version. Check out the mp3s on the platiquemos homepage and form your own opinion!
Rating:
Summary: Active or Passive Learning?
Review: I've used the FSI materials for French and Spanish, and wished to try the updated version of Spanish in Platiquemos. On the plus side, it's probably good to have more native speakers and countries of origin; some of the material and vocabulary has been updated; I personally like the English in places, which means I don't have to refer to the book so much. And the book is much more readable than the FSI/Barron's editions. On the negative side, one niggling criticism, and one more serious. First, the audio is apparently patched together from the original FSI tapes and later multiple recording sessions. Tape noise, audio ambience (echo and tonal quality), and voice levels vary from one speaker's recording to another within the same excercise, and this is somewhat distracting. More seriously for me, not a previous reviewer's complaint about the speech being too slow, but rather the intervals between utterances being too short. Even for lessons I know well from the FSI material, I find that I do not have time to utter a response. That is, in a variation drill first a model is given, then you should have time to repeat the phrase at the same speed as the speaker, next the variation keyword is spoken. You should have time to form and utter the response, then the answer is given, and finally you should have time to repeat it before the next drill item. None of these intervals is long enough. At the point where I would naturally begin speaking, the next utterance on the tape has already begun. In learning the dialogue, explosively repeating a phrase immediately after the native speaker, the speaker starts the next repetition before I can finish speaking. The entire value of this method, to me, is in speaking each utterance aloud, and being forced to repeatedly solve small problems in the target language, at a much higher rate than say in a classroom situation. But the lack of time for response turns this into a passive exercise. I may have time to mentally form a response, but hardly ever to speak it.
Rating:
Summary: Active or Passive Learning?
Review: I've used the FSI materials for French and Spanish, and wished to try the updated version of Spanish in Platiquemos. On the plus side, it's probably good to have more native speakers and countries of origin; some of the material and vocabulary has been updated; I personally like the English in places, which means I don't have to refer to the book so much. And the book is much more readable than the FSI/Barron's editions. On the negative side, one niggling criticism, and one more serious. First, the audio is apparently patched together from the original FSI tapes and later multiple recording sessions. Tape noise, audio ambience (echo and tonal quality), and voice levels vary from one speaker's recording to another within the same excercise, and this is somewhat distracting. More seriously for me, not a previous reviewer's complaint about the speech being too slow, but rather the intervals between utterances being too short. Even for lessons I know well from the FSI material, I find that I do not have time to utter a response. That is, in a variation drill first a model is given, then you should have time to repeat the phrase at the same speed as the speaker, next the variation keyword is spoken. You should have time to form and utter the response, then the answer is given, and finally you should have time to repeat it before the next drill item. None of these intervals is long enough. At the point where I would naturally begin speaking, the next utterance on the tape has already begun. In learning the dialogue, explosively repeating a phrase immediately after the native speaker, the speaker starts the next repetition before I can finish speaking. The entire value of this method, to me, is in speaking each utterance aloud, and being forced to repeatedly solve small problems in the target language, at a much higher rate than say in a classroom situation. But the lack of time for response turns this into a passive exercise. I may have time to mentally form a response, but hardly ever to speak it.
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