Living Language Spanish, Complete Edition

I took high school Spanish 30 years ago and remembered almost nothing. I used this set to prepare for a trip to Mexico, and later, Spain. I used the Duolingo app a little bit too, but it was way too slow and far less practical. This is much better! I think people who say this series is too difficult maybe aren't taking it slow enough. Perhaps they're not using the books. You have to use both the CDs and the books. Also it's helpful to add supplementary materials. I really like Why Not Spanish and the Spanish Dude (he has terrible pronunciation but has some useful ways for learning grammar). Also you can listen along to children's stories on YouTube with subtitles. Another thing you can do is change your smartphone and Google map navigation over to Spanish once you get to book 2. Write your shopping lists in Spanish. I changed an Amazon Echo to Spanish as well, and set Alexa to speak slowly. Even the English-speaking Alexa can tell you words. The new bilingual feature doesn't seem to work very well, unfortunately. "Alexa how do I say 'the blanket' in Spanish?" works great. It's very useful daily practice with vocabulary. The CDs are excellent, although I agree with others that the CDs that accompany book 1 are by far the best. By books two and three, you shouldn't need to hear endless pronunciation of vocabulary words because Spanish follows strict rules. The conversations are the best part. The best thing of all while learning is to suck up your courage and practice *in conversation* using the Spanish that you have learned from these books and other sources. When I was done with book one, I started using Skype to chat with Spanish speaking people in other countries. (Language exchange. Half the time is spent in English and half the time in your target language). There are several sites for this and I used the language exchange program through Dickinson College, the Mixxer. Because I was such a beginner, at first I needed to partner with intermediate or better English skills because they had to smooth the path for me. I didn't even know how to use Skype, and a language partner from Madrid explained how. It's nearly 1 and 1/2 years later, and now I'm an intermediate Spanish speaker and I have friends in Spain. I can talk all day in Spanish about most anything. Sure, my grammar isn't great, and I need a lot more vocabulary, and I still can't do all the verb conjugations (subjunctive mood) but I can handle almost any situation now. Talk about a life changer! This was a *great* program but it takes time for your brain to grow into another language. With consistent daily practice, your brain will want to do this. I pushed through to book 3 and learned about subjunctive mood and things like that, but I'm still not proficient with those. I think it's better to limit the kinds of verbs you use and converse more fluently, and add the more complicated stuff later or else you'll just confuse yourself. The same thing with the direct and indirect object pronouns... Just go ahead and talk like Tarzan and leave those out until later in your language journey. Learning a language is an active thing, and it's a lifestyle change. If you don't get out there and talk with people in Spanish, regularly, you're never going to learn it. Nowadays with the internet, you can do immersion learning right at home, with Skype and YouTube videos. It's truly amazing. So these excellent materials were my first step to learning Spanish. The books will get you to a point where you can start conversing about everyday topics, and then go find a language partner with similar interests and hobbies and learn that vocabulary, and you're on your way! If a friend of mine wanted to learn Spanish, I would definitely recommend that they begin with this set, and work through the books all the way to the end, while supplementing with other things.

I'm only half way through the first book, but so far it has been great. I've taken several beginning Spanish courses over my lifetime and none of it stuck, but I feel like the design of this course is a lot better because, contrary to what one "reviewer" said, they do NOT just give you a list of words to memorize. You are shown words which will be emphasized in a lesson, but they are presented in context in a variety of ways. To get 9 CDs and 3+ books for $28 is just an unbelievable bargain especially compared to big-name systems which, ironically, consistently get poor reviews and cost much, much more. Just after I started this course I stumbled across Duolingo.com which is a free online school for various languages, including Spanish. I've been working it the same time as this system because they each have their own advantages. The main advantage of the Duolingo course is that it is interactive -- you have to type in answers and if you get too many wrong, you have to repeat the lesson. With a non-interactive course, it is easy to lose focus/attention and not realize that you have missed something, which is the case with Living Language. On the other hand, the speech in Living Language is much clearer and it is easier to back up a bit and repeat something. Also, you can read the LL books and/or listen to the CDs anywhere and any time, while you must be online to use Duolingo. The Amazon page and other Living Language materials say that you can just listen to the CDs to learn Spanish without using the book. While that may be theoretically possible, it would be VERY much harder and time consuming. For one thing, the book has extra exercises to reinforce your learning which the CDs do not have. Another thing is that listening to spoken Spanish and reading it at the same doubles your learning capacity as aural and visual input are stored in different parts of the brain and subsequently reinforce each other. If you do not look at the book while listening to the CDs, you are simply missing out on that. IMO, the best way to use this course is to read and listen to a chapter at the same time, then read the chapter again, working the extra exercises, then repeat both of these steps until you feel comfortable that you have learned the material. I would only listen to the CDs by themselves, such as in a car, as additional reinforcement. But I seriously doubt that anyone can learn Spanish by listening one time to these CDs while driving around (hopefully also focusing on traffic, etc.).

I bought this set after seeing a friend's copy of the French edition. I really like the set up and I do feel that I am learning a lot (though the first book seemed mostly a refresher of items I learned in high school and college). Positives: -Division of chapters is clear and the companion cds read almost every word on the page. (Which makes it easy to read along with the chapter or use it as extra practice on your drive to work as I do. -The book is written in a way that seems more organic to learning conversational Spanish. Instead of just learning a bunch of words and how to conjugate them or just a set of general vocabulary each chapter is topic based. This means the the number section isn't just "uno, dos, tres." It also includes "Tengo dos gatos" and "Ella tiene tres perros." (I have two cats. She has three dogs.) Slowly interspersing new vocabulary, sentence structure, gender-dominance of the terms, and of course conjugation. Negatives: (why I did not give it 5 stars) -You have to come in with a basic knowledge of the Spanish alphabet and sometimes the pronunciation doesn't seem as clear in writing. -Sometimes some of the most important/interesting vocabulary is thrown into the summary paragraph at the end of the chapter giving the reader only one chance to familiarize with that set of vocabulary before it is either not referenced again or thrown into another part of the following chapter. (The cd does read this chapter to you but does not give you the option to repeat those words.) -The cd can really only be used after reading the chapter for extra study. I tried to use some of the lessons ahead of where I was in the book. (Only the next lesson, not far in advance.) And I found myself tongue tied. The cd gives you a chance to repeat the Spanish out loud after they have given a definition in English and it has been read quite rapidly in Spanish. It did not give enough time for the me, as the reader, to repeat the more complex sentences and spoke so rapidly that it was hard to hear. So I will now only use the cd after reading the chapter. (It was very frustrating because I knew some of the vocabulary but not one or two words that I felt like the reader flew over.) -The online learning content though useful seems a little slow or gimmicky at times. Overall I think it is a great purchase and since I am a librarian with access to many self study guides at my local library I would still recommend this to a person wishing to get serious on relearning what they vaguely remembered from high school over some of the other sets available. Also at the library since I have many Spanish speaking patrons it makes it easier to converse, granted it is still for the both of us Broken English and Broken Spanish. I do find that I am understanding more structure and the in between words that I was previously missing. [End note: It would be excellent if Living Language decided to make something like this for ESL, since I have many patrons in the library who wish to have a firmer grasp on English and have been asking me what I have been doing in order to converse better with them in Spanish.]

This set comes with a total of 9 audio CDs, 3 for the Beginning level, 3 for the Intermediate level, and 3 for the Advanced level, and has a book to correspond with each level. The books are a combination textbook-workbook. The CDs and books are designed to be used together: the content on the audio CDs is printed in the books. But there is additional content (exercises) in the books that are not on the CDs. Although you can just listen to a CD in your car while driving, for example, or read in one of the books at bedtime without playing the audio for it, having a study time and using one of the CDs together with the book is a terrific way to learn. The practice exercises are interspersed throughout each lesson (and the answer key is printed on the same page making it easy to check my answers). I like to pause the CD and do the practice exercises as I come to them in the book, rather than going through the whole audio for the lesson and going back to the exercises afterwards. In the audio lessons you listen and repeat. Listening and repeating means I learn to pronounce the Spanish words correctly as I learn them. Being able to read along as I listen also helps me to "tune my ear" to the Spanish sounds of the words, and recognize them more easily the next time I hear them. The CDs also include conversations that are great for improving comprehension of spoken Spanish. After reading along with a lesson, I listen a second, or even third time without reading along. This has really helped improve my comprehension. I like this program better than a formal Spanish class because it costs a lot less, I can move at my own pace through the lessons, and I can repeat anything as many times as it takes to learn it. I like that the program incorporates the vocabulary I have just learned into complete sentences and practice exercises, both of which help with retention of the vocabulary, and the overall learning process. I found this set at the public library near my house, and liked it so much that I I kept re-checking it out until someone else requested it. I wanted to own it, but figured it would be cost-prohibitive for me. When I saw I could buy the whole set for under $30, I was thrilled. The content of this set is huge for the cost. No doubt about it, this set is well worth the money!

This is the first time that I have ever written a review for a product, but I am loving the Living Language Spanish course so much I had to write a review. This program is so awesome! I have always wanted to learn Spanish, but I just never had the guts to go for it (I guess I thought I was too dumb to learn to speak another language), but at 27 I finally decided it was time to just do it! First, I bought Lesson 1-30 of the Pimsleur program because from the reviews I read it seemed like the better program, but needless to say, a hundred and some odd dollars later...I don't think so! While I will not discredited the Pimsleur program completely because I do feel like it helped a lot with my pronunciation, I will say for the price I would rather just struggle along with pronunciation, and plus I think that Living Language does an excellent job with pronunciation also! I would recommend Living Language to any body who wants to start learning a language. It is a great way to get your feet wet in the language you want to learn. Living language is by no means an exhaustive source for learning a language, but it is a great starting point! After I finish with the Living Language program, I plan to continue studying Spanish using the Practice Makes Perfect Spanish series. If you plan on learning a language on your own the best advice I would give is buy a Living Language program to start, and listen and read, listen and read, listen and read! Trust me you are capable of learning another language. My only complaint about Living Language is they don't have enough Languages! But really that's a compliment to them, because if they had more, I would buy them! I plan on learning French once I get comfortable with Spanish and then maybe Italian. But I will absolutely be shelling out my cash to Living Language! It's so worth the $35 to $40 I could probably waste on food! Ha! :)

Audio - 9 CD's. They give you words, phrases, and the intent to explain the functions of grammar in Spanish. Unfortunately when it gives you the English, then the Spanish, it does not provide time to repeat the statement, plus it does not provide reinforcement. As a supplement to other sources, it is a good secondary enforcement tool, largely because it allows you to hear a native Spanish speaker pronounce the words and terms. This is not a functional tool for beginning learners, but a support system to build a more complete and repetitive learning opportunity. Books - Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced. The books are well written, but reminiscent of middle or high school learning structure. The best time to learn a language is between 2-6 if you are not brought up in a bilingual family, or immersed in the country. Attempting to show me how well you speak Spanish in book form is not as supportive as showing me you understand I am new to the language and being supportive in the manner in which the program is written. In High School, my Spanish teacher told me I was not designed to learn languages, and as a dyslexic, I am not offended. I went on to learn and speak both Japanese and German, so she might have been a bit off the mark. I was able to learn both by immersion, not by printed or recorded reinforcement, but I do have German in 10 Minutes per day, and it is an amazing refresher that provides multiple reinforcement opportunities. I'd suggest a visual learning program with audio reinforcement, and for strong readers who retain well, books might also be supportive. If the materials do not provide the opportunity to constantly verbally repeat the lessons, most will not retain, or be able to learn the materials.

It is currently March 22, 2016. I formally dedicated to learning Spanish (from scratch) at our clinic staff meeting in May of 2015, at which point I purchased this material. In contrast to my high school German, I was clearly at my own pace with this study, and I proceeded at one lesson each week, regardless of how easy some seemed (with the exception of numbers, which went more quickly). I finished the material last night, and I am very pleased with my handle on the language in the clinical setting. I do appreciate sentence structure and generally things grammatical. That being said, if you are not keen on the subjunctive mood, indirect object pronouns and similar grammatical elements as such, the books provide brief descriptions of each as they are encountered. The authors did not presume grammatical prowess. In the process of this study, I often found myself wanting to apply certain phrases or constructs in other contexts, and I discovered spanishdict.com to be exceedingly helpful. Here I could posit a potential sentence and see how it translated through three different translators. I also used the site for more clarity on certain grammatical points. This allowed me to bridge the gap between the study content and things clinical (or whatever your setting might be). Let me strongly suggest this highly-cost-effective material for anyone who has no certain knowledge of the Spanish language.

This is a great set to get started in taking Spanish. I also have the Living Language Spanish All the Way version that I purchased years ago. However, it did not break things down the way this set does. I would recommend it to anyone begining Spanish or just wanting to brush up even though this set was recommended for my Spanish Class. It is easy to follow, easy to understand, and you will not get stumped even if your grammar is not all what its suppose to be. Although I'm taking a Community Education Spanish III class (which I'm really not ready for but learning things along the way), my instructor is making the class fun with her shennigans. Find ways to make it fun, then you will learn quickly and effectively. Also, if you need additional help try the Practice Make Perfect (Spanish) series. They make wonderful practice sessions and give you even more clarification. Bienvenido a aprendizaje el Spanol!

It's really best book for Spanish learner especially who wants to do self study. I'm also studying it and its work out part is helpful for self test.

I love this course it's well-structured, nicely paced . the exercises or engaging.. I've got half way through the book in one day I was that motivated. This is great for complete beginners or people already with a little bit of Spanish or a significant knowledge of Spanish. I haven't yet listened to the CDs as I will do that on my commute to work to supplement the work I have done in the book. Would definitely recommend. I love the way certain explanations of grammar I worded so clearly and easy to understand

This is what I have wanted for a long time. When studying English, audio texts are essential. But I couldn't find good ones for Spanish learners in Japan. Now that I have this set, I look forward to learning Spanish with this.

Un sistema molto utile per ripassare e migliorare sia il vocabolario sia la grammatica. Un altro sistema molto utile e più approfondito è Bienvenido al Espanol.

J'ai déjà le manuel d'italien et de russe, j'attends l'allemand et je compte acquérir autant de manuels possible de cette collection, qui est à ma connaissance la meilleure du marché, et je collectionne les méthodes de toutes les époques pour une bonne vingtaine de langues maintenant. Il faut comprendre l'anglais, mais si vous avez du mal, testez le manuel de français, qui logiquement devrait vous enseigner l'anglais ou monter votre niveau en anglais tout en tentant de vous enseigner le français. 9 CD sont inclus (attention, c'est le modèle carton éjectable : vous ouvrez et les CD déjà en balade s'envolent dans toutes les directions), trois livres qui ont l'air épais, plus un cahier aux pages vierges pour prendre des notes - niveau essentiel, intermédiaire et avancé : c'est remarquablement conçu et expliqué, la présentation aérée et efficace, tous les exercices nécessaires pour activer progressivement ses compétences, les voix sont naturelles et les phrases produisent l'équivalent d'une immersion. La progression thématique est identique quelle que soit la langue enseignée (quels mots, quels phrases pour quelle situation), ce qui accélère l'apprentissage des langues suivantes avec la même méthode si vous cherchez à devenir polyglotte ou si vous étudiez la linguistique et que vous voulez savoir de quoi vous parlez pour de vrai. La progression thématique est ensuite brillamment exploitée pour une prise en main parfaite et complète des éléments grammaticaux dès la première leçon. Chaque volume est complété par un guide de prononciation, une grammaire remarquablement claire et les lexiques anglais / espagnol, espagnol / anglais du vocabulaire.. Les défauts : il s'agit "seulement" de parler couramment, et de devenir autonome. Si je compare avec certains cours Assimil de breton ou des vrais cours de latin du 18ème et 19ème siècle, ou encore les deux épais volumes d'une méthode de Japonais, on peut aller plus loin. Le problème étant que ces cours plus exhaustifs ou massifs, aussi précieux qu'ils soient ne permettent pas de parler la langue aussi rapidement et aussi spontanément, en tout cas dans les mêmes situations. Donc je dirais que Living Language est le meilleur compromis à ma connaissance, et tient toutes ses promesses. Pour le français que je suis, l'espagnol est vraiment du gâteau, au point que je peux suivre à l'oreille les derniers cours même si je n'ai pas retenu les premiers cours. Si on ne retient pas un cours, il suffit de repasser les disques et relire les bouquins. On peut suivre séparément les cours écrit et les cours audio, par exemple lire d'abord l'écrit, puis ensuite écouter l'oral ou l'inverse. Seule condition comme pour tous les cours de langue : répéter à haute voix les phrases en contexte, et pratiquer au quotidien, sans quoi impossible d'avoir les bons réflexes.