Product Description

***Now available in a new updated edition. ISBN 9781406644548***

No reading, no writing, no problem!

140 minutes of Spanish to help you speak Spanish now

Join Susana, Miguel and Alex for 24 hours in Barcelona: listen to real Spanish and learn how to find a place to stay, get around town, order in restaurants, hit the shops, have a drink, enjoy the night-life... and all the time build up your Spanish so that you can speak with confidence.

Designed specifically for those of you who don’t have much time on your hands, Quickstart Spanish is a quick and simple introduction to Spanish. With no reading and no writing required, it concentrates only on the essential language required for a short break abroad. The course is broken down into short, relevant, easy-to-learn categories, allowing you to grasp the basics of Spanish, without having to master any complicated grammar or phrases.

Audio

• Each section gives you time to listen, followed by time to reflect with a step-by-step explanation of the dialogue, and finally time to practice and recap

• Conversations between friends introduce you to a range of weekend-break scenarios, ensuring that the language you learn is relevant to your needs

2 x 70-minute CDs, and a booklet containing tips and dialogue transcripts

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #153216 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-06
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Binding: Audio CD

Customer Reviews

Brilliant!
I've tried a couple of other CD courses (including Linguaphone) and this one is by far the best. The CD is clear, each conversation is repeated 3 times, they give you tips along the way and unlike other CDs, they tell you what each individual word in the sentence means as they go, which is really helpful for the next time you hear them. Each conversation is also included in a booklet, which is really useful for learning the spellings.

If you want to learn some basic Spanish conversation for a holiday or course i really recommend this CD!

Use it when you pop over to Spain
I love languages and although I'm not yet fluent, I hope to be especially after As-levels, A2s and Uni. This passion has probably led me to my mini-hatred of people who soley rely on their english to get by in a foreign country. Yes, fine if you are going to the States etc but bad manners if you are going anywhere else.
Anyway, 2 yers ago, I went to Spain with my best friend and thought I'd by this cd pack to help me learn Spanish. I soon found out it was money well spent and I learnt enough to get by and also managed to combat the infamous 'Spanish Pronouciation' (the phonetic bit of the phrases in my otherwise faultless Collins Phrasebook made my Spanish seem very anglicised and led to some laughs from the Spanish gap student when I tried it out.)

The programme follows Spanish friends around a stay in Barcelona in a sort of story. There are various senarios which may come up in your holiday like buying stuff, problems with the hotel for example, accidents etc.
Each of the 14 sections are divided into 4 parts; 1st (after a short intro) all the language you need for this section, 2nd: Step by step explanation, some basic grammar etc, 3rd: Over to You and finally, 4th, a recap.

I listened to this everyday for a week before I went to Spain and it was invaluble help. 2 years on, I can still remember basic greetings and numbers up to 20 which is pretty good seeing as I haven't had time to concentrate on my Spanish. Most of the sections came in useful and although my friend learns Spanish at school (I learn German), I was able to keep up with her. Without showing off, I was probably better conversationally and it was left to me to do much of the small talk, ordering drinks, buying stamps etc and I put the fact that I got what I wanted and the Spainish didn't raise their eyebrows in a funny way down to this package. (However, concerning my mate, it's not her fault, at school we never really learn pure conversation and she is more science based.)

If you are going on holiday, this is the thing to buy. Helped me a lot and next year I am taking up Spanish because of my new found love for the lingo. If you are learning Spanish as part of a class, I really have no idea but this may not be enough once you get into it. It is good for the basics though and comes with a helpful book with all the conversations (con slow pronounciations), vocab, grammar written in the sections you hear on the cd. (This is more of a reference as it never goes too fast.)

The same package is avaliable in French, Italian and German. I plan to buy the Italian as I already learn the other two and hopefully it will be as helpful as this Spanish one!

A Great and SIMPLE Intro to Spanish
Not having much time on my hands and yet wanting to learn some basic conversational Spanish in preparation for my forthcoming holiday in Spain, I bought 'Quickstart' together with a couple of other beginners approaches to the language (on CD).

Compared to the other Audio approaches that I have listened to (Michael Thomas and Pasos) I found Quickstart to be the most straightforward and the simplest and the least boring by FAR!

The tape follows the travels of 3 Spanish friends in Barcelona and it also covers some basic Spanish cultural tips which are very useful (eg, the common protocols when speaking in shops and where to buy stamps from etc).

A real strength of the approach is the use of native Spanish speakers on the tape (indeed I could listen to Miguel's sexy tone for hours!!!!)

Seriously though, I have found it a simple, quick and fun approach to learning the very basics in conversation with the added bonus of a little booklet included, showing the written form of all of the conversations. I think that some linguists may frown upon the lack of formal grammar etc... but as a quick and fun intro to some basic converasation it is great! (and not half as boring as Michael Thomas...yawn or the school book approach..Pasos.