Quickstart Spanish

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!


Great for when popping over to Spain   July 22, 2005
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

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!


Quickstart Spanish   September 18, 2004
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This was the first Spanish set of cassettes I tried. I thought it was very good. You are taken through the "play" "scene by scene" with a grammar point and some vocabulary focused on in each "scene". After the lesson, the whole scene is played through again and it is surprising how much you find you have learned. Lost 1 star because sometimes the one word you want explained isn't included in the vocab section.