Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #935879 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-01
• Formats: Audiobook, Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 3
• Binding: Audio CD

From AudioFile
Using the same device of a spy mission that characterizes the other "In No Time" language courses, Dr. Robert Blair takes a spirited romp through introductory Spanish grammar and vocabulary. Light on learning and long on entertainment, the three-hour course, if memorized, will give listeners enough tools to ask questions and navigate around an airport, restaurant, market, and hotel. It will also equip them to use a hospital emergency room after a trip to the beach. Mnemonics enable listeners to learn body parts, and Spanglish (English/Spanish combination) stories teach other vocabulary. The instructors speak clearly and slowly in both languages and infuse the numerous silly stories with appropriate inflections of humor. One can almost hear the smirks and raised eyebrows. R.L.L. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Disappointed
I bought this based on the first two reviews posted.

I also bought four other learn-by-listening (not by reading) Spanish courses. That's what I want. Something I can play while driving or in the background while working.

Am extraordinarily impressed with ONE course: "Shortcut to Spanish" by Marcus Santamaria. (Don't know if it is available on Amazon.) It teaches "cognates" or Latin words that have the same basic meaning and nearly the same spelling in both English and Spanish. He teaches the variations and patterns. For instance, most English words that end in 'ism' are the same in Spanish, except they end in 'ismo.'

It's all taught in such a way that you have to think, constantly, while listening. You actually find yourself thinking in Spanish almost immediately. Very cool.

You learn nouns, you learn verbs and then Marcus says something like, "Say 'marvelous.' (You say it in Spanish, the Spanish speaker repeats it.) Say 'marvelous beaches.' (You say it, the Spanish speaker repeats it.) Say 'I like.' (You say it, the Spanish speaker repeats it.) Say 'I like Mexico.' (You say it, the Spanish speaker repeats it.) Say 'I like Mexico because it has marvelous beaches."

The whole course is like that. You learn words; then put them together in sentence fragments. "I like," "You like," "they like" and "we like" in one place, "because" in another, "beaches" in another and so on. And then he lets YOU put them together. Always followed with the Latin American female speaker saying the sentence (for confirmation or correction). Works like a charm.

Amazing how fast you pick it up this way.

You find very, very quickly that you innately know thousands of useful and essential words and very quickly catch on how to change their endings and change the syntax or accent so that you are speaking them in Spanish. And you start recognizing other words, that weren't on the audio, when you hear them because they follow the same rules.

That's my plug for "Shortcut to Spanish." I put it on my IPod and listened to it on a three-day drive to California recently and was astounded at how much fun it was and with how much I was learning and how much I was remembering from my years of Spanish in school decades ago.

Now...for Dr. Blair. I got this course because I had understood it was a game of intrigue about a Caribbean vacation. And that you had to learn Spanish to move the story forward and help save the universe. And, yes, the first 10 minutes sets up a game scenario like that.

And then for the next (is it almost four hours?) you basically get Spanish lessons. A couple are clever and fun ditties or stories, but not at all related to the Caribbean mystery. Most of the program, unfortunately, is basically little more than a teacher teaching you Spanish--offering various memory tricks. Then, in the final five minutes or so of this hours-long course, you return to the Carribean mystery plot and storyline.

I won't want to listen to this a second time. It really bogged down. Did learn some new things my first time through. Need to repeat the whole works four or five times to gain a lot. For the most part, I found it was too much like drills in Spanish class from four decades ago. I thought it was supposed to be a mystery story.

It's not a consistent or compelling story in which you need to learn Spanish in order to fill in blanks in the story and decipher the mystery. Shame. That's what I thought I was getting. And was looking forward to. And would still like to find.

Got something like that in the '90s as a computer game (but it won't work on any operating system newer than Windows 97). Wish it could be revived. It was great. Was called "Where is Oscar Lake" and was made for Windows 3.1 and required a very early version (no longer supported) of Apple QuickTime. A fun intrigue game that required you to understand the Spanish being spoken and decipher clues in order to progress in unraveling the mystery.

Basically, in a case of mistaken identity, you are thought to be an international jewel thief. And you're in Mexico. And you've got to clue, claw and talk your way out of this predicament. Every interaction and response can change the story line. There are multiple scenarios, multiple endings. So you WANT to play again and again. And there's a built in dictionary and on-screen translations available. So you do learn--even when a phrase or word stumps you. Basically beginner's Spanish, but a fun way to play with it.

Have just learned (as I write this) that "Who is Oscar Lake?" has been re-released in a version for XP and MAC OS X (10.1 and up). Am trying to track down a version. Don't know if the computer animation has been updated or not. If not, it will seem pretty primative compared to the fabulous 3D video available now in video games. This thing was created more than 10 years ago and for Windows 3.1. But as a learning tool, even that decade-old version is cool.

Also bought "Spanish Behind the Wheel" from Amazon last month. Haven't decided yet what I think of it or how helpful it is.

In it, the author directs a Spanish speaker. He says things like, "Say the days of the week" and the Spanish speaker says them. "Say 'I'd like a glass of water.'" The Spanish speaker says it. I've only gotten through a couple CDs of this set. So far I've found it very passive. I haven't been challenged to think in Spanish and put together complex thoughts and sentences. Maybe that will come in the next CD. Maybe not. Hope so.

That's what impresses me so much with Santamaria's approach stressing cognates and with challenging me to create new sentences from cognates and sentence fragments he's already introduced. Very active learning.

Hope this helps.

kwc

10-5-05 UPDATE: Found the new version of "Oscar Lake." I take it all back. Ohhhh how far computer animation -- and our expectations of it -- have come since 1995! But, unfortunately, the new version of "Who is Oscar Lake" didn't come along. Even though it is done in flash video, it is stuck in 1995. What little movement characters do make is jerky. And, worse yet, the program locked up, froze on my screen about 1/5 of the way through the game. No continuing recommendation here for "Oscar." Wish I COULD find a great, learn-Spanish mystery-story video game (or audio, like I thought "Dr. Blair's Spanish" was offering).

P.S. Almost two months after buying it, I'm still listening to, and learning from, Marcus Santamaria's "Shortcut to Spanish." And am uninspired by "Spanish Behind the Wheel."

Spanish class was never this much fun
This is I think the first of a new line of language CDs, and for once it really sounds new. The box says that the man behind this series believes that you have to be engaged to pay enough attention to learn a language, and he makes sure you're engaged by keeping you entertained. Games, stories, even something that sounds a lot like Spanglish -- You never know what's going to happen next on this CD.

The good news is that it works. Big time. I feel like I can travel to South America and get around, do my business and enjoy myself, just by listening to these three CDs. And I'm pretty sure that if I listen to them again, I'll learn even more.

The whole thing costs under $18. And the CD-ROM that comes with it is worth that much on its own-with a dictionary and practice exerices as well as lots of information about Spanish culture. I've never seen a combination of audio CD and CD-ROM in the same foreign language package before, but it sure seems like a great idea to me!

Dr. Blair's dream house
A more accurate description of Spanish in No Time (by Dr. Blair) would have to be: "The Dead End House of Language," since nothing in the format helped me gain any idea of carrying on a real conversation with a native Spaniard on any topic whatsoever. Isolated vocabulary items and a mélange of catch phrases, which had little or no relationship to a silly pointless game. This did not engage my attention or my sense of wonderment at how to get a handle on, asking questions and responding in even beginning Spanish when face-to-face with a live native-speaking Spanish person.

Every serious language learner requires of any program, which claims to provide spoken language communication skills, a basic framework of active effort to start and keep a real-life conversation going, but such was not the case in these materials.

The idea of a dictionary and practice exercises unrelated and isolated from real-life conversational situations which did not involve chances to explore and challenge me to expand and encourage digging deeper and daring to try my wings as a budding speaker of Spanish, fell flat on the floor.

I fled the Blair house with a cold shudder of failure once I found out the whole thing was a case of mistaken identity -- I insist on a language product that keeps me happy and working through the excitement of really learning to hold a realistic conversation with a genuine Spanish speaker or two as central to acquiring spoken language skills in the real world of language. Poorly disguised and dull grammar rules clearly the wrong way to achieve even an elementary success in face-to-face meetings with our Spanish population.