Spanish

As a former management employee (HR) of Sara Lee Corp.(Textiles Div. Champion Sportswear), I had the respobnsibility to form a bilingual interpersonal relations course for a Team Production system which taught team members positive and productive working techniques.The pimsleur system was presented to my colleagues as a means to learn funtional Spanish as the Corp was opening plants in Latin America. The book was very useful in the learning process. In addition to the book, the audiotapes that are available are also extremely useful in the development of correct pronunciation and conversational usage.

The Pimsleur method is great - I've used it for Spanish and am starting on Portuguese. However, these sets of 4 tapes are only the first part in a very expensive system (each of three levels is about $300). These four tapes work, but only provide a taste of the overall system. The only reason I give it four stars is it will cost you over $600 to get through the whole course - but it really works.

These four tapes (8 half hour lessons) are just and introduction to the complete 16 tapes of the full spanish course. The intermediate course is the first 4 tapes of part 2 of the spanish course. There is an advansed course. Each part is $300+ dollars. I've been through part 1 and 2. $600 but it was worth it because I'm learning spanish. Just listen to the tapes for a half hour a day and speak the language along with the native speakers. The tapes start off very simple giving the english and the language to be leaned. They say the new word twice and go through the word syllable by syllable, repeating each sound twice and you repeating each sound twice. By the time it's finished, the word is ground deeply into your brain cells. They keep going back and repeating words over and over again and in context of whole ideas. Maybe you won't get as many word as other courses but you will defiantly get what they have to give. I feel so confident that I can learn a language now that I started the Pimsleur Japaneses course. I've tried Berlitz and Barron's language courses but I quit them. You can't do them while driving because you need to be looking at the book and they only repeat the words one time making it necessary to rewind the tapes to hear them say it again. The only problem with the course is the lack of a good book. The 4 tape set give you no book (you get a coupon for $25 dollars off the main course) and the full set give you a small booklet. I wished for more written information but you can always buy a book.