Ultimate Spanish: Basic-Intermediate Coursebook

by Irwin Stern

Book Overview

Learn Spanish with the most comprehensive, up-to-date text available. Developed by the experts at Living Language, this book offers a highly effective combination of conversational Spanish with... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609806831
• ISBN13: 9780609806838
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Living Language
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Anna Rivera's Review of Ultimate Spanish Beginner-Intermediate

This is Anna Rivera editor of the Learning Spanish Products Reviews site "your site for free Spanish lessons and unbiased reviews of Learning-Spanish products." and author of Anna Rivera's 1000 Plus Most Powerful Spanish Words (Spanish Edition) and Anna Rivera's 800 Plus Most Powerful Spanish Phrases (Spanish Edition). Ultimate Spanish Beginner-Intermediate is a very comprehensive course covering both Castilian and Latin American Spanish. The speakers speak at a pace that is not too slow and not too fast to understand. Unlike many Spanish courses designed for beginners you will walk away from this course with a huge vocabulary. And the more words that you know in Spanish the better you can communicate. Another great feature of this course is that it has lots of dialogs covering numerous topics. Here are just a few examples of the topics of conversation that you will hear: banking, going to the theatre, being a victim of a crime, sports, going to the movies, watching television, at the post office, looking for employment, at the gas station, in the pharmacy, at the electronics department, traveling by train, renting an apartment, renting a car, buying a computer, at the beach, at the doctor, at the airport, and so many other topics. I advise that you listen to these dialogs over and over again so that the new vocabulary words stick in your head. After you finish with this, then you can start the next course in the series: Ultimate Spanish Advanced (Book) (LL(R) Ultimate Advanced Course). I have happily recommend this product too many of the readers of learning-Spanish newsletter ete etcmoyin Word of caution. You can buy the books separately for both the Beginner and Advanced Ultimate Spanish courses. Be sure that what you are ordering isn't just the textbook for either course, but the complete set of CDs. Both this course and the advanced course contain 8 CDs - 4 of which are to be used "at home" and the other 4 contain similar content but are designed to be used "in the car" to reinforce what you have learned at home. There also seems to be some confusion with the correct name of this product. I have 2 identical CD products of this same course. Once is called Ultimate Spanish Beginner-Intermediate and the other is called Ultimate Spanish Basic.

Made Spanish and I amigos

I love, love, love this set! I started using this as a 9th grader doing independent study, and took to it so easily. It was really easy to follow, and helped me learn most of the basics of the language. Everyone is always suprised to hear all the spanish that comes out of this African American girl's mouth! The tapes even helped me pick up a decent accent too! (Lol) Now, nine years later, at the start of my career, I can still envision the pages of this book when I'm using Spanish with my children and families (I'm an early childhood educator). The dialogs are so easy to learn, speak, read, and write- it's awesome. I'm ordering it again because it was such an important tool then, I know it will be even more helpful now as an adult.

Highly Reccomended

Great book. But the CD's could've been made better. For example, to have to you use your textbook when listening. And the On The Go CD's have and English and Spanish translations spoken in, but you would have no idea how to spell it. But other than that it was easy, quick, even for me a first time Spanish learner! I reccomend you buy it, and also 501 Spanish Verbs would help too.

Very Good Refresher Course

GREAT REFRESHER COURSE for former Spanish students.I studied Spanish for 9 years and was practically fluent. 14 years later I find myself struggling to remember basic vocabulary, verb conjugations and familiar phrases. With my experience in the language, I've been able to successfully complete the first 5 lessons in only a few sessions, with excellent retention. My email friends from Spain and Peru have already noticed an improvement in my Spanish.The CD's: "Learn at Home" are helpful if you need help with pronunciation. I enjoy learning from the "Learn on the Go" CD set because I am forced to recall the information without the aid of a textbook. I feel the pace of the conversation is good, and the CD format makes selecting a lesson easy.Why only 4 stars? Another reviewer made flashcards....I made an Excel spreadsheet. It would have been great to have all the vocabulary and phrases on a ready-to-use CD or disk. Here's how: One column for the English words/phrases, one column for the Spanish translation, and a third column for the exam. Simply hide the Spanish column and type your answers into the exam column. Unhide the Spanish column to check you answers. Mark wrong answers with red text.Format:The lessons are divided into functional topics like time, greetings, weather, health, food, phone calls...making it easy to learn and reference information. I find this format much more enjoyable than the traditional classroom & textbook method.

Worked for me

14 months ago I came home from my second trip to Costa Rica anddecided to teach myself Spanish. I purchased Ultimate Spanish andbegan my journey. I completed the final lesson 4-5 months ago, and have been reviewing the material repeatedly since. I certainly can't claim any fluency (am not able to follow Spanish TV or radio), but I have spent two weeks in Spain and three weeks in Mexico travelling alone. My Spanish was *incredibly* helpful! I am now able to carry on broken, inefficient, but ultimately satisfying conversations with patient natives! I am convinced that if I can become competent at the grammar and usage covered in these 40 lessons, I will be very functional in Spanish.The good and the bad on the course:Having a lot of audio material (8 CDs) has proven very valuable. At first it was dificult for me to listen to the audio, and I found myself studying the written text more. As I progressed through the lessons, the audio material became more and more important, and the grammar and vocab work seemed to take less and less time. Now I find reviewing the audio is sufficient for me to continue to progress. The CDs fall into two categories: 4 'Learn at Home' discs (to be studied with book in hand), and 4 'Learn on the Go' (with lessons designed to not need a book). There is a corresponding 'On the Go' lesson for each 'At Home' lesson.Each lesson took me about an hour and a half to complete, including listening to the audio for the first time, doing my first night 'memorization' of the lesson's vocab, reading the gramatical information, and completing the written exercises. Reviewing the vocab was an ongoing process. There were two things I feel the course needs: 1) Better vocabulary review materials (printed flash cards and a vocab CD), and 2) more audio dedicated to interactive drills. I would have been willing to pay good money for these tools. Instead, I ended up making them myself. The lesson CDs include a pronunciation of all the vocab, but it is spoken in Spanish only. The more difficult test for the English speaker is to hear the word in English and attempt to recall the appropriate Spanish equivalent. I made my own recordings by speaking the English, then playing the Spanish word from the CD. This became my primary vocab review tool. Hearing the English word, recalling and speaking the Spanish translation, then hearing the native speaker speak the translation correctly helped me learn more naturally than simply quizzing myself with flash cards. Why didn't Living Language make that CD for me? Maybe I'll sell mine! Also, I wish there were more drills included in the material. I did purchase the Living Language Mastering Verbs series (a separate product from the same company) which has been very helpful, but I think more drills should have been included in the original material.I also have to pass on a frustration I had with the Living Language company. My car was broken into, and one of my lesson discs was stolen. Living Language has no