Learn Spanish, If you want to learn Spanish without taking classes, you can make a lot of progress on your own. There are CD’s and audio-books to aid you. There are plenty of books you can buy to help you learn Spanish more easily, as well. A nifty book to have as you learn Spanish is 1001 Most Useful Spanish Words (Beginners’ Guide), by Seymour Resnick. This book lists words by categories such as food, time, and family. The words are also in a dictionary type listing alphabetically. The words are defined and used in a sentence. Popular phrases using the words are given. It is helpful to anyone trying to learn Spanish. Sticking with the numbers theme, there is another book you can get tremendous help from as you learn Spanish. It is called 2000+ Essential Spanish Verbs: Learn the Forms, Master the Tenses, and Speak Fluently, put out by Living Language. This book makes it so easy to learn Spanish verbs; you’ll wonder why you ever thought it would be difficult. It covers conjugations, irregular forms, and teaches you to form tenses. It has answers to many tricky questions on verbs. If you’re a busy sort, maybe you have free time in your car. Learn in Your Car Spanish Complete Language Course is a tool to help you learn Spanish, written by Henry N. Raymond and Oscar M. Ramirez. You just play the CD’s in your car, or anywhere else you’d like to, and repeat after the speaker. The CD’s progress from the easiest to the most advanced. You will learn enough about basic Spanish dialogue to begin to join in conversations with Spanish speaking people. If you’re a stickler for details, you might be interested in a book called Spanish Grammar for Independent Learners, by Arie Vicente. This book covers everything you need to know about grammar. It has all the information neatly arranged for easy access. As you try to learn Spanish, you will come across sentences you just know you don’t have right. This book has a system to troubleshoot your language and help you figure out what you mean to say. For a taste of Spanish literature, try First Spanish Reader: A Beginner’s Dual Language Book, edited by Angel Flores. You will find stories old and new within its pages. You can learn Spanish almost effortlessly by reading these short stories and proverbs. The easiest ones are first, and more difficult verb tenses are used later on. The stories are interesting and make it fun to learn Spanish. The Language Heretic’s Super Crash Course in Spanish Conversation and Culture: GET BY in Spanish in One to Three Weeks is a unique book by L. Adams. It cuts through all the technical aspects of language learning in short order. The focus of the book is simply to give you enough language skills to get you into conversations so that you can learn Spanish from there. It never claims to make you a scholar. With all the books and CD’s on how to learn Spanish, you should be able to find books that will make your study easier. You can check them out at a library, but to get the most good out of them, you usually need to purchase them. However, that’s not much to spend if you want to learn Spanish.
Posts Tagged ‘Language Course’
Books and Other Tools to Help You Learn Spanish
January 3rd, 2010Language Course
December 26th, 2009When anyone wishes to learn a foreign language such as Spanish, French or Chinese, the best way for him/her is to go for a suitable and extensive course which will not only enable him/her to read the language properly but will also help him to speak that foreign language fluently as well as correctly. Of course this will require a continuous and meticulous training on the student’s part, which in turn will allow them to adapt to the language properly and clearly.
To facilitate the student to learn a new language or a foreign language, a good assimilation of the course content is the first and foremost requirement. The content of the course must be adequate enough to permit the learner to have a complete hold on the language. Loquella, one of the pioneers in language learning websites offers extensive courses on languages such as Spanish, French and Chinese. At Loquella the courses are designed at par with the standards that are set by the Foreign Service Institute.
Since the courses at Loquella have been designed in accordance to the Foreign Service Institute method, the learning of a language becomes easy and enjoyable. Loquella puts emphasis on learning to speak the language properly. Thus they have developed scientific and innovative methods to teach a language. There are various language drills which are used to teach a language. The audio lessons also play a major role in making the learning easy and accurate.
The most significant feature about enrolling with Loquella is that it is flexible. Since it is an online teaching site, the learner can learn the language at their own convenience. Loquella also offers various other options to learn a language. The learner can choose the options as per their requirements or wish. This makes the site more flexible and agreeable.
While learning a language at Loquella, the learners get to choose their way of studying from four different options. The first option though only shows the other three options in an order Loquella would recommend for learning. But one can choose according to their wish. The second option enables the learner to listen to the audio lesson first and then read the sentences afterwards. The third option allows the learner to read the English sentences first, then listen to the audio lesson and then learn the foreign language sentences covered in both the English and audio lessons.
At Loquella, the learner can get the flexibility of learning and practicing one option as many times as he wishes. Proper pronunciation is a must have for any learner as it enables him/her to get understood better. Thus conversations in formal and informal topic are also covered to make the learner ready for the day to day usage of the language. Be it Spanish, French or Chinese, conversing in that language is a must do for the learners. It sometimes depends of the determination of the learner as well as interest shown in the the language to get imbibed thoroughly.
At Loquella, learners from all age groups can learn a language proficiently and accurately. The innovative methods and the techniques used by then are unique and definitely noteworthy. For further details please visit loquella. com.
Review of Pimsleur Method, Linguaphone and Rosetta Stone Language Courses
December 24th, 2009This review is directed towards those people wondering what makes language courses different from one another. We will cover the strengths and weaknesses of the Pimsleur Method, Linguaphone and Rosetta Stone language courses. Each course is a top rated language course.
Advantages of Pimsleur Language Courses
1. Pimsleur is a good course to learn to speak a new language.
2. Pimsleur is audio course that works if you are on the move.
3. Pimsleur is interactive course that keeps you intensely involved while learning.
4. The Pimsleur Method makes it easy to learn a new language.
5. Pimsleur is a very simple learning course.
6. You are more likely to retain what you learn because of the Graduated Interval Recall System developed by Dr. Pimsleur, the developer of the course.
7. The courses focus on the most used words in a language. This becomes very beneficial in leaning to speak a language.
8. The combined group of techniques used in these courses makes learning easy.
Disadvantages of Pimsleur Language Courses
1. There are no written transcripts of the audio.
2. If you want to go further in learning a language than simply carrying on a simple conversation you will need to purchase a few books: grammar, verbs and a dictionary to expand your vocabulary and perhaps a workbook to learn to write. A good set of flash cards could also help.
4. The short Pimsleur courses are repeated in the more expanded Comprehensive I courses. The manufacturer uses the smaller courses to entice you to buy the larger, more expensive course. If you are serious about learning a language it is not very economical to buy one of the small courses.
Comments
Pimsleur offers 38 different language courses formatted on CDs and downloads. You can download a course directly to your computer. The cost is on the expensive side but Pimsleur is an especially good course for a beginning language student.
Advantages of Linguaphone Language Courses
1. Linguaphone offers courses that teach you to read, write and speak the language.
2. Many of the Linguaphone courses have very nice manuals with beautiful pictures and the dialog of what you are going over in a lesson.
3. Linguaphone has some courses that are all audio so you can learn on the move.
4. Linguaphone courses are based on: listen, understand and speak. This method has been used for over 100 years.
5. Many people rate Linguaphone very high on their list of language courses.
Disadvantages of Linguaphone Language Courses
1. If you don’t have a basic knowledge of the language you are learning, Linguaphone courses can be somewhat difficult because it moves along too fast, without enough repetition.
2. On some of the Linguaphone audio you will need to listen very carefully.
3. You may want to go over another language course series, like Pimsleur, and use Linguaphone to expand your language skills, vocabulary and listening comprehension.
4. Linguaphone prices range from inexpensive to expensive depending on the course.
Comments
Linguaphone has 15 language courses. Most people’s ratings of Linguaphone are positive. It covers all language core skills, oral, aural, writing and reading. Linguaphone courses are very thorough courses. People who like written transcripts of the dialog will like Linguaphone. The narrators on the Linguaphone courses are British speakers.
Advantages of Rosetta Stone Language Courses
1. Many people feel that Rosetta Stone software is very good because it integrates audio, text and images.
2. Rosetta Stone software makes learning a language both simple and entertaining.
3. The Rosetta Stone lessons are short and simple, featuring native speakers, real life images with beautiful graphics and big fonts.
4. Speech recognition is available in the Rosetta Stone software to help you say the words correctly.
5. Rosetta Stone is very thorough and covers all language core skills, oral, aural, writing and reading with good sound quality.
6. Vocabulary is a strong point with the Rosetta Stone software.
Disadvantage of Rosetta Stone Software
1. Rosetta Stone software is best used by a visual learner.
2. Rosetta Stone would be best to use along with another language course that teaches you grammar, verbs and to speak the language. It can be difficult to learn a language just by looking at pictures and repeating phrases that you hear.
3. If you are a beginner you would be better starting with another language course and then use Rosetta Stone to further your studies.
Comments
Rosetta Stone software is a great way to improve your specific language vocabulary quickly. It is very difficult to really learn how to speak a language with software alone by looking at pictures and repeating phrases. This does not help you in the real world. You need to learn to think in your new language. This is a better course for a child or pre-teenager than for an adult. Rosetta Stone Software has 3 Levels. It is a more expensive language course.
