Living Language Spanish Basic Complete
The coursebook is a lightweight paperback book with 300+ pages. It eases the learner into Spanish with lessons on pronunciation, the alphabet, the vocabulary that is most useful (like numbers) or that is easy to remember or associate with (like days of the week, months of the year etc), and some Spanish vocabulary every English speaker will recognize. Visit my Learn Spanish Cognates page to see just how easy it is to learn much of this common vocabulary.
The course then goes into dialogues, common sayings, greetings and useful phrases before slowly tackling the grammar. Verb conjugations, verb tenses, word order and other rules of grammar and syntax are all demonstrated in small batches throughout the course. Never in great depth but everything that is essential in everyday speech.
Each of the 40 lessons has some exercises - multiple choice, list matching etc. that put to use the vocabulary, phrases and grammar covered in the lesson and up until that point. I would prefer more exercises, perhaps even in a separate workbook, but that is a lot to ask for in this already high-value low-cost package.
By the way, this coursebook can be purchased all by itself, as well. For under $10 it might make a good text-based course to work through along with another method or all-audio program like Pimsleur Comprehensive. One of the other parts of the package is the audio portion contained on 3 cd's that are coordinated with the coursebook. Vocabulary and phrases that are in bold text in the coursebook are also pronounced on the cd's. The early lessons are heavy in audio as the student needs to hear the sounds of the language to begin to develop their pronunciation skills.
The third part of this package is the dictionary. Many people have trouble deciding what to do next after finishing a course. Generally, the next step is building vocabulary. This is the point where a dictionary is invaluable. The learner can begin to use vocabulary most relevant to their own needs, and apply them with the basic knowledge gained from the course.
By no means is this course the way to fluency, I'm afraid that will only come from the learner and the hard work they must put in to achieve some real results. This course will give someone a good foundation with the right tools to build upon, if worked through to the end diligently. Living Language also offers courses for Intermediate and Advanced students if you decide to continue to study the language in-depth. There are also many other products specific to certain professions that could benefit some learners.
