Speak in a Week!: See, Hear, Say & Learn Spanish: 4 week Set (Spanish Edition)

This is James from James Spanish (the learning Spanish blog). Is it really possible to speak Spanish in a week? While you won't become fluent in just seven days, with this course you will at least be able to speak some key phrases and understand the basics of the Spanish language by studying regularly for a few weeks.

Many language courses fail to deliver on their promises of helping you to speak better Spanish simply because you give up on them half way through. Whether you fail to complete the course because it is boring, too difficult or too time consuming it you are never going to enjoy the benefits promised if you don't stick at it.

The Speak in a Week! Series acknowledges this problem right from the start, and is designed to keep learning fun, interesting and rewarding. The aim is to provide students with `real' vocabulary that they can use right from the start, giving then the satisfaction of being able to communicate in Spanish and the desire to learn more.

There are plenty of easy to use tools in this package: the audio CDs provide examples to listen to and repeat and get you speaking Spanish, while the book takes the format of index cards which display lessons, vocabulary and fun drawings to jog your memory and make it easy for you to memorize words and phrases. The book also offers written exercises and lessons covering the basic grammatical elements that you need to start speaking Spanish immediately.

The lessons are in short, manageable sections and are presented alongside illustrations, study hints and memory hooks to help the information sink in. The book is easy to pick up and put down, so it is ideal for busy students.

Throughout the book the Spanish is written on one side, while the English is written on the other so a translation is always easy to find but not so close as to make you automatically check the English while barely registering the Spanish words.

The audio CD exercises help you to perfect your pronunciation and accent and let you hear many of the words and phrases which are used in the books.

Many of the examples follow the stories of fun and interesting characters, and the book is peppered with interesting facts about Spanish culture to whet your appetite for visiting Spanish speaking countries where you can show off your new skills!


In closing my review of this product, I'd like to share with you the three Amazon products that I have found most helpful in my pursuit to learn Spanish. If you are truly serious about achieving fluency, I'd recommend getting all 3 of them if you can afford it.

1. Lights, Camera, Spanish (Book + DVD): Learn Conversational Spanish by Watching a Romantic Adventure This is actually a 90 minute movie for Spanish-language learners. It gives the option to watch the movie with subtitles but I'd recommend not using them to improve your Spanish. This "movie" also includes a workbook so that you can reinforce the Spanish vocabulary words and phrases from the film. The workbook also has lots of exercises to keep you engaged in the film. But be prepared to hear Chilean accents. Although pleasent to the ear, the accents from Chile are very different from most Latin American accents.

2. Verbarrator Version 1.1 (Windows Version) This software replaces the traditional verb conjugation books and makes learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an interactive and fun activity. This should be a required resource for anyone who wants to improve their ability to conjugate Spanish verbs. Especially anyone who is challenged by the drudgery of learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs and who is looking for a new way to make learning how to conjugate Spanish verbs an easy and fun activity

3. Diccionario esencial de la lengua espanola de la Real Academia Espanola (Spanish Edition) If you are really serious about speaking the language fluently, then at some point you will need to replace your Spanish-English dictionary and get a pure Spanish dictionary with both the vocabulary words and the definitions entirely in Spanish. I use this one only because it was highly-recommended by a friend from Spain who teaches Spanish.

I love the speak in a week series -- I've been so happy with their design/layout that I've purchased French, Italian, and recently the Spanish series - overall the series is pretty straight-forward; the cartoons are helpful, but if you need to just listen in the car or while traveling the audio makes complete sense on its own. I think this is for the absolute beginner - even after studying spanish for about a month, I find the beginning tapes are just a little slow for me - speaking wise...but if you are learning this can be great as it gives you a second or two to try to remember the translations. Also for someone looking to brush- up this is great, I've studied French as a youngster and used it to brush up my Francais in my adult life - works great for this as well.
The series looks exactly the same in each language, and I like the first lessons they teach you, they actually seem to make sense that they would be the first things you learn. For example: things that they go over-- salutations, hello, how are you, i am fine, what is the phone number, where is the...? (ex where is the hotel, where is the beach, etc) i need...(i need a glass of water, i need three tickets, etc) do you like...(do you like the party, do you like the museum, etc) i like...i need... -- overall things that i think are actually important to learn when learning a new language.

I find this program to be very helpful in my continuing Spanish practices. I use it on my iPod while exercising at my athletic club and while sleeping at night.

I had 3 different sets of learning Spanish and this set by far is the best. It's simple and isn't overwhelming to sit down and learn. Most of the words you learn are the ones that you'll likely use the most. The only negative is that some words listed in the book don't have the pronounciation listed next to them. After this set I'm going to get the other languages. I strongly would recommend this!!

NOT HAPPY AS IT CAME WITH THREE RING BINDER TYPE PACKAGING..NOT ALLOWED IN A CORRECTIONAL FACILITY AND SO IT WILL BE RETURNED!!!