I've been listening to Learn Spanish CDs in my car for the past year or so, most notably during the eternal wait that is the preschool carpool line. My goal is to be close to fluent (fluent-ish?) in Spanish by the time I am able to travel abroad again. I studied four years of Spanish in high school, so the CDs are a nice way to revive those neural pathways that were devoted to the language. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised what is left of Sr. Smith's clases. Other times, not so much.
The approach used by this particular foreign language series is oral repition. The language teacher says something in english, then there's a pause for you to try to say it in Spanish, then the phrase is given correctly in Spanish, anohter PAUSE (for you to repeat), again by the instructor in Spanish, another PAUSE (for you). You repeat the lesson until you can correctly say all the phrases without prompting.
The teachers on the CDs alternate between a very nice-sounding lady and Antonio Banderas. Ok, it's probably not really Sr. Banderas, but it is definitely a guy who sounds a lot like him. Regardless, I like to pretend that he is rrrrolling his rrrrr's in my earrrrrs. I especially like the words with double rolled rr's like ferrocarril, reservación, and regaderra. Ah Señor! That is so personal -- how many camas I would like con mi cuarto. Queciera una cama, por favor!
After finally finishing the first 36 lessons in the Level 1 series, I was distraught when I found out that Level 2 and Level 3 are out of print! ¡Qué horror! How would I get my daily fix of mi hombre español? For one, Ebay and ALibris failed me! After considerable online searching, I finally found a copy of Level 2 for only 2x the original price on Borders Marketplace. Totally worth every penny during today's 30-minute carpool line!
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