Editorial Reviews
Product Description
This course is a continuation of Learning Spanish Like Crazy Level 1. Level
2 consists of Lessons 31 to 60. There are also bonus CD's with 8 more
lessons and a DVD with an hour of video Spanish lessons. Learning Spanish
Like Crazy teaches you conversational Latin American Spanish and helps you
develop an authentic Latin American Spanish accent. As an additional bonus
gift, with your order you will receive a link to download close to an hour
of bonus video Spanish lessons.
Product Details
- CD-ROM: 13 pages
- Publisher: Learning Like Crazy Inc. (January 1, 2007)
- Language: Spanish
- ISBN-10: 0978609085
- ISBN-13: 978-0978609085
- Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 9.2 x 4.7 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
- Average Customer Review:
(10
customer reviews)
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Rating:
-
I own Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, Rocket Spanish and LSLC level two. Using all of
these programs has been a very effective way to learn the Spanish language. The
only issue with Learning Spanish Like Crazy level two is that there are errors
in the transcript that have not been corrected. I have contacted them and they
have been saying that they will correct the errors for the past six to eight
months but so far they have not done anything. There are also errors in the
audio (in English) that have not been corrected. I have made the corrections
myself with the help of a native Spanish speaker but it wasn't easy.
Rating:
-
In terms of content, I'd rate this product a 4. It does a good job of covering
all the key grammatical points. Between LSLC 1 and 2 (total of about 35 cds), it
covers about the same amount of material as LIYCS (11 cd's) and more material
than BTWS 1. Key difference is that w/ the greater number of hours, it'll go
into greater details through drills than LIYCS or BTWS and it seems more
interactive helping u to remember stuff more. That said, for every hour of
lessons, it covers much less vocab than the other two products. I've finished
studying LIYCS and BTWS and this course is better. However, it provides no
background on grammar so once it starts conjugating verbs, u don't really know
why it was conjugated and stuff so can be confusing for total novice. The
transcripts don't have any info on grammar either, unlike the other two
products. The online grammar page is pretty thin and incomplete.
Though can get a great deal on publisher's site with LSLC 1 and 2 plus 5 hrs of
bonus lessons and FSI 3 and 4 for about $170, the product that u'll download is
kinda crippled. They'll bait u w/ mp3 samples that are 192 kbps. When you
actually order, the files for LSLC1 and 2 and bonuses range from 96 kbps at 22
kHz for entire LSLC 2, to some 112 kbps and a few 128 kbps at 22 kHz for LSLC 1.
People here on amazon say the audio quality sounds great. To me, audio quality
in BTWS and LIYCS sounded much clearer than LSLC. LSLC sounds like clear AM
radio...with that hollow hissing sound when u turn up the volume...kinda hard to
explain. BTWS and LIYCSsound like professionally recorded CD's. The free FSI 3
and 4 are 128 kbps at 44 kHz. The bonus video lessons downloads look like the
1.5x2" boxes u'd see w/ video quality worse than youtube. PDF of dialogs are
about 10-12 pages per lesson, making them around 350-400 pages in total. They
could have easily single spaced the pdf of transcripts to save us some paper
from printing.
Price wise, this product too expensive. It'd be more fair if both LSLC 1 and 2
w/ cd's were $200 total. Also, the website does itself a disservice w/ all that
propoganda which makes it look like an informercial. For all the people whose
pictures appears raving about it, it would seem as if their online forum would
be vibrant and active. In reality, it's pretty empty with a few posters here and
there. The reviews on amazing are waaay too glowing for this product, making me
doubt their authenticity. However, the Free FSI 3 and 4 make LSLC worth it.
5/24 addendum:
In terms of equivalence:
For FSI Spanish series, there is the Programmatic series and the Basic series.
-FSI programmatic 1 and 2 by LSLC is a distinct course.
-FSI basic (barrons and platiquemos) are a distinct course. Platiquemous divides
the Basic in half so there's a total of 8 lessons from the original 4 lessons.
Barrons has the first two lessons, which equals platiquemous' first 4 lessons.
FSI Programmatic 1 + 2 = FSI Basic 1+2+3+4
LSLC's bonus FSI 3 and 4 download are different from FSI programmatic...and
don't follow their programattic 1 and 2 series..
In terms of order of courses with increasing difficulty:
Barron's FSI Basic 1 = plaquetimos 1/2 --> Barron's FSI 2 = plaquetimos 3/4 -->
plaquetimos 5/6 = LSLC's FSI 3--> plaquetimos 7/8 = LSLC's FSI 4
Because barron's only provides the first basic 1 and 2, that's why some posters
have mentioned that u'd need to get the programattic II from LSLC to get the
free FSI 3 and 4, or you could by plaquetimos.
LSLC Spoken Spanish 1 and 2 are distinct from FSI but use same approach to
teaching. LSLC's SS 2 covers up to subjunctive, which is in FSI 3. I haven't
personally seen the programattic series.
Rating:
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LSLC is a wonderful course that I use all the time to sharpen my Spanish
skills--and I live in Mexico. However, to cure the "100 mile an hour" Spanish
listening problem this is not what you want. LSLC really does meet the need for
the breaking into conversation or "production in the second language". Before
using LSLC, Pimsleur, or Rocket Spanish you need ear training. You have got to
get your ear used to the sound of the language. That is one of the reasons you
cannot understand Spanish spoken rapidly and why it sounds like one straight
line of gibberish. You also have to obey the "Natural Order" hypothesis and
learn the L2 in the order in which it is designed to do. In other words, you
didn't send your infant to a grammar class to learn his or her native language.
Nor did you expect locution of the Queen's English of your child right out of
the womb. Adult learners of second languages (L2) have to go through the same
silent period that we did when learning our native tongue. Then, naturally and
personally will production in the new language emerge. This is why adults have
such problems with accent and learning speech in the L2.
Rating:
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There is way too much propoganda out there for this product. I think the course
suffers from trying to cover too much without going into depth with anything.
Sometimes way too much time is spent on a really simple sentence, while a more
difficult one is breazed through. Also as another reviewer has pointed out, each
lesson does not incorporate stuff learned from the previous ones, so you don't
feel like your building a base of knowledge. Some lessons I felt like there was
very little method at all, just introducing a word, repeating it several times,
then onto another. Not saying it's a complete waste of time, and it's a step up
from most stuff you can find at the bookstore, but it is presented as this
miracle product which it's not. I have found the original fsi spanish (level's
one through four) which can be found at "[...]" to be a much, much more
effective method--there's really no comparison. And no I don't work for them,
just trying to help fellow spanish learners.
Rating:
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I've been studying Spanish on my own for the past two years and have found the
reviews on Amazon to be ever so helpful in both the quality of learning
materials I have purchased here as well as avoiding many pitfalls for courses
that don't offer much. And so I felt I needed to contribute also since the
reviews have been so helpful to me.
On this particular product: It's exactly what I needed for the stage that I
currently am in my learning... I would call the stage 'TRUE intermediate' with
the continued desire to continue on into true advanced Spanish. En otras
palabras, I understand much more than I can speak but need more conversational
audio for the subjunctive mood tenses. As others have already stated here, this
course is terrific for continuing on in the subjunctive. I also liked how they
did the conditional tense, commands, etc. Oh, before I forget: The audio is
crisp and clear!
As an aside: The FSI course has been the main thread for me during these past 2
years, pushing me closer and closer to true fluency... but the FSI audio cds are
NOT clear audio. The FSI manuals are indispensable and are terrific. I just wish
someone would redo ALL the audio on the FSI CDs because it's such a great
course!
Back to the subject at hand: I'm happy to report that the Learning Spanish Like
Crazy Vol 2 is exactly what I needed for a little variation on the listening end
of things due to the above-stated reasons. This product is terrific but please
make a note (as others have already stated)this isn't for the beginner. The only
downside to this package is that there were no transcripts. Let me repeat: NO
TRANSCRIPTS CAME WITH THE AUDIO COURSE. (Usually, I'd be pretty upset, but,
believe it or not, I'm not too disappointed because the audio is just that clear
and also because I am not a stranger to the mood tenses, etc.) What it does
contain: 14 audio CDs, as well as a bonus lesson package of 4 audio CDs (which I
haven't yet listened to since I just received everything 2 days ago); also a
really well done video interactive DVD. You get a lot of material with this one,
folks.
Hope I may have helped someone up here just a little, because many of you have
helped me without ever knowing it by taking the time to post a review. ¡Sigan
adelante y que Dios les bendiga!
Rating:
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There is way too much new information in each lesson with almost no
explanations. You might turn to the transcripts to help but they are so full of
errors that they are almost useless. There is a lot of info in the course but
it's difficult to learn the way it's presented and way overpriced.
Rating:
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This course is awesome. I have been telling everyone about it. I have spent a
lot of time researching other courses and using other Spanish courses to find
one that really teaches 'real' Spanish.
I did some other courses and felt that they did not prepare me for really
speaking to native speakers. I did not realize it at the time with other Spanish
courses that I used in the past because I was still able to hold a conversation
with Spanish speakers and communicate on a basic level. Wow was I making
progress! Or so I thought. But when they would speak to themselves I had
absolutely no idea what they were saying. They might as well have been speaking
in Russian or some other foreign language because I didn't have a clue what they
were saying to each other. I only understood them when they would speak directly
to me in a deliberately nice, slow and clear manner. It was so frustrating to be
able to hold a conversation with native speakers and then as soon as they
started talking to each other I had no idea what they were saying. Who knows?
They could have been saying this gringa's Spanish is awful.
But you won't have that problem with this course. It prepared me so that I am
able to speak the same Spanish as real Latinos and even understand them when
they speak to each other.
Without a doubt, what I like best about this course is the pace. I have used
other courses that seemed to teach me Spanish at a snail's pace, especially
Pimsleur Spanish. But with Level One and Two of this course, I felt that I was
learning Spanish really fast. That's really important to me because I know
people that learned to speak Spanish fluently in 3 years. And I also know people
that have been studying for 7 or 8 years or more and don't speak Spanish
fluently. So I am happy that I am learning Spanish incredibly fast with this
method. And I am not just learning lots of words quickly but the grammar too.
And they use a method that taught me the Spanish grammar quickly without me even
realizing that I was being taught grammar. Let's face it, grammar is a boring
topic if you actually think you are being taught grammar.
The Bonus gift DVD that comes with the course was very beneficial because the
instructor's method taught me lots of Spanish words using a visual style. My
daughter who is learning Italian also enjoyed the DVD that came with this course
and we both picked up a lot of new Spanish words.
Rating:
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The creator of this product is quite an aggressive salesman--his marketing
tactics actually made me hesitant to buy it! There are obvious shills for his
stuff all over Amazon and the rest of the internet--transparently phoney
"reviews" for other products that end up being an endorsement for his program.
Even on this page there is at least one planted endorsement from a bogus review
site. Because of this, it is impossible to tell which reviews are from honest,
satisfied customers!
All that being said, I actually bought this thing (downloaded, much cheaper,
from the website), mostly because of the sample lessons I heard. I've only had
it a couple of days, but from what I've heard so far the sound is nicely
recorded (although 96 kbps is a bit thin in quality), and I can usually hear
subtle nuances of speech and mouth movement. The actors are expressive in their
delivery, which holds my attention much better than the droning voices in the
FSI recordings. People actually laugh and flirt in their conversations, which
involve everyday topics rather than finding the right office at the American
Embassy. The narrator/teacher has a very odd accent, almost spanish/british (?),
but he explains and breaks down the grammar very well and has a friendly,
encouraging manner. The speed of speech seems about right--it's challenging, and
I have to replay sections in order to hear how words are clustered together.
That has been the most difficult part of learning for me--the transition from
what I know about the language to hearing the way it sounds in real
conversation. It has made me conscious of how we English-speakers do the same
thing with our language-- we naturally garble syllables and link words together,
which makes comprehension excruciating for new learners!
There is a slang section in the package, which is great. However, most of it is
from Mexican and South American Spanish; as a New Yorker, I would have preferred
to hear a lot more Dominican and Puerto Rican Spanish, which I have been told is
quite different.
There's tons of material in this package, plenty to listen to. The video lessons
also seem useful, although the image quality is mediocre (at least in the
downloaded version). I've made pretty good progress in reading Spanish over the
last couple of years, but still can't understand a word of the spoken
language--I think this will be great for me to sink my teeth (or ears) into. I
just wish the owner of the company was a little less of a huckster, because he's
distracting attention from the integrity of his product!
Just a side note for other Spanish learners--I have found that Spanish comic
books are a GREAT tool for learning to read. In New York, there is a Chilean
comic about a character named "Condorito" available all over the city. It's
howlingly funny-- the humor is very dark and politically incorrect, a great
relief from the bland material one usually finds in textbooks. The artwork is
excellent, and it features cast of engagingly bizarre characters such as "huevoduro",
whose head appears to be a hard-boiled egg. The jokes are usually one page,
often involving puns, misunderstandings, insults or sexual inuendos that give
great insight into the language. There are visual clues to help, but I often
need to consult the dictionary (which results in building vocabulary). The
idioms can be difficult to decipher--sometimes it takes 20 minutes to get
through a page--but psychologically, there is a great "payoff" incentive to get
to the hilarious punchline at the end. So far I've found it to be the best
resource yet for improving my comprehension!
Rating:
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I agree with the comments above that say you learn conversational spanish that
you will actually hear and use. My only disagreement is that if you travel
outside the US, or live in the US, you will certainly hear more than a Mexican
accent, and it is very important to learn different accents since, as the person
who went to Argentina pointed out, native speakers speak spanish differently
from one another. You don't want to get stuck. I live in NYC, but grew up in a
small town in NJ - even in the small town, I knew people from Spain, who
obviously speak very different from Mexicans. I now know Mexicans, Puerto
Ricans, Dominicans, Colombians, Argentineans, Venezuelans, and Ecuadorians. I am
so glad I can not only understand their accents but also I usually have a sense
of where someone is from by their manner of speaking. So, I actually appreciated
the different accents.
I also purchased their FSI spanish which was a bit more archaic and the
print-outs they provide are difficult to use. This product seems better.
Rating:
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It obviously mimics the Pimsleur technique, but it covers more ground and
explains most things much better than Pimsleur does. Having done the whole three
levels of Pimsleur, I'd say it was better, and given that it's cheaper, there's
just no question about which one you should get (this one). There's only one
thing that Pimsleur does better and that's keep you off balance. Since Learning
Spanish Like Crazy approaches subjects thematically, it's pretty easy for your
brain to get into a rhythm on a particular topic (say, for instance, forming
commands with AR verbs). Since you just stay on one topic your short-term memory
kicks in and you find yourself just zombie-ing it through). I went back to a
previous topic a few weeks later and asked myself "did I really learn this?"
Pimsleur, on the other hand, is *constantly* reintroducing past learned material
and constantly trying to keep you off balance so you always have to reuse things
you've learned in the past. In this way, I think Pimsleur may allow you to
digest things a bit better. Still, there's more here than in Pimsleur and I
think it's more useful for people who want to chit-chat with new friends than
who want to learn stuff for a Business setting. Pimsleur is far too
business-centric for me and far too formal-occasion oriented because of it. My
only other little gripe is tiny and applies only to a small fraction of those
wanting to learn Spanish and is a problem with all Spanish learning products. I
did this series because I knew that I would be spending a good deal of time in
Argentina. The first day I was there someone said "vos sos" to me and I was like
"Is this Spanish?" Well, it turns out that in Argentina you don't really use the
"tu" form except with small children and cuddly animals. "Vos sos" is the basic
equivalent of "tu eres," but if you say that to an adult, they might get
offended. But anyway, buy this, it's probably the best product out there.
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