Rating: - read and think spanish
This is a book that helps you break out of the basic spanish mode. Its vocabulary goes to a much higher level. The short stories are interesting giving incite to other spanish speaking cultures. Using the book and CD in a senior citizen class.

 

Rating: - easy to learn Spanish
this book is an excellent tool to learn Spanish if you have done basic Spanish. you find yourself not only learning spanish, but learning about cultures traditions and habits in addition to new terms; you acquire new words, sentences in new concepts that are related, one way or another, to daily life and history of the Spanish speaking people. This book doesn't limit you to one way of learning. You won't get bored with repeatitions. It comes with word explationation/translation in the margin area which makes your reading easier with no interruption of your chain of reading and thoughts, in the sense that you don't have to always keep a dictionnary handy due to the wholistic learning to the sentence. I also like the fact that i can switch from one page to another, whether the beginning, the middle or the end of the book and still be able to keep up with learning about the Spanish culture and history.

 

Rating: - Spanish book
My son is serving a Spanish speaking mission for our church. He is trying to get beyond beginning Spanish and keeps asking for help. I purely bought the book based upon the title. He thanked me for the help I sent him so I assume it is helping him move beyond beginning Spanish.

 

Rating: - Un libro fantástico
I was so excited to find this book at my public library, and after reading several of the articles and listening to the audio CD, I am considering ordering a copy for myself. The book is arranged topically under headings such as culture, travel, history, etc. and under each heading are several interesting and informative articles about different Hispanic countries. The book is perfect for any intermediate OR advanced student, as about half of the words are defined in a glossary conveniently situated in the margin. For an intermediate Spanish speaker, the translations are easily available, and for the advanced speaker, they are easily ignored and do not slow down the reading. The cultural tidbits are interesting for any learner of Spanish at any level, and the speakers on the audio CD speak naturally and clearly. I have found a couple of slight typos in the book but nothing too glaring and certainly nothing to detract from the book's value. However, you should realize that the audio CD is comprised of only a fraction of the readings contained in the book. Other than that, there is nothing else to note. I highly recommend this book!

 

Rating: - Very good way to immerse yourself
To help read more fluently this book is good, because you can actually hear the pronunciations. You learn new vocabulary and also various cultures of spanish speaking people.

I would say a beginner may have some trouble, and would be refering to a dictionary alot. The book introduces you to new words and their meaning, but not every single word. When you are a beginner (at beginning stages of a beginner), your vocabulary is not big enough to keep up. But, I would say as your vocabulary increases, the better able you are to keep up, so it's not just for intermediate and advanced. The speaker talks at a regular speed and may seem too fast for a beginner at first, but like I said it is a great way to just throw yourself in.

Rating: - Feedback on the Recordings
The readings represent a beautiful overview of cultural information and activities that take place over the range of Spanish-speaking countries. The readings are clear. Of equal importance, the recordings are not cluttered with explanations in English, background noises, and music--just straight reading in Spanish from story to story.

There is one flaw: The back blurb of the book says "you will read and listen to more than 100 articles in Spanish about the enchanting diversity of Latino culture." This blurb dishonestly gives the impression that all articles are recorded on the CD. In reality, of the 117 articles, only 29 are read on the enclosed CD.

It is perfectly all right to record only a portion of the articles for readers to listen to, but this fact should have been stated honestly so that customers would not be mislead before making their purchase.

 

Rating: - Brilliant but could be brillianter
Maybe Hundred articles or more about the Spanish speaking countries and cultures, regarding all aspects of life. At a rough guess about every third article is read to you on the CD. Why on earth not all? And a slightly higher charge for that, then, mountain of spoken Spanish experience. The idea is brilliant, with the rarer vocabulary on the side, but why limit themselves to a third of it on CD. I love it But it could have been three times better.

 

Rating: - Rd Thnk Span
Delightful book and CD. It enhances the learning process, is interesting and fun to read and listed to the CD, and it very much increases ones understanding of hispanic culture and its variability among the Spanish-speaking countries of the world. If you are just a bit past beginning but still less than intermediate, or if you are intermediate or even advanced, I think you will enjoy the book and CD.

 

Rating: - Awesome supplement for my students
I was so happy to find this book for my students. It provides relevant topics of interest to my students, and it is fun too. It keeps them motivated and excited about learning and reading. Thanks!

 

Rating: - Good for increasing vocabulary
This book introduces a lot of new vocabulary which is clearly defined in the margins next to each page. I recommend this book if you are trying to improve and expand your vocabulary or if intend to read it every once in a while to break up your normal study habits. However, because of the extensive amount of new vocabulary, it is not leisurely reading. You will not be able to casually read this book while subconsciously assimilating grammar and usage because you are always looking up new words.

Rating: - Okay But Not Particularly Helpful
Interesting material but not particularyly helpful in "learning" how to speak Spanish.

 

Rating: - Great vocabulary builder - Great Book.
I received this book as a birthday present and it has greatly improved my Spanish vocabulary. Alot of words are translated in the side glossary so you can look them up if needed. I have realized that reading words in a story helps me remember them and I find myself recalling words I read in the book. Don't know if that's how they meant it to work but its a great memory tool for me. The articles are short enough not to get boggged down and the topics are interesting and clever. I highly recommend this book to students of Spanish.

 

Rating: - GREAT Supplement for learning Spanish
I bought this book about two months ago and I love it. I have since subscribed to the Think Spanish magazine because I am surpised (and happy) how much this helped my Spanish. I don't agree with the remarks about editing that the man made below. I pulled up the articles he is talking about and I do not find any of the mistakes he lists on his review. Maybe I have a different copy - but it just came out in October so I doubt it they have made a second edition already. It's a great way to learn Spanish and I highly recommend it!! You will enjoy the articles on top of learning Spanish too!

 

Rating: - Most helpful
This book was purchased for a class I took. It really helps when you know spanish to some degree but are really starting on reading. The more unfamilar words are helpfully placed in the margins. The only thing I would have expected this book to have was some guide to readin spanish, how subjects can be misplaced and sentence stucture etc. Still, this is a comprehensive text filled with intesting culture based stories.

 

Rating: - Good idea but could have used a good editor.
The concept of this book is great: short interesting articles in Spanish to help you improve your vocabulary and reading skills. Unfortunately, the book could have used a competent editor/proofreader. There are numerous typograpical errors throughout so that the student learns incorrect Spanish from the get-go. Often prepositions are omitted. For example "asistir" should be followed by "a" if you are going to attend something, but the "a" is omitted. The accents are often missing where they should be present. A glaring example is the article on Father Christmas (Papa' Noel) who gets rendered as the Christmas Potato (Papa Noel) who is bringig gifts for children. That little accent mark over the final "a" in Papa'spells the difference between Santa Claus and a gift-giving potato. In the section on terms of war they define "angriento" as meaning "bloddy" (I assume that they meant sangriento = bloody). There are errors like these on almost every page but a good proofreader would easily have picked them out. There are also some factual errors in the text. For example, the article on Carnaval says that it begins 40 days before Lent (Cuaresema). In fact, Lent begins 40 days before Easter. If properly edited, I would have rated this book a 5. As it stands, replete with errors, I can only give it a 3. Maybe they will get it right in the second edition.

Rating: - Great articles and fun learning!
I bought this book for my two teenage homeschool students and found myself reading through it (in Spanish yes!) and I love the articles. This is a great book and a fun way to learn Spanish. I will definetely subscribe to the monthly magazine made by the same people.

 

Rating: - Wonderful and enjoyable way to learn Spanish!
I am a second year Spanish student. I love this book! I highly recommend this book for anyone learning Spanish or even if you already know Spanish and want to learn more about other countries. A great way to learn new vocabulary too. All languages need more books like this that are interesting (you actually want to read them) instead of the same old stuff that is in textbooks. They have done a remarkable job with this book. I think it is appropriate for beginners, second year, and third year students.

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