Spanish in 10 Minutes a Day (10 Minutes a Day) review:3 stars (Good for a traveler, Not for a class) - I began using this as text for a class of mine, but quickly only used it as a supplement. You are to simply copy the words and say them in 10 minutes each day. It's a great theory, but very difficult to absorb any language through this method. The vocabulary is bent toward the traveler - what to pack, where's the restaurant, I'd like to order, that type of phrasing.
The color pictures make it seem like it might be aimed at a younger crowd, but the exercises were a bit stale for anyone under high school age.
Overall, this is a good crash course if you're about to leave for a week's vacation in a Spanish-speaking country. To learn how to truly communicate in Spanish, you need something more thorough on grammar points and practice. The fact that no CD comes with it also makes pronunciation a concern for the novice learner.
For the much younger child, Flip Flop Spanish is a great tool which comes with a CD.3 stars (Could have been good) - This is a way for people to learn spanish fast but the book goes through things very quickly so you will find that you either don't understand or forget thing easily. I only suggest this book to someone how just wants to travel to a country that speaks spanish for a week but not for people who are truly interested in learning to speak spanish fleuntly at a good level.2 stars (Useful for Some; But Not the Best) - I found this book to be useful at first, but I later changed to "Spanish Made Simple" (Jackson, Rubio revised by Nemethy; make sure you get the 2006 edition). The latter book is not nearly as "simplified" as "Spanish in 10 Minutes", but I found the more methodical approach, reviews, and review tests to be more conducive to study. Make sure you also get some means of audio instruction to get the pronouciation right. I used the Pimsleur CD's which are very expensive but easily the best. (Look for them in your library first.) |
