Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 Shameful to have so many mistakes!!!!! May 27, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I have been taking private instructions from an excellent Spanish instructor, Nina, who is big on grammar. She had recommended Pimsleur to me and my husband, also her student, and this has greatly helped both of us. I needed more, so was pleased to see Anna Rivera's notice of the ImmersionPlus course...for $15, it seemed a bargain.
Anna had given it only 4 stars, since both the audio and accompanying booklet had many mistakes. Nina listened to it for less than 2 minutes, and encountered 2 errors in the use of the subjunctive. She was appalled, saying she wouldn't give it even 1 star, as there is no excuse to publish something with errors in it.
She has strongly advised me to get rid of the course, as she says she works too hard to have us learn Spanish correctly, and finds this type of course to be counter-productive, and offensive to instructors as herself.
The author(s) need to correct the errors immediately and offer a corrected copy for free to everyone who purchased this, along with an apology.
 Excellent content for learning intermediate-advanced Spanish that is only beat by its great price March 5, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R9JJBTNM1JRE5 Immersionplus Spanish is an excellent product for intermediate and an advanced students. One of the best products that you will find in this price range.
If you are truly an intermediate/advanced student, I am also listing what I would consider some of the top learning-Spanish resources for learners who are seeking complete fluency. You can use the following methods with
Immersionplus Spanish and really see your Spanish take off.
The Bourne Identity (Widescreen Extended Edition) Yes, I know this is a movie (DVD) in English. But unlike many DVD movies, this one also has an audio track that is dubbed in Spanish. This is a great movie and you have probably already seen it English. So it will be that much easier for you to follow in Spanish. My advice is to watch it over and over again in Spanish. Each time you will find that it gets easier to understand the words.
Learning Like Crazy Spoken Spanish, Vol. 2 This is my favorite for intermediate and advanced students. As I mentioned in my video review of Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Pronouns And Prepositions, LSLC is only for students who confident that they are solid intermediate or advanced students. How do you know if you are truly an intermediate or advanced student as opposed to an upper-level beginner student? Here's an easy test:
Watch the "novelas" or watch one of your favorite DVD movies that has been dubbed over in Spanish. If you can understand 50% of what is being said then you are probably an intermediate or advanced learner of Spanish. If you are having a lot of difficulty understanding what is being said, then you may want to start with the first level of this course: Learning Spanish Like Crazy: Spoken Spanish, Vol. 1 (2 volume set)
What I like most about the Learning Spanish Like Crazy series is that it uses a method that really helps improve your Spanish-sounding accent while at the same time teaching you how to speak real Latin American Spanish.
Read and Think Spanish (Book +1 Audio CD) This is another terrific product. It is a book that consists of articles in Spanish centered around life in different Latin American countries. The book comes with a CD. Both the book and the CD do not come with an English translation. The CD also does NOT have a slowed down track to listen to. So you have to be a real intermediate or advanced student to use Read and Think Spanish successfully.
 Just one problem February 19, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Penton Overseas was on the right track when they devolped "Immersion plus" however, for some reason which escapes me, they decided not to go with all native speakers in the audio track; an error for which the student listener will likely suffer. One character in the dialogs named "Silvia" (who is obviously an English speaker) has some severe pronunciation issues typical of begining/intermediate Spanish students and should never have been used in a product like this where pronounciation is critical and students are likely to hang on every word. Could they not afford real Spanish speakers?
A good thing to study on your way to work in the morning November 2, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I like the concept of this product. You hear the dialogue at full spead then at slow speed and then again at full speed. In that regard, it is quite helpful. The speakers are native speakers which is even better. AND you can't beat the price for 3 cds and a booklet with all the dialogue and a translation. That is amazing.
My only drawback is that the readers read the dialogue as though they are somewhat zombified. It sounds at times like an automated robot is correctly pronouncing the words, but without any inflection - somewhat monotone. With that in mind, the dialogues are still interesting and well thought out and the pronunciation is correct, even if the rise and fall of the language is sometimes missing. I also have my doubts that the full speed dialogue is truly full speed. It is fast enough, though, to improve my listening skills, and, once again, for the price, it's a really fantastic product, more so than what I've said above may indicate.
 Not bad, but I wish the topics were better October 18, 2007
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Not bad for the price but I wish the topics were a lot better. I did encounter some mistakes that included some conjugation errors and wrong translations, which were kind of frustrating. For example, in the first dialogue on page 2 the sentence "Dicen que tiene muy buena comida italiana" is translated as "It's supposed to have really good Italian food". To me it sounded a little odd so I asked around and everybody I asked told me that is incorrect. It should be translated as "They say that it has really good Italian food". The verbiage for "it's supposed to" should actually be "se supone que" and not "dicen que". I could point out a few more like that, but I just wanted to give an example. Honestly, I'm not trying to be a jerk but mistakes like this are kind of frustrating because I'm trying to perfect my understanding of Spanish as it relates to English, and for someone who may not realize it these types of errors could give someone a misconception about the true meaning. And although it is at an advanced level, I only found a small percentage actually helpful to me because many of the dialogues and expressions are specifically related to certain topics. For example, the dialogues in Part One include four topics: Dining Out, The Fishing Trip, The Ocean Cruise and Going Shopping. The dialogues in Part Two include: Going Golfing, Buying a House and The Election. I thought the dialogues for Dining Out and Going Shopping were somewhat helpful to me because it's more of what I would expect to encounter frequently. However when I was going through the rest of the dialogues for The Fishing Trip, The Ocean Cruise, Going Golfing, Buying a House and The Election I somewhat lost interest because it's related to very specific topics that frankly really don't interest me much even though it is in Spanish. Don't get me wrong. For the price it's not bad. Some of you might get better use out of it than I did.
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