I decided I wanted a course to use concurrently while working my way up on ever more complex native materials. It seemed to me Linguaphone would be a solid choice. Based off this comment from the old forum, I decided to aim for the 30-Lesson version:
1. 1950s-1960s courses - one in Latin American and one in European Spanish in 50 lessons (actually more like 60 lessons because some have 2 parts) - this is the one Prof A talks about in his videos. In my view best left as a vocabulary and revision course for later.
2. 1970s-2000 course - In European (i.e. Castilian) in 30 lessons (made up of 3 parts) - this series follows a family in Spain through most of the essential parts of grammar. Excellent and easily obtainable on ebay.co.uk.
Unfortunately, the ebay posting was not very clear, and I got the 50-lesson version. I snapped a picture of the contents below so anyone looking in the future can have a frame of reference that this is the older course.
Additionally, a random sampling of lesson titles:
#10: Una Tertulia
#29: Una Calle de Madrid
#47: El Médico, el dentista y la farmacia
My question is whether any of you have experience with this 50-Lesson course and can tell me if it is a good one or not? Unfortunately I couldn't find a very thorough reference to this specific one, just that one specific poster preferred the later 30-Lesson one. If there are any legitimate didactic reasons the 30-Lesson one is inherently superior, I am totally fine spending ~$40 or whatever to order it when it pops up on ebay again (that seems to be the going rate for most Spanish ones I have seen of any generation). But, if this one will do, I am equally happy not to spend the money.
I welcome any thoughts on these courses and if anyone not familiar with the 50-Lesson one specifically has any ideas on what to search for within it to tell if it is quality or not. Thank you.