Spanish Linguaphone 50-Lesson Version

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Seneca
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Spanish Linguaphone 50-Lesson Version

Postby Seneca » Thu Jul 21, 2016 7:18 pm

Hello all,
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.

Image

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.
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Tomás
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Re: Spanish Linguaphone 50-Lesson Version

Postby Tomás » Thu Jul 21, 2016 8:19 pm

I have the same one you have. I studied half of it before moving on to native materials. I did it concurrently with Assimil Without Toil. I only listened to the audio and read the L2 text. Since I didn't use the other books in the course, but did use other outside resources, I cannot give an informed opinion on its utility as a stand-alone course.

Start working it! I don't think you'll be disappointed. It's quite rich, second only to Without Toil in that regard.
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Seneca
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Re: Spanish Linguaphone 50-Lesson Version

Postby Seneca » Sun Jul 24, 2016 7:55 pm

Tomás wrote:I have the same one you have. I studied half of it before moving on to native materials. I did it concurrently with Assimil Without Toil. I only listened to the audio and read the L2 text. Since I didn't use the other books in the course, but did use other outside resources, I cannot give an informed opinion on its utility as a stand-alone course.

Start working it! I don't think you'll be disappointed. It's quite rich, second only to Without Toil in that regard.

Lucky you :lol: Here are the step-by-step directions for someone following it as designed:

Image

Sorry the quality isn't the greatest. I scanned the book and then was playing around to fit it in an image. This thing is insanely thorough. I got to step 11 of the first of the introductory lessons (there are two of them!) and it hit me just how dense this course is. I definitely believe one will be well rounded in all of reading, writing, speaking, and listening if they follow it step-by-step. And the above does not even reference the "Explanatory Notes" accompanying text that is to be reviewed after completing the checklist and goes through all the grammar of a given lesson.

To anyone reading and considering an older 50-lesson Linguaphone, I can assure you that you won't be disappointed at least in terms of the richness of the text.
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Re: Spanish Linguaphone 50-Lesson Version

Postby n_j_f » Mon Jul 25, 2016 12:19 pm

Tomás wrote:I have the same one you have. I studied half of it before moving on to native materials. I did it concurrently with Assimil Without Toil. I only listened to the audio and read the L2 text. Since I didn't use the other books in the course, but did use other outside resources, I cannot give an informed opinion on its utility as a stand-alone course.

Start working it! I don't think you'll be disappointed. It's quite rich, second only to Without Toil in that regard.


I've just started learning Spanish as well (having lost interest in Brazilian Portuguese) and was considering the Linguaphone course. I found the '2nd Generation' French, German and Russian courses to be excellent. The '1st Generation' course are good as well. Interesting that they had a Latin American Spanish which I never heard about. It's frustrating that there are a handful of the courses where it is difficult to get the books (although there are PDFs floating around). Then there are one or two courses where the books are available but not the audio; I tore out the last remaining hairs on my head trying to locate the audio for the 1st Generation Portuguese course.

I would like to get hold of the advanced French and Spanish at some point and I'm sure I've heard of an advanced German course. Anyone used these and like to give their thoughts?
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Speakeasy
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Re: Spanish Linguaphone 50-Lesson Version

Postby Speakeasy » Tue Jul 26, 2016 10:05 pm

n_j_f wrote: I would like to get hold of the advanced French and Spanish at some point and I'm sure I've heard of an advanced German course. Anyone used these and like to give their thoughts?

Linguaphone Advanced-to-Expert
A couple of years ago, I purchased the Linguaphone Advanced-to-Expert courses for German, Spanish, and French from Linguaphone U.S.A. (Elite Commerce). The course books, including the instructions, are entirely in the target language. The teaching materials can be summarized as a collection of graded dialogues, prose narratives, letters, notes on usage, and etcetera, with accompanying audio files that were recorded in a studio by professional actors.

Prior to beginning the German and Spanish courses, I had already completed other materials for both of these languages such as FSI Basic, Assimil Perfectionnement, Living Language Ultimate, Linguaphone Beginner-to-Intermediate, and a host of other materials. As French is my adopted language, I did not approach this course as a student; rather, I purchased the course simply as a means of gauging (1) the relatively difficulty of the German and Spanish courses and (2) my progress as measured by my level of comfort using the Linguaphone advanced materials in the two other languages.

I found the Linguaphone Advanced-to-Expert materials to be very solid and I would not hesitate recommending them to anyone who wishes to move beyond the Beginner-Intermediate level. Nonetheless, in my view, the materials seem to operate at the B2-B2+ Level, which is somewhat shy of "advanced-to-expert" as labelled by the publisher. Furthermore, given the degree of preparation that I had achieved prior to embarking on these courses, while I enjoyed the materials, I found that my learning did not advance to the extent that I had hoped (too well-prepared, perhaps?).
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Seneca
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Re: Spanish Linguaphone 50-Lesson Version

Postby Seneca » Thu Jul 28, 2016 6:48 pm

Seneca wrote:Hello all,
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.

I got a surprise in the mail today. The ebay seller I ordered from sent me the 30-Lesson version! Included was a note that it was their error for mislabeling the course (I had left a comment about it on their seller page), and they wanted to earn my trust/future business back. They sent me it for free, so now I have both versions!
Image

Here is the Table of Contents Page:
Image

Here are the Instructions:
Image

I can see immediately why this generation is a bit better regarded than the earlier one. Better book bindings that lie flat easier, what seem to be more substantive dialogues throughout. Lots of little touches like each lesson having natural break points to allow for shorter study periods and the layout of the Course Handbook is quite handsome. Just a very, very nice looking course.

One interesting thing is how the focus of the directions of the two courses seem tweaked ever so slightly. For example, in the later version, you don't read along in the text until step 4, while in the earlier one, you read along with the speaker immediately, etc....

Anyway, since this was the course I actually wanted to start with, I will just switch over from the 50-lesson version since I was not so far into it. I will report back when I am through a chunk of it to share my thoughts.
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Elexi
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Re: Spanish Linguaphone 50-Lesson Version

Postby Elexi » Thu Jul 28, 2016 8:56 pm

Nice. I have quite a number of Linguaphone courses in various generations and printings and of the 30 lesson third generation courses the books to this era are my favourite - they open flat best and the pictures inside have a 'classic' language course feel to them.

There is more to this course, however. The version published just after yours contains additional FSI like drill exercises for each chapter's grammar topics - these are self testing and you don't need the accompanying book to go with them. PM if you have trouble tracking them down.
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nightfly
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Re: Spanish Linguaphone 50-Lesson Version

Postby nightfly » Wed Apr 24, 2019 8:55 pm

If you aren't interested in the 50 lessons Linguaphone Latin American Spanish, would you sell it? I am interested in it.
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