A fantastic audio book for beginners

I have always loved languages since I studied at school and I was skeptical at first to learn languages through an audio book but by the 3rd or 4th chapter on this audio book I was hooked and couldn't believe how easy it was to quickly learn a new language. I hadn't realised how similar English was to Spanish. Someone can learn only by listening to the CD; I found it very easy as every chapter introduces new vocabulary and new topics so I highly recommend it.

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4 people found this helpful

Good audiobook for listening practice

I really liked stories. Nice, short and quite easy, ideal for the beginners or people who maybe know a little bit more, but are just not very familiar with listening. I had this problem for a long time.

The thing is, that when the stories were great - I don't think there is anything that you can improve there - I just hate chapters with vocabulary. Really, they were just terrible to go through. I could understand if they were at the beginning of the audiobook, but, there are not! And it's was just listening for hours, trying to not to fall asleep and finding maybe one or two new words in the chapter.
Also, I understand that there's a difference between English 'handsome' and Spanish 'guapo/guapa' (just an example) but I don't see a point for doing 'guapo - handsome - guapo', 'guapa - handsome - guapa'. I know it's for the beginners, but even beginners should know that you change endings depending on gender and if they don't know that, I have no idea how they understand the whole thing either way.

On the other hand, the pace was good, so if you are not familiar with all that vocabulary you could catch it easily. I know that a lot of people don't have time and this is the best way for them to learn the language, but it just doesn't work for me.

But even with all of my problems with few chapters I still think it's good audiobook overall. Not for everyone, but if you know which way of learning is the best for you will be able to choose by yourself.

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11 people found this helpful

Pros and Cons

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Pros-
-Though initially its difficult to pick up the language,over a period,after listening to the audiobook,users will be to catch a few words and start getting comfortable with spanish.
-Availibility of narration speed variation.This helps people as we can follow the stories in our chosen convenient speed.
-Bookmark is available.So we can stop and start from wherever we wish to.

Cons-
-We can forward the story only by 30 seconds.I would have expected to forward for a greater length.User is forced to go through the whole length of the story when most of the story is ot even understandable.
-The chapters index does not have a name for each section.Listener does not get an initial idea of the title of any section from the index.
-English glossary towards the end of the book.Would have been better to have it chapter wise,so that we get an idea chapterwise and improve as we go along.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Would have been good if there was short narration in english to understand what the story is about.It would have been easier to follow the story in spanish thereafter.

What three words best describe Lucia Bodas and Abel Franco ’s voice?

Very clear and crisp

Did Spanish: Short Stories for Beginners inspire you to do anything?

It has helped me achieve more interest towards the spanish language.

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1 person found this helpful

A great book to pick up or learn basic Spanish

Any additional comments?

I really enjoyed working through this book. I briefly studied Spanish in secondary school, and found this a great way to pick up a lot of the vocabulary again, using a combination of a dictionary for the words I had forgotten and the glossary at the end of the stories meant I was able to understand what was happening the whole time.

I found that being able to both read and hear the stories also really helped (especially as I know I struggle with my pronunciation!). The audio flash cards at the end which goes over the vocabulary also really helped me learn the words through the repetition.

A great buy for someone who has done Spanish even to a basic level and wants to learn further or pick it back up.

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5 people found this helpful

Useful to improve your listening

Very useful to improve your hearing and adquire new words. Overall, good audio quality, the speaker pronounces in an understandable manner and sounds native and natural, actually, that is what I like the most of this audiobook, since many audiobooks out there the speaker sounds like a robot. So this make this one great to learn pronunciation as well. After completing it, I am feeling more confident about my Spanish. 100% recommended. 

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1 person found this helpful

Extremely helpful book

I found the book: "Spanish: Short Stories for Beginners" very interesting. Book gave me a big variousity of different texts, that helped me to learn a large amount of new words. As well I start to build right reflexes in pronunciation. My passive understanding of spanish definitely has been improved. Especially understanding of verbs in dialogues. I recommend this book!

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1 person found this helpful

I loved this book!

I loved this book!
These short Spanish stories were amazing! I felt so pulled in listening to this and immersed in the story. The quality was great and it wasn't to fast to follow and easy to learn a 5/5 from me.

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2 people found this helpful

Great book for basic Spanish!

I really enjoyed this method. Spanish conjugation is something complicated. After listening to this book on the commute to work I really started to understand the fundamentals of the book and started to pick up on a few words. I started to build reflexes and my spanish pronunciation has been improved. I am much more comfortable speaking now that my verbs come to me more quickly and naturally. The drills give you practice in random order and that has been enormously helpful. Great product.

I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn basic Spanish, basic enough to have fluent conversation and understand what's being said. Also great to show off to friends.

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Brushing up on my GCSE Spanish.

I studied Spanish at secondary school for about 5 years, but that was 7 years ago. This audio book was great to just brush up on grammatical structure, getting to grips with the sound of the language and the flow of it all. I definitely recommend these to anyone looking to study a new language, or just brush up on an old one.

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3 people found this helpful

A Great Resource for learning Spanish

I hadn't studied Spanish for a while, so this book was a great way of getting back into it. The are various engaging and captivating stories on a wide breadth of topics including health, sport and food, all of which include a plethora of useful vocabulary to improve your language skills.


The accompanying PDF is a nice resource also. With it, you can follow along to what is being said, which is incredibly handy. Useful vocabulary is emboldened and there are questions at the end of each chapter to help you gauge your understanding of the topic, which I think is a great way of solidifying your learning.

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