Learn Spanish Vocabulary Parrot Fashion

This is another good course.  I borrowed it from the library, and thought it was good enough to buy my own copy.  I got it off Amazon for about £15, so really good value.  There are 5 CDs - although i haven't had chance to listen to them all yet, the format seems really good. 

Ideal for listening in the car, although it does need the book to study properly, you can still get the gist of things by just listening.  There is plenty of English to Spanish translation and vocabulary, followed by some dialogue in Spanish for you to hear things in context.  I know that I will listen to this course over and over, because I won't remember all the words/phrases immediately, but the pace is fast enough to allow that, without being so fast that you can't get anything out of it as a beginner.

There is also a separate dictionary grouped by category which is useful, although of course not as good as being able to hear the words in Spanish as you can on the website www.learnparrotfashion.com

Look forward to reading some comments back about any courses you recommend, or feedback on the website.  For those of you that have had problems opening the sound files, try setting windows media player as the automatic programme for audio, that is what I use and it works really well.

Having had a couple of busy weeks, I am back to learning some more Spanish - This week, I have tried the DK Hugo - spanish in three months course.

This is set up over 13 weeks - but I only have it from the library for 3 in the first instance so wanted to work through it quickly first to see if I liked it.

Well - no, I didn't.  Don't know about you guys, but one of the key things for me is being able to learn on the move - generally in the car.  I put the first CD into the stereo on the way home from the library - that didn't work at all - you definitely need the book in front of you - and a pause button. 

There is no English on the CDs - so unless you already know what the words are, you have no idea what they are saying - and if you do already know the words - why would you be listening!

I have the next course ready to try - will let you know how that goes.  And I haven't redone the Michel Thomas second course yet, so more on that later too.

I am thinking of adding some new pages to www.learnparrotfashion.com - some quick wins - (words that always translate in the same format such as ...ible) - and some grammar for regular verbs - any thoughts - would this be of use?

Look forward to feedback

Having been so impressed with the first programme, I decided to get myself back to the library for the next.

This was a "Spanish language builder" course of 2 CDs.

The format is different - This is just Michel Thomas introducing new vocabulary.

The pace is quite quick, rather than the repetitive learning of the first course, it moves through new things much faster.

Again - a good course - but I think this is one to listen to many times for it to sink in.

I am still working with it, so will post again in a few days.

I still stress how good the first course is - I often find myself trying to think of the Spanish now as I am wandering about in my normal day to day activities - something I wouldn't have thought possible a few weeks ago.  Obviously I can't find all the words - but it is getting there :)

Don't forget to get your vocabulary at www.learnparrotfashion.com and let me know what you think or how I can improve the website.

I have been listening to the Michel Thomas beginners CDs

There are 8 CDs in the set and I have been through all of them twice now.  The format is Michel Thomas and 2 students - he is asking them to say things in Spanish, so you get to hear their mistakes and the corrections - it has a feel of classroom learning and because they are not native speakers everything is said quite slowly so it helps with "catching" the words.

I have to say that I have been very impressed with this - it is based on structure of the language - and how to form sentences rather than lots of vocab - but within a short time I felt I had learnt a lot, so I would really recommend this.

Second time some things were a bit irritating, as you are listening to Michel Thomas correct the same mistakes repeatedly, but overall well worth a trip to the library for this.

I see that lots of people have linked through to www.learnparrotfashion.com it would be really great to get feedback - and also to know what additional vocabulary groups people might find useful.

Thanks

I am hoping that I can copy extracts from website into here with sound files of groups of vocab that I have created - while I find out how this works feel free to visit my website where you can download the files free:

www.learnparrotfashion.com