podcast #13, Destinos, Textbooks, & Dictionaries
podcast #13, Destinos, Textbooks, & Dictionaries
(link to the podcast)
thanks to Jon for most of the material in this podcast!
Destinos:
online version
textbook
workbook I
workbook II
half.com selections
Textbook:
¿Cómo se dice?
Dictionaries:
Spanish - Spanish
Larousse Diccionario Educativo Estudiantil
Larousse Diccionario Educativo Juvenil
English - Spanish & Spanish - English
Larousse Student Dictionary
please email me at: learningspanish@gmail.com,
or leave your comments on this site
posted by Rich @ 2:06 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Jon,
I applaud you for learning French in high school. I took 2 years and I didn't learn a thing. I honestly don't know how I passed.
I believe the trick is not to find a textbook with the most words in the glossary, but a good language program with clear audio lessons that teach the most flexible and useful words as you progress in your abilities. Once you reach a higher level you might want to focus more on vocabulary. Even at a high level a glossary of 5,000 words is far too many words to try to juggle around when you don't have a very good command over the language. To have a useful arsenal of 5,000 words you would be (or close to) native fluency.
The problem I had with using Destinos was that it seemed too broad. It is a great immersion method if that is your learning preference. I prefer a program that will let me hear each word by itself first allowing me to get the pronunciation down. Then use in a few different types of sentences. Once I have that down I like to hear it in a short conversation. Then I will be ready to watch a movie with the new vocabulary. Otherwise I might end up pronouncing the word dice like diche.
Hi Rich
I have just started listening to your podcasts and find them very helpful. Lots of great ideas especially about videos,books and dictionaries. I would like to say I highly recommend an earlier series of cds on learning spanish called "Think and Talk Spanish" put out by Berlitz in association with Hyperglot Software Co. I think Berlitz probably did most of the work. What I like is that it is a type of immersion instruction. No english is ever spoken. They work especially well for people who spend a lot of time driving, which is the case for me. I biggest complaint is there never had a sequel, although they have put one out very recently. I have been listening to these tapes for 10 years. I spend, however, no other time studing Spanish. I only practice my Spanish when driving in my car. I have done almost no bookwork at all. Yet, I still have learned a great deal of Spanish just from listening to these tapes. I became inspired by my learning of Spanish to also try to learn German. Another series that I think is very good is the "Teach Yourself German (Spanish) series. They also speach very little English in their series, which I feel is very helpful. You have a great program
Charlie
(charlieeb@aol.com)
MIT uses "Destinos" and has a site for "opencourseware," which means anyone is welcome to use the syllabus and course outline, etc. http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb
/Foreign-Languages-and-Literatures
/21F-701Fall2003
/CourseHome/index.htm
Many other colleges and high schools in the US use Destinos. This makes it useful as the present standard for multimedia Spanish learning
Destinos - An Introduction to Spanish - is closed captioned and can be seen on many PBS and edu stations. It is also available at many libraries, though hard to get.
Destinos can also be seen online at www.learner.org (search for Destinos & register), but there are no closed captions.
www.geocities.com/line21fanatic/destinosmain contains Destinos captioning lines (a bit rough, though).
Great site, I am looking forward to listening during my commute.
On item 13, there is a typo in the address for the podcast link. The correct link is:
http://idisk.mac.com/mamaquilt-Public/TTLSpodcast_13.mp3
note the period between 13 and mp3.
Thanks again.
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