Rapid Spanish: 200+ Essential Words and Phrases Anchored into Your Long Term Memory with Great Music: v. 1 (Musical Brain Trainer) - Books (Earworms Learning, Audio CD)

For full product details, view this product on Amazon.

Customer Reviews of Rapid Spanish: 200+ Essential Words and Phrases Anchored into Your Long Term Memory with Great Music: v. 1 (Musical Brain Trainer)

Mrs Bradshaw
UK
8th April 2008

Fantastic way to learn
I bought this last week and it's brilliant - I've just ordered the second volume. It totally suits my way of learning and is very easy to use. it does work rapidly and is much more pleasnt to listen to than those dreadful CD's with mock conversations in them. i'm really enjoying using it. HIghly effective - would recommend! :)

J. Minchinton
UK.
16th March 2007

Practical Way to learn.
I've just bought this course and love it! Ever since I read of Earworms in the times I have been thinking about trying it out. Now I am thinking of trying the Russian tape when it comes out. The technique is really great. At last someone has understood how to engage the learner by repeating everyday phrases to music. Both the voice and the music are pleasant. At the end of each track the Spanish lady encourages her English counterpart to try a few words in spanish and the listener is automatically moved to do the same. Very clever. I feel that I retain much more than with Pimsleur and Michel Thomas , both of which I have also tried. This is the kind of missing link-it bolsters the other two. My partner and I travel a lot and this is a very practical way to prepare for trips.

Kyle J. Spruce
Guernsey
8th March 2007

ideal for beginners
if you want to learn some basic Spanish quickly and easily, buy this CD. It works. I picked up words quickly and even after 6 months of not listening to the cd, I can still recall the words and was able to understand the words being used when i was in Spain. It works. Nuff said. I hope that Amazon get volume 2 in soon.

S. watts
England
22nd February 2007

only for begginers
A pleasant way of learning some basic Spanish phrases. Only really suitable for beginners, and aimed firmly at European Spanish. Don't pay any attention to the English mans pronunciation of the Spanish words, it is quite often wrong and a bit off putting.

b4-its-2-l8
London
29th November 2006

Rapid(ish) Balderdash would be a better title.


It's an interesting concept... Spanish words and phrases (or any foreign language for that matter) set to music as a learning aid, but for this CD sadly that is only interesting theory and not interesting reality. So, I'm quite dubious about the reviews I've read that say this CD manages to achieve its goal successfully.

I put the CD on when I went to bed and I liked the music on the first track, but it was so peacefully melodic to me, I fell asleep by the start of the 2nd track. This was the same result I experienced each of the next few attempted listenings and personally, as someone who traditionally has difficulty drifting off, I found this delightful. It was like a mini Godsend, but it wasn't helping me learn any Spanish!

Eventually, I got round to listening to the CD during the day but wished I hadn't, it was dull and boring. If, as me, you're expecting simple songs to use melody to help anchor memory (which is a reasonable assumption considering the blurb), FORGET IT!! There is no skilful dual-language word play here, and no songs either. I'll explain...

There are 10 tracks on this CD ranging from 5m33s to 8m53s long, and a final 1m04 goodbye session. The 10 tracks contain between 18 to 22 words and/or phrases which sounds a lot, but considering the simple statement: "I would like/ a coffee/ with milk/ please" occupies 4 lines out of 18 (the next 3 being: "a tea/ a tea with milk/ and sugar") you begin to realise how limited this CD is.

Moreover, the Spanish is not really `set to music' rather it's naff elevator music in the background with a dozen and a half Spanish words spoken over the top. In fact, I suspect this is really just a clever marketing ploy; the makers of the naff music probably couldn't find a market for it, so they decided to get a couple mates, one man and one woman, to talk some foreign words over the top of it and then hail it as a new breakthrough in learning!

Another thing I didn't like was the spoken Spanish words having long gaps of music in between, ok, so 8 seconds might not really be all that long to some, but it's long enough if you're waiting for the next word, which then turns out to be a repetition of the last, which in itself was a repetition of the one before that, each of which has the same gap in between!

One reviewer recommends this for anyone wanting to start from and scratch, and fundamentally that's the only way you'll learn anything from this disc, it's so basic if you've done any Spanish before, you'll already have covered more than 98% of this CD. The only learning I did was right at the tale-end of the disc but by then I was so hacked off with what had gone before I'd more or less ceased to be receptive.

I knew I wasn't going to keep this CD but I didn't have the nerve to sell it on, so I gave it to my mum! (she's also learning Spanish). Sorry mum.