Do I need the Galore Park Spanish CD's?

[Jill W.]

Do they have information on them that isn't included in the student's or teacher's books? Do they provide "dialogue" practice, or do they just provide assistance in pronunciation? I'd really rather not have to fork out the extra dinero, so to speak, but I will if they are integral to the course.

[Hillary in KS]

I did not buy them, but found myself thinking maybe I should have. Maybe someone who *has* them can chime in here....

 

If you don't speak Spanish, you'll want to get the CD. There are lots of listening exercises in the student book. The TM has the scripts for the listening exercises in it. If you speak Spanish, you'll be able to read the exercises from the TM.

 

BUT, there also seem to be some extra games, drill, etc. on the CD. (According to the TM).

 

There are times I wish I'd purchased it to use for those extra drills, or to use the CD with ds when I'm a little busy. (That way he can still do his assignment, even if I'm not there.)

 

HTH

[Jill W.]

I've assumed all along that the Galore Park Spanish is more "Spain" Spanish than Latin American Spanish. Do the CDs use native speakers, or will dc puzzle their Mexican-American friends by speaking Spanish-from-Spain-by-way-of-Britain? :)

[Guest Nick Oulton]

Hi, I thought I would reply to a couple of queries about the SPanish course (as I published the course!) Two things to note about the Spanish program; first, it is Spanish Spanish (rather than Latin American SPanish). And second, my guess is that you would need the audio CDs, as some of the exercises assume you are listening to the cd, and although you could look at the teacher's book and read the transcript, that might be defeating the purpose of the listening element. But a word of warning - in the teacher's book it refers a lot to a CD ROM which was never fully developed, and is not available. Sorry about that.

[Crissy]

Hi, I thought I would reply to a couple of queries about the SPanish course (as I published the course!) Two things to note about the Spanish program; first, it is Spanish Spanish (rather than Latin American SPanish). And second, my guess is that you would need the audio CDs, as some of the exercises assume you are listening to the cd, and although you could look at the teacher's book and read the transcript, that might be defeating the purpose of the listening element. But a word of warning - in the teacher's book it refers a lot to a CD ROM which was never fully developed, and is not available. Sorry about that.

 

Thank you for posting, Nick. I will soon be using GP Spanish for my own education and I wasn't aware of the audio component.

 

I do hope you'll pop in again, as questions about the program are sure to come up regularly as more of us use your course.

[Hillary in KS]

I learned "Spain" Spanish in school, and then spent a semester studying at the Universidad de Costa Rica in San Jose.

 

Yes, there are differences in the Spanish, but they are SMALL. Everyone understood me without any problems. Occasionally my friends would say something like "Oh! Aren't *we* fancy and proper!" when I used a form of vosotros. But that was it.

 

I've never understood the concern about learning Spain/ Latin American Spanish.

[Jill W.]

Yes, thank you Nick for your response! We've been using Latin I and we love it -- looking forward very much to trying out the Spanish! I guess that we will need the CDs; I studied some Spanish back in school but am nothing like a native speaker, so as you say, my reading the audio portions aloud would very much defeat the purpose of the listening component. Thanks again!

[Guest Lorna]

Hi, I thought I would reply to a couple of queries about the SPanish course (as I published the course!) Two things to note about the Spanish program; first, it is Spanish Spanish (rather than Latin American SPanish). And second, my guess is that you would need the audio CDs, as some of the exercises assume you are listening to the cd, and although you could look at the teacher's book and read the transcript, that might be defeating the purpose of the listening element. But a word of warning - in the teacher's book it refers a lot to a CD ROM which was never fully developed, and is not available. Sorry about that.

 

 

:iagree:

 

I am using the Galore Park French but I would have thought it is very similar. I speak fluent French but the cds are invaluable. The dialogues are on the CD and the verbs and numbers etc. It is important for the child to be able to understand the spoken language as much as the written. We listen to them over and over each lesson. They are excellent and you will certainly get your money's worth.

[Jenny in Atl]

Yes, I got the cd's, and personally, very glad I spent the extra $$.

[Mabelen]

I don't have this program, but I'd like to point out a couple of things regarding the question.

 

One is that even if you were a native Spanish speaker, you would want to have your dc listen to as many different speakers with as many different accents and voices as possible. The CDs of any program can help you achieve that.

 

The second one is regarding the differences between Spanish from Spain and Spanish from Latin America. As Hillary pointed out, the differences in educated speech are minimal. I lived in England for 12 years before relocating to the US and I had no problem communicating here. The same applies to Spanish from Spain versus any other kind of Spanish variety. I find this Spanish from Spain versus Spanish from Latin America division rather misleading. Many of the so called differences are found in Spain as regional varieties (e.g. the pronunciation of the letters "c and z" as an "s", the loss of the informal plural form of you "vosotros", etc). Regarding vocabulary, you will find just as many differences between Latin American countries themselves. There is no unified "Latin American Spanish" per se, but many regional varieties within this area, such as Caribbean, Central American, South American, Mexican, etc.

[Guest Lorna]

I agree. My friend's mother is Mexican but she ended up learning formal Spanish at an English boarding school. She went out to Mexico at the age of eighteen to buy for her mother's business in the Mexican villages and had only the once in a blue moon misunderstanding. I think she told someone she had been travelling around Scotland in the back of a truck instead of coach.