To start with, some letters are pronounced differently. This is mainly the case with s, z, x, ll. Then some expressions are quite different. For example for hello and good bye, you don't say 'que tal?' or 'hasta luego'. You say 'que hubo?' and 'chao'. When it comes to directions, people don't say 'recto' but 'derecho' and you must not use 'coger' which has a bad meaning.

And there is more to come, like different language structures. You don't use 'vosotros', the past tense is different, etc, etc.

All in all, you will be helpless if you rely on this course to learn for Latin America. Better buy a better one!


Excellent method to teach tourist Spanish   June 30, 2004
 48 out of 57 found this review helpful

I have used TALK SPANISH to teach Spanish for holidays and have found it extremely useful. It covers all the necessary travel elements a student needs, is well graded and has plenty of useful exercises. Grammar is well explained and the tapes are lively and easy to follow. They are ideal for self-learning.

The only snag is that the course has been designed with the audio-learner in mind. Therefore it has little text and the lay out is somewhat dull, lacking in pictures or colour. If the BBC were to create a pictorial version of this book, it would sell like hot cakes. At present, there are very few tourist Spanish courses on the market, and this is an excellent product.

I have learnt some Greek using the Greek version and have found it equally approachable.


Talk Spanish (Shouldn't this be 'speak' Spanish?)   January 17, 2003
 77 out of 87 found this review helpful

A simple, fairly low-budget Spanish course - it assumes no pre-knowledge of the language and explains even the most basic phrases and vocabulary piece by piece.
You can work through on a spoken word only basis and quickly learn various useful phrases, or refer to the grammar section and learn the 'why' as well as the 'how to'.
The accompanying cassettes are of excellent quality and very authentic, although they may be a bit daunting at first; Spanish is a rapid language! It is useful, however, to hear Spanish at the speed it is spoken rather than the speed at which we learn it and after listening a couple of times, the little tests and scenarios in the book become easier to follow. (The answers are at the back to check on your progress!)

I have dipped into several products of this ilk and this is by far the best!


Good for beginners   February 22, 2002
 20 out of 28 found this review helpful

I'm currently using this book as part of a 'basics' course at a local college and am finding it really helpful. I didn't know any Spanish when I started but now I can order a beer! The only thing I don't like, and the teacher comments on aswell, is the fact all instructions on the tape are in english. If you've got the book with english instructions, surely it would be helpful to learning the language if they were spoken on the cassettes in Spanish. Overall good.


A good introduction for beginners   December 24, 2000
 11 out of 14 found this review helpful

Talk Spanish is a short course aimed at total beginners. As an introduction to Spanish, it fulfills it's aim very well, and provides a good base for further study of the language, whether you decide to follow other BBC courses or courses provided by other publishers. The book is best used in conjunction with the TV programmes, but can be used on it's own. The only drawback to this book is that the companion audio tapes are very hard to find, and this detracts from the overall effectiveness of the course, hence I only award 4 stars.