FSI Platiquemos, Levels 1-8 (Spanish Edition) Pap/Cas Edition

I think a lot of what's available for the books is just the PDF. For me, that would be really hard to use. If it matters to you, be sure you know what you're getting.Audio portion, as others have said, is a mixed bag. Some of it is very echo-y; others is fine. Some speakers are extremely quick, others slower. Probably comparable to real life, I suppose. I find that I have my mouse over the pause button and use it frequently.I took a fair amount of spanish long ago in school, and I remember a bit. I expected the Platiquemos course to be review, at least in the beginning. Not so. It jumps right in with lots of vocabulary and multiple tenses of verbs (e.g. past, future, reflexive) that you just have to memorize. I'm sure the conjugations will be explained later on, but in the beginning, it's a challenge.

I have waited for some time to write this review. A little background. I started studying Spanish not quite 3 years ago, by enrolling in an intro night program at the local high school for 8 lessons or so. (I recommend you do that, if for no other reason than correct pronunciation). I then did 4 levels of Pimsleur. (Okay as far as it goes, but it goes nowhere near far enough and almost zero grammar). I purchased this entire set of Platiquemos directly from Don Casteel (for a LOT more money than on Amazon) about 2 years ago. I am now well into Level 7 of 8. I went to Guatemala for a quick (1 week) immersion course. Am I fluent? No, but I'm not sure that's a word that I will ever use properly to describe myself (and I plan studying for a while to come). However, I can handle myself pretty well in conversation without embarrassment. I can talk about the weather. I can talk basic politics and religion. I even get a few jokes. I recently amazed a Mexican fellow (speaking in Spanish, of course) when I knew quite a bit about the history of his home town. (Picked up from the text in the margins of Platiquemos) Do I think there is anything better for self study than Platiquemos? NO! (and I've looked at everything I could get my hands on) Were there mistakes in the text? A very few that I caught, but insignificant in the scheme of things. I bought "Like Crazy", and in my personal opinion, it was not worth the money. It did not go nearly far enough, a lot more hype than substance, if you ask me. If you're serious about learning Spanish and have time and money, go to Madrid for a live-in immersion course for a few months (I would if I could). If you can't afford that, I recommend Platiquemos highly. What about Pimsleur? I think its worthwhile, but mighty expensive for what you get. When you think about bang for your buck, there is no contest!! Platiquemos is the winner. With a serious daily commitment, you can learn Spanish on your own.

I bought the digital version from the Platiquemos website last year. I spent nearly six months working through it and found that nearly every page of the transcripts contain errors or omissions of one kind or another. Grammar, when it is explained, is written in jargon that I can't comprehend. The audio is variable in quality and antiquity and not all the speakers on the audio are native Spanish speakers. I purchased this programme because I had read on the internet that Platiquemos was one of the leading self-teach Spanish language programmes, but I am disappointed in the quality of the product and the effort, time and money that I have wasted on it. I thought Platiquemos would be a good follow on from Pimsleur 1,2,3&Plus - big mistake. This programme needs a complete overhaul with TLC. The idea is sound, but accuracy and native speakers are essential. I, for one, prefer the original. I am now in the process of working my way through Learning Spanish Like Crazy and the elements of grammar are now becoming clear and I am making progress. My advice to you is, get the right tool for the job and steer clear of this one. One star is one too many for this product.

Donald Casteel died a few years after his 2004 revision of Platiquemos, and as I write this, its publication status is in a bit of limbo. Supposedly you can still order the physical edition (books + CDs) from Multilingual Books, but I don’t know if you can legally download the electronic edition (PDF + MP3) anywhere. This is a shame, since this course is still unique and indispensable for remote learners that want to seriously study Spanish. There’s simply nothing else available that approaches the depth, detail and sheer quantity of audio drills that you get in Platiquemos.If you’re familiar with the Foreign Service Institute courses, you’ll be at home here, since Platiquemos is basically a revision of the FSI Basic Spanish course from 1961–2. Each lesson or "Unit" begins with Basic Sentences: a contrived conversation (sometimes overly advanced relative to the surrounding course material) that you should probably learn by memory. Next follow several sections that explore a particular grammatical point, such as a verb tense, an adjective type, or some of those tricky Spanish object pronouns like le, les, se, me, te and nos. Here is where the intense drilling comes in. Some of it is English-to-Spanish translation in the style of Pimsleur and Learning Spanish Like Crazy. Most though is Spanish-only, like the notorious substitution drills where you’re repeating sentences with subtle changes between reps, e.g., altering the tense or the subject pronoun (which requires changing the verb inflection), or altering a noun (which may also require modifying an associated adjective). This kind of repetitive drilling, more than an hour's worth for each of the 55 Units (divided into eight Levels), is what really gets the language “in your mouth” and not just in your eyes and brain. It’s what most distinguishes the FSI/Platiquemos materials from other commercially-available Spanish audio courses.Accompanying the audio materials is a textbook that includes transcriptions of the audio exercises along with extensive commentaries and explanations of the key grammatical points for each unit. These discussions are sometimes quite edifying, as in Unit 34’s treatment of por/para, where Casteel’s distinction between “motion through” and “motion to” is the most cogent guideline I’ve ever encountered for choosing which of these two prepositions is most appropriate. Likewise the concept of the subjunctive denoting lack of fulfillment encapsulates that tense’s use cases more succinctly than any other explanation I’ve read. Sometimes, though, the verbiage can be challenging, as when Casteel retains arcane FSI terms like “clause relator” to mean “prepositional phrase”, or “past I/past II” to refer to the preterite/imperfect tenses.The early Units conclude with a song, but starting in Unit 15, a Reading section is substituted, often including written review exercises that unfortunately don’t come with an answer key. Perhaps you have a friend or tutor that can correct them for you, or else you could post them as Notebook entries on italki. I found the middle Levels, Three and Four, quite challenging, as the pedal hits the metal and we dive into the morass of object pronouns, past tenses and the imperative, among the most challenging topics in Spanish. From Level Five onward, reading material is emphasized. This is great for vocabulary expanding, but most of the selections are boring as hell as you pour over family letters, business and economic reports, political speeches, and the like (remember this course was originally intended for diplomats!). The last four Levels (Units 31–55) focus on the subjunctive and other advanced verbs tenses, including things like the combination of past subjunctive and conditional perfect found in sentences like “si yo estuviera allí, habría votado por él” (which are drilled extensively in the notorious Unit 47). And the last Level (Eight) additionally introduces regionalisms like vos and vosotros (the latter being otherwise neglected in this course focusing on Latin American rather than continental Spanish). All of these topics are absent or marginalized in most Spanish audio courses, so Platiquemos is providing some badly needed coverage here.As has been noted many times before, the main flaw with Platiquemos is the audio quality, which ranges from average to very poor. Terminal consonants (especially S’s) often get chopped off, and this frequently impacts the comprehensibility of the texts. The occasional typo creeps into the printed texts, and sooner or later you’ll miss having a comprehensive index. There are a few strange omissions, like how to pronounce the letters of the alphabet. And because the course has a strong orientation toward the formal speech of business and diplomacy, you’ll need to find other resources for learning slang, curse words and other elements of colloquial Spanish (some of which are covered in Casteel’s companion volume Cantemos, which he bundled free with the digital editions of Platiquemos). Finally, you need to be sure this kind of course is right for you: it's “not for sissies” as another reviewer put it. I spent an average of one month mastering each Unit, so completing the course has been a multi-year effort for me.If you are on a tight budget, know that you can download the original FSI Spanish course for free. Its core materials are perhaps 90% identical to Platiquemos, but where there’s variance the FSI text will be a half century older. FSI Spanish also features few female speaking voices, and it interpolates confusing phonetic spellings into the delivery of what’s already an orthographically straightforward language. So I think it’s worth the money and effort to track down Platiquemos instead. But regardless, the FSI/Platiquemos courses are unique in terms of serious and detailed self-study materials for Spanish learners. They’ll likely remain indispensable for those of us who want to study on our own, practice while driving or exercising, and who can’t (or won’t) spend hours and “mucho dinero” in conventional classroom settings. Good luck with your estudios!