Learn Spanish

Working through Platiquemos, the updated Foreign Service Institute audio course.

I need it for studying. And batteries, freshly charged batteries.

I have Barron’s “Mastering Spanish: Level Two” on cassette. Does anyone listen to cassette any more? Well, I have a bunch of cassettes and I still have a working cassette player in my Walkman, which I mostly use as a radio. Amusingly, someone thought my radio/cassette Walkman was some modern device like an mp3 player but no: it’s just a radio/cassette player so I can party like it’s 1985. I can play mp3s on my phone, nonetheless.

Anyway, I listened to the first of the 15 lessons. Level two is 16-30. There are actually 55 lessons. I listened to a friend’s copy of 1-15 about 10 years ago, back when I still lived in Santa Fe. Barron’s doesn’t go past 30. However, there’s something called Platiquemos that claims to be a modernization of the original FSI (Foreign Service Institute) program. The Barron’s tapes are adapted from the FSI course as well. I think they’re the original 1957 recordings because some of the content is quite dated.

So if I’m good and finish lessons 16-30, I might buy volumes 5-8 of Platiquemos. I’d like to read some reviews of it to make sure it’s a good deal. Also, I promised my wife I’d forgo some espresso money to pay for it. We don’t really have it anywhere in our budget.