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Piensa En Espanol = Think Spanish C-W Audio CD-Rom | 
| Publisher: Think Spanish Magazine
Category: Magazine
Buy New: $119.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 2307
Format: Magazine Subscription
Type: Trade magazine
Subscription Issues: 12
Subscription Length: 12 Months
Issues Per Year: 12
First Issue Lead Time: 6-10 Weeks
ASIN: B00028X0C0
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 3 months
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Product Description
Keep your Spanish strong all year long! Designed to increase Spanish fluency, build vocabulary, grammar & improve listening comprehension. Learn about life and culture in Spanish speaking countries. Dynamic articles about culture, travel, art, people and more. Useful lessons and tutorials.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
Nice Read! July 12, 2008
I originally purchased Piensa as a supplement reading material for my husband who is taking Spanish. It seems to be a little difficult to find reading materials in Spanish for adults, and this magazine is really fun to read. It has a monthly recipe (which I liked!) and vocabulary words on each side for the article with which one is reading. It is a super concept, and am very glad we found it on Amazon!
 Great for vocabulary building, great product for improving my Spanish, no complaints! July 12, 2008
I first bought the book "Read and Think Spanish" made by the same publishers. I loved it and passed it along to my friend who is now enjoying it in her weekly Spanish conversation class. I have been receiving the Magazine/CD for four months now. I really love it! I was a little worried because some of the reviews on here are negative but I don't have a single complaint. The articles are very interesting and diverse. Some articles do contain idioms or phrases that you would not read in a regular paper but that is a good thing! In some of the articles you are learning Spanish the way people talk (in the interviews) and also from different countries - so some of the articles have diverse vocabulary... again a good thing! The words are translated next to the article from Spanish to English.. which you can use or ignore, depending upon your Spanish level. I have taken Spanish for two years on and off and this magazine is great for my skill level My husband has taken Spanish for one quarter at a community learning center and he also enjoys it. He does have a harder time with some of the words but he can certainly listen to the Audio CD to improve his listening skills.
I highly recommend this product! But agree with another reviewer - you must get the Audio CD to really make this work.
The customer service with the company ([...]) is GREAT. I told them I wanted to order by mail and they sent my first issue right away plus a free gift before my check even arrived to them! Keep in mind, if you order through Amazon you are ordering through a third party which might be why some of these reviews had bad service. If you contact the company directly they offer great handouts on how to use the publication, free gifts (at certain times of year I think?) and other Spanish learning advice. Buena Suerte!
 Not readable May 29, 2008
This magazine does not provide readable narratives in standard Spanish, resorting needlessly to idioms time and again that have to be translated in the margins.
Emphasizing standard Spanish would make the articles much more readable. I am about an advanced intermediate, lived in Spain and Costa Rica for two years, and can read a Spanish newspaper fairly easily, with some unknown words and phrases. With these articles, though, you have to stop so often it feels like walking through quicksand, and when you realize that it's not because your reading skills dropped but because it's not good writing, you just put it down and shake your head.
 Helpful, but could use more variety December 5, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Good additional tool alongside a textbook and other more formal methods, but lacks a little variety in the range of speakers. Only two voices are regularly heard, which limits improvement in comprehension. Other voices and accents would be very helpful.
Only for very advanced study. Very poor learning tool. June 17, 2007
8 out of 13 found this review helpful
I bought this subscription, together with the CD, thinking it would give me the same sort of exercise as a dual language book (where everything is translated - ideally as close to word by word as feasible) ... and the audio would reinforce pronunciation and auditory comprehension. I figured I was ready; I had worked my way through a number of CD Spanish courses and I even had some reasonable success in communicating in simple Spanish with my hispanic employees and on a trip to South America.
I am EXTREMELY disappointed. The articles included in the magazine are generally on VERY obscure topics and *heavily* idiomatic. The magazine provides SOME translation of SOME obscure passages, but leaves you to struggle with vast swaths of the material which even my spanish-english dictionary can't adequately make sense of. I find myself repeatedly throwing up my hands in disgust. I don't mind a HARD lesson, which might require me to make heavy use of my dictionary or heavy use of the complete translation that the magazine OUGHT to supply for when you get stuck. But given the nature of the articles and the weird parsimony in translation hints I find I usually can't be sure if my understanding is more than remotely correct. The audio CD doesn't help at all. It is just someone reading the article at breakneck speed: too fast to even TRY to understand and too fast to even TRY and mimic the pronunciation.
I know this magazine/CD combo has a number of 5 star reviews. I really don't understand WHY - maybe all the reviewers have 5 years of school intensive language or maybe there just isn't a competing product?
If there WERE a competing product - where the issuers really cared about teaching and had some appreciation that they are targeting "do it yourself" learners of a wide range of experience - I expect the "Piensa En Espanol" would be rapidly driven out of business. For the time being, though, there is no obvious competition and the magazine's policy of "This magazine subscription cannot be canceled or refunded" lets them laugh all the way to the bank.
There's no competition but now, at least, there's one review warning "buyer beware"...at least for beginning to intermediate students. If someone had said what I've just said, I would have saved my money.
For the advanced Spanish student? Well, I gather that is where the 5 star reviews came from although - really - I don't get it. If you are advanced enough to handle this material in the way it is presented, then I think you could probably handle pretty much any Spanish periodical, or handle native conversation in S. America, without any assistance more than a dictionary. And for listening to people speaking Spanish at break-neck speed, with no pause for making sure enunciation can be followed, why not rent a movie on DVD with the characters speaking all Spanish? At least with a DVD you can turn on the English/Spanish subtitles and use slow motion and easy reverse to winnow out any obscure meaning and pronunciation. That sure beats the heck out of this package as a learning tool!
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