Teach Yourself Spanish by N. Scarlyn Wilson - May 1976

Hodder Arnold H&S, May 1976. Paperback. Norman Scarlyn Wilson's "Teach Yourself Spanish" is my learning method of choice.\r\n\r\nIn the 1980's I went to Spain for the first time, and was handicapped by my inability to speak the language. I resolved to learn it to a basic level before returning the next year.\r\n\r\nSo I took my mother's copy of Mr. Wilson's opus, and resolved to do one lesson a day on the Underground as I commuted across London to work. The first few lessons were fairly easy, but soon I had to slow down. Nevertheless, the next year I was able to carry on conversations with my new Spanish friends, and after a couple of weeks I was really getting into it.\r\n\r\nI love this book. It is clear, informal, systematic, progresses by easy stages, and deals with useful topics rather than abstract sentences about the pen of my aunt.\r\n\r\nI also tried the modern version by Juan Kattán-Ibarra (just-published at that time). I found it unusable.\r\n\r\nThe reason is that the Wilson version was first published in 1939, and thus uses the grammar-translation method of teaching. This is how I learnt French and German in school, and it works for me. It did not, though, work for about 60% of my classmates, who at the end of four years were able to recite tables of German verbs, but not to put a sentence together. Which is no doubt the reason for the modern revision in methodology.\r\n\r\nIf you learn best by systematic explanation and analysis/synthesis (as I do), then, this (the Wilson version) may suit you. If you learn better by imitation and immersion, you may do best with the Kattán-Ibarra version. The latter, however, has corresponding cassettes (now CDs), which the 1939 edition (unsurprisingly) does not; so if you have no live source to talk Spanish with, this may be the major consideration.\r\n\r\nShould you decide to go with this version, there are a couple of fairly obvious caveats:\r\n\r\n* Pesetas are now euros.\r\n* Wilson endorses the Castilian lisp; but as I spend all my time in Andalusia, I gave that up pretty quickly (after trying to say "ascensor" to be precise). You may wish to consider doing the same.\r\n\r\n¡Suerte!