Latina is a bilingual women's
magazine, Spanish and English. I haven't subscribed, so I don't
know whether or how much of it is translated in parallel (which
would be of even more use for students), but the advertising
literature I received in the mail and the descriptions on the
website contain a lot of parallel text. Either way, it looks like
a good learning resource. Can also be ordered through
Amazon.
Learn in Your Car, Spanish 3 Level Set -
An all-audio (cassette), no-reading-required offering, though the
Listening Guide is more than just a script, expanding on the audio
lessons with additional information. Has a rather heavy emphasis
on conjugation and inflexion, perhaps too heavy for the beginner.
For beginners, the All-Audio Spanish would probably be a
better choice.
Learn Spanish The Fast and Fun Way
- Compact disks and a colorful large-format book, with a pullout
dictionary (containing an excellent food section, very handy for
the restaurants!), flash cards, and other goodies to enhance the
learning experience. If you want don't want the accompanying
disks, you can purchase
the book alone.
Puerta del Sol
- The audio magazine for learners of Spanish.
I haven't tried this yet, but it looks good.
Magazines and other goodies can be found at
Amazon.
Mosaico - A bilingual
book club, Spanish and English. Club materials can be received
in either language. It's just like a regular general purpose
book club, except that the books are available in English or in
Spanish, or sometimes in both languages, which makes for a good
learning opportunity: one could purchase two copies of such a
book, one in each language, for parallel study! (Note: I revisited
the site in January 2010, and there doesn't seem to be any English
there anymore. Still a good source though!)
(iGive)
People En Español -
People magazine, the Spanish version. Currently only $14.97 per year!
Can also be ordered through Amazon. (And when I ordered it, Amazon was giving a $5 rebate for some subscriptions, including this one!)
Selecciones
- A Spanish version of Reader's Digest. I found the Marzo de 1969 issue ($4,98/year back then, with
a cover price of 50 cents!) at a library book sale a few years
ago. The magazine isn't a complete translation (reasonable,
considering the name), but instead a translation of selected
articles combined with a bit of content specific for Spanish
speakers. In 2003 I subscribed, and the first issue I received
was Marzo de 2003, thirtyfour years younger than the one
mentioned above. Size is about the same, and the number of pages
is about the same (164), but now the cover sports a URL and
barcode. UPDATE: I revisited Selecciones in January
2010. There's no mention of USA subscriptions. Investigated
the USA site; didn't see any
obvious relevant links so I used the search engine to look for
Spanish and Selecciones. One hit was a subscription
form, the other was a page saying that the USA version had been
discontinued in 2009. You can still get it from outside the
country, or via Amazon, but it
is very expensive now, something like 5 times as much as when
I created this paragraph!
VocabuLearn: Spanish/English 3-Level Set -
An all-audio (cassette), no-reading-required offering. Good for
vocabulary-building while you commute. A word is spoken, then
its translation, another word is spoken, then its translation...
I have the older non-music-enhanced version; it's an excellent
tool! Also available on
compact disk.
