Juan (John) joined the Todo el Mundo familia at the end of 2022 after many years of teaching himself spanish with CD courses, DuoLingo and then Youtube.
A retired pilot, John has travelled the world, but fell in love with Mallorca and visits the same place several times a year to sail the med, hence his motivation to master the language to converse with the locals and connect with the local community.
Below you will find Juan's recommendations for beginners upwards, saying "I view these as a useful adjunct to Todo el Mundo which I find very good as it follows a syllabus and is properly structured"
¡Muchas gracias Juan!
"Following on from Collins and BBC CD's I came to realise that many CD courses, whilst useful in the car, are nothing more than audio phrase books. So too DuoLingo. No construction and insufficient speaking practice. I followed these with a subscription to Practiquemos by Catalina Moreno. This is a structured course and if followed has much interaction and homework. She is amusing and keeps ones interest in this respect. The full subscription is heavily discounted and will come up on one of her YouTube episodes. You could follow much of what she does on You Tube for free but there is little interaction such as is found on her paid course. She also offers a free book download.
A recent 'discovery' was a course by the unusually named Qroo Paul. His emphasis is on Mexican Spanish. He is American but despite this is hype free and to the point. Very clear explanations and never too much in one episode. Lessons 1-9 are highly recommended for absolute beginners but worth using as revision as there is much to be found therein. Following on from 1-9 the subjects become slightly disparate and he places much emphasis on the subjunctive, which I found baffling at this point in my journey.
Probably the best course so far for grammar has come from the unlikely source of 'Spanish with Pablo'. His 'How to conjugate Spanish verbs' is an immense tome of grammar running for 33 episodes for over seven hours! It is spoken slowly and has little else apart from the verbs shown as you listen. Examples of grammar follow some of the verbs.
There are many many others I could mention but these three mentioned are plenty to be going along with."
Juan, Grupo Bolivia A1 Monday mornings in Larkhall with Esther