Review of CortinaLearning.com
Books+CDs, No pronunciation scores, Cheap books, Expensive CDs, ★
They teach 6 languages, with good grammar explanations and drills, but vocabulary of the 1950s and poor CDs. The 250-450 page books are on Amazon used for $5 or less. The book and 8 CDs are sold by the publisher for $150.
The books explain grammar well, with interesting drills and good phonetic pronunciation. Remember you are learning Stalin's Russian, not current.
The audio samples on the website show they enunciate each word clearly, but with poor rhythm or phrasing of the sentence as a whole, for example to show a question. They give learners one chance to repeat a sentence, and no breakdown into individual words, so you depend on reading the target language while listening, and will be distracted by spelling, and your native language assumptions about how each letter is spoken. (Click for Arguelles' review.)
Books+CDs, No pronunciation scores, Cheap books, Expensive CDs, ★
They teach 6 languages, with good grammar explanations and drills, but vocabulary of the 1950s and poor CDs. The 250-450 page books are on Amazon used for $5 or less. The book and 8 CDs are sold by the publisher for $150.
The books explain grammar well, with interesting drills and good phonetic pronunciation. Remember you are learning Stalin's Russian, not current.
The audio samples on the website show they enunciate each word clearly, but with poor rhythm or phrasing of the sentence as a whole, for example to show a question. They give learners one chance to repeat a sentence, and no breakdown into individual words, so you depend on reading the target language while listening, and will be distracted by spelling, and your native language assumptions about how each letter is spoken. (Click for Arguelles' review.)
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