"Learn & Retain Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French" - A Review
If you're into Romance languages, be it Spanish, and/or Portuguese, French, Italian, here's a learning tool and grammar guide that you would enjoy: “Learn and Retain Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French, with Spaced Repetition”, by Adros Verse Education, Bucharest 2024.
The book is available on Amazon, as well as on the Adrosverse website. There are also other sellers.
The book, available as a printed book or an ebook (counting 410 pages), accompanies you through 6 Levels of your language journey: I. Basic, II. Beginner, III. Elementary, IV. Intermediate, V. Advanced VI. Fluent. Each level introduces key grammar points and vocabulary. With the book come Anki Flashcards decks for spaced repetition learning.
The sequence of grammar topics for each language is presented in a fairly traditional way. No big surprises there.
But what makes this book really interesting is how it also pulls together the similarities and differences between the four languages. This applies to the sounds, grammar, and word meanings. There's a logical sequence from Level I to Level VI and individual topics are easy to search and find.
Learning To Speak
If you also want to become conversational one or all of these languages, I highly recommend that you set yourself up for speaking practice right from the start and beyond the book. Try it with a friend, with a coach, or even with an AI tutor if you can set one up.
No digital program will teach you how to freely engage in conversations, no matter how much repetition it provides or how well grammar points are explained.
Words need to be in context and part of meaningful sentences that flow in sequence. And these have to be understood in their full contextual meaning.
Besides practicing speaking, I also recommend reading meaningful texts as soon as you can. This will teach you how the language is put together and how “grammar” cannot be separated from meaning.
That being said, once you start on this book and follow through with some consistency, you'll be building a solid grammar and vocabulary foundation in the languages you focus on.
Spaced Repetition
This is a method of “learning new material and then reviewing and memorizing that material over spaced intervals”. With the Anki app, you have a digitalized version of what used to be paper flashcards or index cards in a box.
Using spaced repetition with the Anki app is an integral part of learning with this book. So, early on, you'll get instructions on how to download and set up Anki (p. 10-14 of the ebook). The use of AnkiWeb and AnkiDroid is free. AnkiMobile, needs to be purchased from the Apple Store.
With the purchase of the book, you've received Level I Spanish/Portuguese/Italian/French Anki package for free for a limited time. Later flashcard sets have to be purchased.
Looking at Level I
Level I: Basic is the most substantial section, and runs over 100 pages long. There you can learn, relearn, or just refresh your knowledge of language basics in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French. To give you an idea of the content:
1. Alphabet and Pronunciation: covers the consonants and vowels in each language as well as in comparison to each other.
2. Similarities to English: It's nice to get an explanation why Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French are considered “easy” languages to learn for English speakers. It includes examples of English cognates in the Romance languages and parallels between the languages.
3. Gender and Plural: English nouns don't have gender, and there is no agreement between adjectives and nouns. This section presents the four languages individually and their specific patterns of agreement.
4. Cardinal Numbers: Numbers are very useful to have, especially for travel. This section lists the numbers comparing them in 4 languages from 1 – two billion (2.000.000.000). It's a great place to double-check if you're not sure how to spell or say a number.
5. Subject Personal Pronouns: This section is particularly interesting for English learners as it untangles, among other things, the different forms of “you” in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French – singular/plural, formal/informal. Again, an excellent reference to check when you're not sure.
6. Present Indicative Tense I: Verb conjugation in the present tense in English is not complicated. For example, taking the verb “to go” - singular: I go, you go, he goes; plural: we go, you go, they go. By contrast, learning verb conjugations in one of the Romance languages takes practice and repetition. And ultimately, you'll want to be able to use verbs in each of these languages automatically, without having to think about sound and ending.
7. The Articles: Likewise, articles in Romance languages are more complicated than in English, which basically has only three forms, “the”, “a”, and “an”.
8. Interrogative Pronouns & Adjectives. Being able to formulate questions is an essential tool for building basic conversational skills. For once, asking questions in Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian is less complicated than in English. French is an exception there.
9. Basic Vocabulary: Colors, Times & Seasons, Directions, Family, Anatomy. Last but not least, you'll learn and practice some useful vocabulary.
A Word about Fluency
Levels II to VI build on the basic grammar topics. That is a very satisfying way to proceed. For example, prepositions are an excellent topic to drill as they are tricky to use in all languages, as are the various types of pronouns and certain idiomatic expressions. As expected, quite a bit of attention is given to irregular verbs, and the many verb tenses that occur in Romance languages.
Level VI is entitled “Fluent”. Finishing the book, with all the Anki practice still does not guarantee that you'll be a fluent speaker. Yes, you'll know what a “Pluperfect Subjunctive Tense” is, and can probably rattle it off in a couple of languages, but the door to fluency has another entrance. You need to practice speaking, and actively use the language in conversation with others.
Learning to understand others and making yourself understood requires remembering and internalizing grammatical patterns and conversational language, and producing these in real time.
All that being said, I love having a structured approach to mastering the grammar of languages I'm learning and to practicing vocabulary. These are my first impressions. I'll be doing an update in a few months.
Disclaimer
I was contacted by Adros Verse Education to write this review. In return, I was offered a pdf Review Copy of the book. We have no financial agreement about sales of the book.