LRDS R.

good audio book for learning Spanish

Revisado: 03-29-24

A credit well spent. There's a lot of content and the learning path is logical. As some reviews have noted, some of the sentences are a bit silly (I would have suggested the comparison lesson use the farm scenario instead of going to the gym!) but the grammar is solid.

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waste of a credit and my time

Revisado: 12-15-23

This is a very basic Spanish course and not a very good one. The speakers will repeat things so fast that an absolute beginner would have a tough time following but it's too basic for intermediate learners. Also there is a lot of repetition, which is important in learning, but that can be done by listening more than once. Repeating information in an audio book just means you're getting less content. Parts of it sound like it came from a video where the speaker will say "what is this?" This is an audio book; am I supposed to be looking at something? Very unhelpful! There are a lot musical bumpers that pad the time so you're also being ripped off that way. Most importantly, if you want to specifically learn Guatemalan Spanish, very little of the content is devoted to that. A few of the cultural notes are interesting but there isn't much of that. Some of the speakers are definitely not from Guatemala (possibly Argentina and Spain).

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You get a lot for the price

Revisado: 03-17-18

If you're looking for a long read to get the most bang for your buck, this is a good choice. Be warned this book is long and rather tedious.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Leave it to Lawrence to make sex tedious

Revisado: 11-30-17

First, a warning: if you want to read it for the "dirty" parts, you will probably be disappointed. I found many of the sex scenes to be unnecessarily crude and not at all erotic and maybe that was Lawrence's point: that ordinary people aren't particularly sexy when it comes to sex. None of the lovers seemed to be particularly creative.

But the most troubling thing I found about the novel was that it seemed extremely ableist. I understand the novel reflects outdated attitudes toward people with disabilities and it is a product of its time, but it is still no less disturbing (or at least it shouldn't be) to a modern audience than racial or ethnic stereotypes. The prevailing attitude throughout seems to be that people with disabilities are not entitled to romantic love if they are not able to engage in "traditional" sexual activity.

What I found most interesting, and perhaps most relevant to contemporary readers, were the characters' discussions of economic theory.

As for the performance, I thought Samantha Bond did well, but there were a few places where you can hear her cough or clear her throat (and it clearly wasn't part of the script) and I wondered why that wasn't edited out in post-production.

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Stephen Fry's performance alone is worth it!

Revisado: 06-09-17

I never much cared about Sherlock Holmes, but Fry's performance made it riveting. Great for those new to the stories.

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Just happy to get through it.

Revisado: 02-07-17

It had its moments but just too long and hard to follow. Some scenes especially were excessively drawn out like the one with Sybil toward the end. So many of the characters beat around the bush. I know that was intentional on the writer's part to reflect the ambiguous world in which the narrator lives, but I really wished people would get to the point!

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