Accelerated Spanish: Learn fluent Spanish with a proven accelerated learning system

by Timothy Moser

Learn Spanish with a revolutionary mnemonic system. If you've tried to learn Spanish in a classroom, you've probably been disappointed. Maybe you learned Spanish verb conjugations and lists of vocabulary, but you still can't speak the language. The Accelerated Spanish system is completely You can learn fluent Spanish with a step-by-step system that begins with the fundamentals of the Spanish language, moving from there into actual conversational fluency. This first volume will teach you to think like a Spanish speaker and give you the vocabulary that makes up 50% of the Spanish language.

Genres: Spanish Literature, Language, Nonfiction, Reference

515 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 28, 2016

Reviews

[Niki Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best way to learn Spanish

I can have real conversations in Spanish and remember the words easily because they live in my memory palace of Yol!

[Jasna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in conjunction with the coaching course. So far, nothing's helped me learn Spanish better. I have tried for years before this. Thank you, Timothy. Plus, as he advertises, he is not only teaching you Spanish--he is also teaching you memory techniques, especially memory palaces. I've been interested in memory palaces for at least two years. I've signed up for courses to learn how to build them for myself, but I never got far in them--I think I was just lazy coming up with my own memory palaces for things I wanted to memorize. But this Accelerated Spanish book, and its course, were perfect for me--Timothy builds a (cute! and ingenious) memory palace *for you* to learn something specific: Spanish. (Then it gets reinforced with targeted homework and practice sessions. with your coach, a native speaker.) Now I can fully appreciate the power of memory palaces and have a much better idea of how to build them for myself.

(FWIW, I'm halfway through the coaching course--lessons 1 to 6 are what this first book covers; volume 2, which I imagine is for lessons 7-12 but not sure, is in the works. In the meantime I can follow the materials on his website.)

[Ryan Ard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Admittedly about halfway through I stopped dedicating myself as I needed to this book. This book has some clever techniques to memorize different words and phrases. Basically the book is centered around a main character and each place the character visits has a different word with most of the different conjugations of the word in the place the main character is visiting. I think taking the coaching online would have helped me out quite a bit. I did not get much out of the book because I was also taking Spanish classes where everything was being taught differently. Maybe if I was solely studying with Accelerated Spanish and dedicated more of myself to learning through this method I would have rated the book higher.

[Greg Waters · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is teaching me to view another language differently with a different personality.

I have three Spanish books for learning I like them all for they all show different sides of learning a language.

Greg

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

The following thought came to me in a dream. ‘The author have written a book on Spanish, almost purely in English. Thus providing a false sense of learning, of doing work, while in reality you’re just reading English.’ True. This is a fake way to ‘learn’ Spanish, and I quit at page 120. Trying to manufacture/hijack my limbic system in order to get the necessary motivation necessary to tackle a new language. Haven’t found the solution yet, but this ain’t it.

[Dave Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book uses mnemonic devices to teach Spanish. It associates Spanish words with sound-alike English nouns. It also uses the “memory palace” method to teach verb conjugation by navigating the reader through a locale in which scenes are described using homophone verb conjugations. I found this approach somewhat effective in particular instances but, overall, I am not a fan.

I trudged through the first half or so of this book. I think I’m a little advanced for much of the content. (It is sort of the opposite dynamic I had with Advanced Spanish Step by Step. This book was a little too advanced for my level of Spanish.) The second half of the book was better as Moser describes the mechanics of the Spanish language. The chapter on idioms was especially good.

One aspect that I think did not help was his mixture of English with the Spanish words as he introduced a new word. This was a bit confusing and it would’ve helped to have a complete Spanish sentence.

If you’re a person who learns by mnemonics and is a rank beginner, this book may be to your liking.

[Celeste · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book must be approached with an open mind. In the beginning it seems outlandish, but the odd format has a purpose: the weirder something is, the more likely people are to remember it. Even though I already know some Spanish, I decided to continue reading since the author claimed that... “even some of the most advanced students have benefitted [from the lessons]”. This book does a good job at dispelling common misconceptions one might have about the Spanish language, which in turn will lead to less simple mistakes. The author teaches Spanish with a story that uses the concept of memory palaces as its foundation. Unlike most Spanish textbooks, multiple tenses of common verbs are taught from the get-go, and it somehow wasn’t overwhelming. I like how the author included some idioms and their meanings. You definitely won’t be fluent after reading this, but you will have a more solid grasp of Spanish. Another benefit is that strategies used in the book can be implemented to other fields of study.

[Dr Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a "brain-correct" way to learn spanish.

Timothy Moser uses several techniques that will help you to learn the fundamentals of spanish:

- he gently reminds you that spanish is not english by creating an alternate world. You know how Yoda-imitations are instantly recognizable by their sentence structure? Timothy helps you learn the sentence structure and thought patterns of spanish-speakers through the alternate universe of Joel. What makes this brain-correct? That he shows you that you will need to build new patterns - new brain networks, in my jargon -- in order to learn a new language.

(Besides -- it's fun -- who doesn't want to learn spanish through a bee's world?!?
Brain-lesson: We learn more when we're playing and having fun!)

- He provides a "memory-castle" via Joel and his world. This is a tried-and-true technique for building new brain-networks in an organized way.
Brain-lesson: We learn much quicker and more permanently when we intentionally build networks of connected ideas - words, functions, genders. And since Timothy provides the memory-castle, we can be confident this will work, instead of taking up the time and energy to create our own. (And remember the Fun-factor of his!)

- Timothy provides models of key spanish structures and idioms. He even identifies which particular examples we need to memorize and has us substitute allowed variations to really get the pattern ingrained in our sound-memory and Play with it to see its possibilities.
Brain-lesson: He is giving us patterns. The brain operates by making and recognizing patterns. By giving us practice in instantly recognizing and producing these patterns, we are leaps ahead of learning by "rules".

- There is one dialogue that runs throughout the book that lets you see how the lessons are applied and moves from a sort of spanglish (using english where we don't yet know the spanish) to more and more spanish as we learn the content.
Brain-lesson: Somehow, he has managed to embed a kind of feedback right into the written book. We can see our progress in reading (and understanding, if we listen to the recordings, see below) by how we can read increasingly more and more of the dialogue in spanish. It not only applies our learning in a simple way, but by using the same material, we get feedback that we really are learning!

- And (probably not) finally, he has an organized series of exercises and recorded dialogues on his website that are free. There's no excuse not to learn!
Brain-lesson: He is using multiple senses and lots of practice opportunities to build those spanish-brain-networks.

As neuropsychologist, I recommend this book and Timothy's approach as an excellent way to jump into learning (or improving!) your spanish.

[Gabe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best method of learning Spanish and different than any other method you have tried (i can almost gaurantee it).

I used this 5 years ago to become adequate in communicating a variety of basic and complex things about 5 years ago. I stopped studying spanish (so i haven't become fluent) yet I still haven't forgotten what i learned years ago.

This uses the Loci Method (memory palace) and well-researched learning techniques.

Timothy (the author) offers this book for free regularly and he offers as much as he can for free. I would definitely recommend checking out his website ( master of memory .com ) where he has the entire online course for free. (If you'd like to be coached through his course then you will need to pay for that).

Before you learn with his methods though you must have an open mind and be willing to try learning in a way.


(Note: I wouldn't recommend using this by itself. I would recommend using this as supplementary to the online podcast or videos that he offers.)

[Casey · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is NOT for me

I know some Spanish and am looking at how to improve my fluency. This book, however, walks you 5 miles to teach something that you could have learned by just crossing the street. Uses flowery examples that put a whole lot of stupid information into your head trying to get you to remember a word in Spanish. I don't know if others need this crazy approach, more power to you if you do. I didn't like it. At all.

[Umur · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good for 7 y/o

The book has some good ideas in explaining some oddities in Spanish if you haven't learned any other language other than English.

If you sum up the good parts, it would take 3-5 pages.

The rest is just bad storytelling.

If you are serious, get a real book.

[Luca Leyva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great and intuitive system for learning Spanish.
I would love to see a follow up edition with more structured chapter introductions, reviews, grammar rule callouts, and appendixes for faster review of information.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for learning Spanish. Maybe slightly over-promising however it teaches the fundamentals in a strange but exciting way. I like how it teaches all the different forms of verbs in one lesson, as well as teaching you idioms to help you speak like a native.

[Michael E.]

Great Book

If you really take your time with this and do everything it suggests...you will learn. That is a promise!! I love this book and their programs for coaching are fantastic too.

[Taylor Reid Carlton · Rating 5 out of 5]

PRONUNCIATIONS

Best book I've read in making PRONUNCIATIONS applicable. Easy to read and understand.Great examples to build on. I definitely recommend!

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best

[Matt F · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend listening to the podcast/audio. The book is good to go back to for reference.

[Fathemah S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Author mixes vivid fictional imagery with language learning makes a fun and memorable journey. Giving it 2 stars bc it was wordy but 2nd and 3rd volume seem way shorter.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spaans adhv een verzonnen verhaal (memory paleis waarbij je plaatsen aan de woorden linkt om ze makkelijker uiteen te houden)

[Tom Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best Spanish course I have studied.

I highly recommend this book for anyone seriously wanting to become fluent in Spanish. It's not just vocabulary memorization, and fun to use.

[Valarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those of you who either listen to the LearnCraft Spanish podcast or have done one of Moser's Spanish challenges, this is a great short companion that will really help with the memory palaces -- he describes them in the podcast, but, in the challenge, they're abbreviated and very strange. In this, the story the memory palaces come from is a complete story, which helps the concepts make more sense.

There are some grammatical errors, but that is offset by how helpful this book was in helping me prepare for my challenge assessment.

The Kindle version is only a bit over five hours, so I got through it in about a day.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good structural explanations if a bit silly at times

You might be wondering why I use silly in the headline. When you're trying to learn a new language, there are inevitably going to be moments when you feel silly or out of your comfort zone. The best part of this book, aside from the grammatical structure and sentence forms it teaches, is that it makes you accustomed to that feeling rather than wanting to quit out of embarrassment.

[Brett Lubinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like the structure of textbooks but I can easily get distracted by their more mundane nature. I'm still working through this book but the book has done wonders with helping me focus on the material. My favorite part is learning Spanish sentences first in English and gradually filling it with Spanish as you learn more vocabulary. It's a great to reenforce the vocabulary and grammar. Also, it helps to build to that goal. The book does a fantastic job of keeping you engaged, learning the language without being overwhelmed and also learning more about how languages work as a whole. There's quicker ways to learn the language but you'll learn it better and more likely to stick with it here. If you've tried to learn Spanish elsewhere with little success I would strongly suggest the textbook (only 4 dollars on amazon).

[Steve Woods · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have learned a number of languages over the years and I am qualified as a teacher of English as a second language. This is one of the best courses I have encountered that enables a person to learn on their own. One of the obvious but often ignored bases for the course structure is aroun frequency of use. Vocabulary and grammatical structures are presented with most frequent usage taking precedence. I find myself able to increasingly make sense of what I encounter, and this happens at a fairly rapid pace. Well done Timothy Moser, I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in spanish

[Jerome M · Rating 5 out of 5]

May not be for everyone but I found Tim's methods very useful. Tim provides a lot of free content on his website which I've found really helpful as well. I'm looking forward to reading the 2nd book.