This series of videos is not designed to teach you a foreign language, but to give you the basics you’ll need to survive in most
“tourist” situations. First, you watch and listen as the couple in the video acts out a typical vacation scenario (exchanging money, renting a room, ordering a meal, etc.); then, the scene repeats, and you take the place of the vacationers, replying to the actors on the screen using the vocabulary you just learned. This is definitely language minimalism, but if, like most of us, your first concern is finding out when the train leaves or if you can get a room with a bath, then these tapes are an excellent supplement to “phrase-book” French, German, Italian or Spanish. Each tape comes with an audio cassette, so you can practice in the car, and a Berlitz phrase book, so you can keep adding to your vocabulary.
