Customer Reviews

Instant Immersion Spanish Deluxe [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I looked at four or five Spanish programs before buying this one, and it seemed to be the most complete and feature-packed. After doing some research on it, I was told to look for the American Foreign Service Institute's Spanish language course, but I haven't been able to find that, so I bought this instead. I have the 8-CD version. Three of the CDs are audio ones for pronunciation; the other five relate to the lessons plans and other visual material.

I installed it and worked with it for a couple of hours for the first time this morning and I have to admit I was impressed. The interface is quite attractive and easy to navigate, and is one of the best I've seen in a teaching program, or any program, for that matter. I've worked most of the way through the first main lesson and several dozen exercises so far, so I have a pretty good idea of how everything works at this point, and it's pretty slick.

This program is so feature-packed that I don't know if I'll even use some of the features, but they're there if you want them. Besides the 20 lessons, 10 review lessons, and 20 different "activities," the 19,000 word dictionary, and 8,000 word glossary, which form the core of the course, there are some interesting extra features. For example, there are even Spanish crossword puzzles, which might be good for learning synonyms and getting you to think more in Spanish. Another interesting exercise is matching antonyms, like the verbal part of the SAT requires. Another nice feature is automatic tracking of your lesson progress and what quizzes and lessons you've completed, so you can go right to where you left off, and even audio error tracking of your pronunciation.

Actually, in regard to the lesson tracking, there is just one gotcha I noticed here--which is that when returning to the lesson in progress you are popped to the beginning of the lesson and you have to page forward from there to where you left off, but that only takes a few seconds. You can see where you left off visually from the chart that shows your progress, which is okay.

Each lesson has vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar, and audio pronunciation of the words and phrases so you can hear correct-sounding Spanish right as you go along. And there are both male and female speakers. A lot of thought has gone into the interface here. For example, if you don't remember the meaning of a particular word, just positioning your mouse cursor over it will pop up the definition. You can also jump directly to the dictionary if you need to. As I said, a very nice interface.

My only complaint is that only the first CD actually seems to install on your hard disk. Apparently if you need the others, the program will ask for them. And I don't know how this will work with the three other CDs of audio material, but I guess I'll find out. I would prefer the whole program just install onto disk so you don't have to do the "CD shuffle."

Overall, however, this looks to be an excellent Spanish language software program, and I'm quite pleased with it so far.

I've had the program for a week and a half and am working on the second disk now. It is a very good program for reviewing Spanish (I had Spanish all through HS, through AP Spanish Lit, but I haven't used it since), but I can see how it might be difficult for the true beginner. If you're looking to review Spanish and don't want to be bored with tedious exercises about stuff you already know (or just need to be briefly reminded of), then this is the program for you. While it might not be the most entertaining program available, I haven't been bored and have learned a lot. There are many types of exercises, which keep things interesting while working different skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking).

They definitely throw you right in, but the first exercise doesn't have any wrong answers, they just want you to pick an answer and see what happens. If you roll the mouse over a word the definition pops up in a little box, which is very convenient. There are lessons for learning vocabulary and grammar, but most of the time you are left to figure things out as you go (with the help of those pop-up definitions). The first half of each lesson group is point-and-click with the mouse, while the second half uses speech recognition (one of the best features of the program), so you need a microphone.

You also need a Spanish <-> English dictionary, as the built-in glossary isn't easy to negotiate. There doesn't seem to be a search function and it's all Spanish to English. You have to click on a tab for the first letter of the word, then click to advance the "pages" to get to the word you want. It's much more convenient to just reach for the dictionary than to find a word in the glossary (and I've needed to do so many times). The glossary does work well from within some parts of the lessons, where if you right click on an answer choice you can go straight to that entry in the glossary, but for others (e.g. the crosswords), you don't seem to have access to the glossary at all.

Technical stuff: I have Win XP and the software has run very well on my computer except for one thing--it doesn't seem to be able to access the data for a user (or create a user) unless you run the program as an administrator. There might be some other way to get it to work, but if so, I haven't found it. No big deal, but a little annoying.

The first CD installs on the computer, then when you finish that one, you just switch CDs and continue where you left off. The program doesn't ask for them--but it's pretty obvious what to do. I haven't run the audio CDs on the computer, but they seem to be entirely separate from the computer lessons. I listened to the first one, and I'd actually recommend listening to the CDs before starting the program if you are a beginner--they're much more basic.

Most of the other reviews listed here are pretty accurate. You definitely get "immersed", but that's the point. It can be a little overwhelming at first, but I guess it gets better. Get a separate spanish-english dictionary, though, because the one in the program sucks, as does the entire interface.

My biggest complaint is in the packaging: it clearly shows a picture of Mexico, although most of the Spanish they teach is from Spain (at least from what I could tell, the lisp was driving me crazy). For those of you who don't know the difference, think of British vs. American english...while you'll be able to get around, you're going to sound funny and use the wrong words for things. So if you're looking to learn Spanish, Latin American-style, this isn't for you. But if you want to learn the basic language and/or learn to speak with a lisp, knock yourself out.

I self-study, using this in combination with a textbook, and it has been very effective in helping me gain confidence in actually using the language. It probably replaces the "language lab" I had when studying Spanish in college.

One important note: Their customer support is excellent! I've managed to lose two disks, and they've been promptly replaced each time.

Instant Immersion Spanish Deluxe is an enigma. Clearly significant development effort was devoted to the original application framework. However, there are so many problems with the application in its current form, it appears that there were either two development groups (i.e. the company or the intellectual property was acquired) with a disjointed development process or the company ran out of money during the development process.

While there are some gee wiz features, such an avatar that shows proper lip movements for various words, the program is very poorly designed. There is a calendar and task lists that supposedly coach the user through his or her progression. Yet the tasks jump around in difficultly without proper repetition and with no continuity between steps.

Other problems include the fundamental content. In some of the question and answer modules, the pictures do not correspond to clear answers. In other words, there would be a very basic scene and three potential answers written in Spanish for which it is not clear, even with the English translations, what a "correct" answer would be.

In summary, Instant Immersion Spanish has myriad content that should be displayed in a completely redesigned interface with improved progression of the material.

Cons (notice how Cons comes before Pros)
1)Hard to navigate
2)Material difficulty doesn't follow a clear pattern
3)Oddly vague answers to specific questions
4)Can't copy the program to disk requiring the reliance on the five CDs

Pros
1)Good audio CD's (three separate audio disks)
2)Advanced content (mixing audio and video; avatar)

I agree with the person who wrote that this software presumes that you already know a good bit of Spanish. I have had 3 years of high school and 2 years of college Spanish and bought this product for review for my job. Believe me when I say this is NOT for a beginner. I found it difficult to start reviewing at the level they describe as beginner. The software is confusing to navigate even if you have a Spanish language background. You are definitely "immersed" in Spanish in this software, but the way it's organized, being "immersed" is simply a euphemism for being totally lost. I suggest you go with a more "beginner friendly" program.

As an educational software developer, I know "good" teaching software from bad. This product is not "bad" per se, but it's not for the beginner. This product is good enough IF the user already has some familiarity with the language.

I am a ground-zero Spanish student. I installed the software and started the program and was presented with a "progress chart" screen, which is a big grid with lesson numbers down the left side and corresponding activities across the top. That's it. There was no verbal (or written) instruction about what to do at this point. Just this big grid staring at me. So I clicked on the first grid square (Lesson 1's "Dialog: Explore"). A voice asked something in Spanish, and I was supposed to guess the correct answer from a list of three choices. I guessed correctly this time, but I don't see that I learned anything from it. The whole program is like this. No explanations, just activities.

I think this program could be useful to someone looking to brush up on their high school Spanish or advance their current skill level, but it's pretty much a big "Huh?" to the true beginner. Very disappointing. Mine's going back to the store.

I have been listening to about 30 minutes to 1 hour of spanish (various adio CDs) every day for the last 2 weeks, I think I've made a lot of progress with those and yet I **REALLY** struggled with this product. It says it is for beginners, intermediate & advanced... BZZZZT - WRONG!!

With the word association game, you basically have to GUESS what a word is [because when you hover the mouse over the word it won't reveal what it is], either that or look it up. HOWEVER you can't refer to the glossary while doing the exercise. So it becomes a futile game of trial and error. :-(

What good is a program that doesn't teach you the words first???!!! It's extremely frustrating, to say the least.

They would have been better off showing you the picture of the house, and saying: "that is a house" in spanish ("Eso es una casa", or whatever - and know I didn't learn that from using this software). So that eventually you at least know how to say that phrase. But instead they chuck you in the deep end, bombarding you with many new phrases. They could have put the pictures & videos to much better use by first telling you what they are & quizzing you on it later (we remember better with visual cues). I can't understand why this is the #1 selling software - it certainly explains why so many Americans can't speak spanish!! ;-)

I agree with one of the other reviewers. Instant immersion is no good if you feel absolutely, totally & utterly LOST. Why do I think this? Because you feel like you are failing miserably. And that basically destroys ALL your confidence in being able to learn a new language. I believe you have to feel like you are making progress to succeed.

Q:If you start off, fail the first exercise, fail everything else you attempt, don't even know when you are failing, discover that after 30 minutes or so you never even got close to a score of 100%, what happens to your motivation level?
A: It sinks down to about zero, and you hit the "door exit" icon pretty quickly.

I am glad this is not my only spanish learning material; I would have quickly given up trying to learn spanish otherwise.

--- DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!!! ---

I got this software with about 8 or 9 CDs.

It has more bugs in it than in a ant colony. I am an IT person and have gone back and forth changing internal files. Some of the features just flat out do not work, like the help button.

There are some others as well where there are supposed to be documents where they are not put in yet, although you can try to access them.

I was also told to memorize every single phrase I see. That's nuts. Also, I do not get the english translation to come up, it is another known bug.

I got it at Sams Club for $30.00. You get what you pay for I guess.

If you know spanish already and want a review, I guess this can be helpful, but if you want to learn Spanish and spend hours conversing with tech support with all of it bugs, it stinks.

Stay away and get one of the more expensive products if you are not already a spanish speaker. This is a waste of time and money.

Jon

I liked the speech recognition feature. It took me some time to understand how to it works but then it became amazing. The ideal way to learn how to speak. It is really interactive. Impressive.