Customer Reviews

Jumpstart Spanish (PC & Mac) [Old Version]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Given to us as a gift - when we went to start it our Mac (OS X 10.2.8 which booted up Mac Classic 9.2 to start the program) didn't recognize the CD. OK - so we called the customer service number on the box - it's been disconnected. So we went to the JumpStart Website, found the customer service e-mail address and sent an e-mail - 14 days later, still no reply. So we searched the web and found a new customer service number (not an 800 number) and got someone who was polite but didn't understand English very well, and had no advice to offer except to return it with a receipt, but.... it was a gift so we have no receipt. That stumped him.

Is this a company that deserves your support?

I was disappointed with the American accent of the characters' voices - they should have used native speakers. I am a native speaker of Latin American Spanish and prefer Kidspeak software - even though it teaches the European Spanish pronuciation

My kids loved this program - for about five minutes. Then the computer freezes up. I have a new computer, so it's not a memory issue. We have tried many times. We just can't use this program - and their service people were no help.

The cd works fine on my daughter's older XP machine. She likes to play the games, and it's a comfortable introduction to Spanish. I don't know how much it is really helping her learn to speak, but if you want something additional to immerse your child in the language, I would recommend this cd. I found it to be a good value for the price.

My whole family loves this game. It is for 4-7 year olds, but I love to play it. It has helped me immensely with my Spanish vocabulary. My husband even plays it! Our son started playing it when he was four. The only problem he had was with number concepts that he had not yet mastered in any language. I switched the language settings to only English to help him work on his numbers in English first. Our son is now five and a half. He now has no problems with the numbers, and this is one of his favorite computer games. We also have Jump Start Numbers that he really likes. I have misplaced this computer game disk so I am going to order another one. I have installed and ran this game on five different Windows computer systems with different types of processors with no problems. One of our computers is an HP Pavilion Notebook with a Centrino processor. It is less than a year old. It runs the program with no problem. I have not tried running this program on a Mac so I have no advice for Mac users.

We fell in love with the Jumpstart Advanced Preschool World we bought at Costco in 2008. So when our daughter did all she could do in that program and showed interest in learning Spanish, our natural inclination was to go to Jumpstart Spanish.

This software is almost at the garbage level. It is obviously ANCIENT. It says it is compatible with XP, but it is slow to respond, the music is louder than the speaking voices - making them hard to hear while the "background" music is playing, the characters are cartoon animations, not the computer animated 3-D Jumptart we're familiar with. The program requires an ANCIENT version of Quicktime (2.1.2) and I had to uninstall my current Quicktime (which is a 7.6) to get this program to run. (When I installed Jumpstart Kindergarten later, I had to upgrade the Quicktime to the current version - so theoretically if my daughter wanted to play both of these on the computer I'd have uninstall/reinstall Quicktime over and over!)

I didn't have a problem with the pronunciations. They sounded spanish to me. But the program did not have a clear progression and was not "smart" like the new Jumpstart software. Some games were very easy vocabulary games, but there was no required progression to unlock the more advanced games which required you to understand sentences in Spanish like "Where is ..." or "This is..." and other vocabulary words in order to play the games.

Overall, if I could give this ZERO stars, I would. If the manufacturer were to create a NEW Jumpstart Spanish in keeping with their current 3-D adventures, I would be all over that.

This product will only work in a Mac "Classic" environment which is no longer supported... so if you have an old mac sitting in your attic, great. Otherwise, buy something else.

Now I'm going to have to go through the process of contacting the company to figure out why they took my money and never sent product. I don't have time for this!

I love this product! I brought it for my 8 yr old grandson to help him with his 3rd grade Spanish & he loves it too. It's very interactive & the games keep him interested. We often sit at the computer & learn Spanish together. It really isn't just for kids, its for anyone who has no background in Spanish. And the price was right!

ALL the Jump Start products are highly educational, completely interactive, contain excellent graphics, and are highly entertaining...HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommended! BUT, this seller shipped the CD ONLY, the booklet and other accessories that are normally included were missing.