Customer Reviews

A Su Salud! (set): Spanish for Health Professionals

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

 

 

I can't say enough wonderful things about this educational resource. I used the DVDs and workbook consistently for 4 months in order to refresh my Spanish skills with the hope of finding a job in the field of health education. I knew I would be a more marketable job candidate if I could get my Spanish proficiency back to where it had been 8 years earlier. The package is very user-friendly and the plot of the telenovela is as entertaining as the best soap operas around. The storyline teaches you about a huge range of health topics in a culturally appropriate context (HIV/AIDS, diabetes, domestic violence, immunizations...). The activities are fun and you can pick and choose those that will be most helpful to you.

I am now working in NYC counseling people who are HIV-Positive -in English and Spanish. Without A Su Salud! I would not have been hired for this job. The workbook is sitting in my office and I am still using it. I have used a range of education resources to improve my proficiency in Spanish and this one is by far the very best.

This is the best language course material I have ever used. I can't imagine how much time has gone into perfecting the Cuaderno and the DVD. The Cuaderno is well formatted and organized. The exercises are there for all the concepts, but the course allows you to focus on the ones you need the most help with. The DVD is great; the telenovella style really helps keep the students interested. I am guessing I am not the only one who can barely wait to see the next episode. Will there be a second season?

Because the DVD allows you to listen to native speakers and record and listen to your own voice and accent, my oral proficiency, or at least my confidence in using it, has increased greatly with this material. I am able to speak freely to my patients and their parents in my clinic. Of course, I can't say and understand everything, but I know enough to be able to ask for their help and describe what I mean until we all understand. My patients seem to appreciate it immensely and it has really changed my relationship with some. They seem to respect my efforts to speak with them and always treat me as such. I think they genuinely see me as a resource in our department. I know the people I work with appreciate it also. I can call and schedule appointments, give directions, and pre-care instructions to people. I am able to explain procedures and answer the many questions that my patients have.

There is so much information in the Cuaderno and the DVD, I could go through the book again and learn just as much the second time around. I have my cuaderno in my office as a reference.

I would recommend A Su Salud! to all health care professionals with an interest in improving their Spanish.

I am a nursing student who just completed the University of North Carolina's online course, Spanish for Health Professionals, using A Su Salud! and it was a wonderful experience. The Cuaderno and DVDs provide vocabulary and grammar exercises in typical health care scenarios. Since the language exercises are ranked according to their degree of difficulty, I could use the materials to both refresh and challenge my Spanish skills.

Thanks to A Su Salud! I now have a working medical vocabulary in Spanish and a better understanding of the cultural differences faced by non-English speaking patients and clients. I would highly recommend A Su Salud! to health professionals wishing to improve their Spanish skills.

I took a course that used this workbook+DVD while working towards my Master's in Public Health at the University of North Carolina. It was a great way to learn Spanish vocabulary related to health care professions and to revisit basic grammar.

In the workbook, each lesson is divided into a vocabulary section and a grammar section, each with accompanying exercises ranked for difficulty (in 1-4 peppers). There are also short culture sections. The DVD follows the themes found in the workbook, and also has a telenovela episode for each lesson that tells the story of a small community health center. It is a pleasantly and surprisingly engaging soap opera. I felt accomplished when I understand everything the actors and actresses were saying, and I also enjoyed the actual story.

The course I took required weekly 15 minute conversations with the professor and with a buddy. If you are not taking a college course, I would suggest finding a buddy and setting aside 15 minutes a week to have conversations in Spanish and to keep each other on track with the workbook. It helps to have accountability and it's fun to talk about what happened in each week's episode or to practice perfecting verb tenses and adjective agreement during regular conversation. I also found it made me much more confident to talk to a buddy who was on the same level of Spanish as me.

The take home points of this review are basically that this is a great set to use if you want to get your feet wet with the Spanish language again, or if you want to use it to learn how to use Spanish in your professional life. I highly recommend the set, even if you aren't taking a college course to accompany it.

Update: I just wanted to add that, while I remain unable to watch the videos from the CD, I managed to contact the makers of this product, and they provided me with an alternative viewing method that is working fantastically.

Original Review: I'm reluctant to write an negative review about this product, because from what I can tell, the content is simply fantastic...the perfect solution for the intermediate Spanish speaker who wants to broaden their medical vocabulary and improve their fundamental grammar skills. The workbook appears well-organized, and the software and video look slick. After rummaging around on the A Su Salud website a bit, I was able to find some lesson plans that I plan to use as a self-study guide.

My problem? Despite meeting all system requirements, and going to painful lengths to try to get it to work (including installing different versions of Windows on other computers, downloading multiple codecs, and researching the inner workings of the OnStage plugin), I can't get the videos to play within the software itself. I *can* look at them directly off of the DVD, but it takes me a while to figure out which file is which, and there are some that I have never been able to find. Technical support has been slow to respond via email, and no one answers when you call their long-distance number. When you do receive guidance, it is nothing short of asinine. (No attempt was made to get to the root of the problem; I was told, essentially, to reinstall everything.) I'd like to think that I'm the only person who has had these types of problems, but I can't be sure...I asked tech support about it over a week ago, and I haven't heard anything back.

I'm probably going to keep the program and hobble my way through the program as best as I can, because I think that the content is worth it. (Plus, I've been trying to get this thing to work for over a month, and I'm not sure I'd be able to send it back.) But if I were less motivated about learning, or not particularly knowledgeable about computers, I'd think twice about buying it again.

I have just started using the book and program. The reason why i did not give it 5 stars is simply the lack of instruction in the book on how to install the program. You simply see some references to the activities in the dvd's but NO MENTION of the steps required to install the dvds. YOU MUST USE A COMPUTER to run the DVD's. The program to run the DVD's will not be found on any computers or dvd players - it is found only on the CD. If you don't install the CD program first, you will be watching only a stupid soap opera version of the video. Then you can play the DVD's using your computer (not a dvd player). The dvd is then played only as a small fraction of the didactic program installed on your computer. DO NOT RUN THE DVD WITHOUT THIS PROGRAM INSTALLED, YOU WILL BE DISAPPOINTED. The program is very tedious, and has some weakneses. There is not a built in dictionary, and subtitles are present only on some of the video clips. It is helpful to have a dictionary handy as you do the program, or to refer to the glossary in the text book. I believe that one can not complete this program very well unless one had intermediate working knowledge of spanish. I am struggling with it as is with 2 years of college spanish, but I know the programs will make me 10 times more proficient at working with hispanic patients if can can complete it through the end. The strength of this program is that it can keep one entertained enough to stay with the computer program directed learning. The weakness is that they do not have an "online" easy access dictionary to translate the lessons. But I guess that is the whole point of an "immersion" setting, where you are piecing bits and pieces of the puzzles together without drowning in it. In reality, I much prefer learning spanish via the method of LoMastv where you can forward, backward, and slow the video and subscripts for ease of learning. With de su salud, the video can not be forwarded or backwarded. The annunciation in some clips are hard too hear - even if you replayed it several times. Lomastv uses yabla player, and allows you to click on any words in a song or movie, and it translate it immediately for you. You can't do this here with de su salud. Fortunately, I have a dictionary on my computer called lexibase express, which I can pop up at anytime to translate words for me. This dictionary came free with the 8 disc CD program called Talk to Me I bought on amazon.com for about 30 bucks... The dictionary is invaluable, as de su salud does not let you minimize the program and open other programs, except for lexibase express. If one can complete this program, I am sure one can converse much better in a clinical setting. I will let you know how I do in 2 more months...

This may have been a good product back in 2005 when it came out but they have done nothing to keep it current with software advances since then. The DVD's that come with it require an older version of a DVD player that you can't even get anymore (see list at http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/salud/techsupport/index.html). If you try to install/use anything other than what is on thier list(which you can't get anymore), the custom DVD interface that is used won't recognize your player. For instance, WinDVD4 is on the list and this software is now up to version 9!
I tried to call and email thier tech support department for a workaround and they haven't responded after a week of repeated attempts.
Save your money. I am sending mine back for a refund....