Customer Reviews

Spanish Before You Know It Deluxe

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

 

 

This software consists of many Spanish vocabulary & phrase lists categorized by subject. Once you select a list, you learn via an interactive flash card program that provides four different ways of studying the words or phrases. The program keeps "score" and will automatically show cards for words you need to work on more often. A pleasant voice will pronouce the word or phrase for you as well so you can learn the correct pronunciation.
What is especially cool is that you can also create your own lists and add them to the program. The lists can be for ANYTHING you want to study and you can categorize lists by subject. You can even record sound to go with the flash card and add hints.
I think this is a great Spanish learning program and the "add your own" flash card feature alone makes it worth the buy - especially for students!

This program uses the flashcard method of teaching vocabulary four ways. Words and phrases are divided into lists by category. User selects a list then goes to the activity of choice to learn the contents of that list. There are a few more activities available in the Deluxe version that the free trial version doesn't have, but both versions use virtual flashcards the following way:

Step 1 - Look at the Spanish word and take a guess (out loud or in your head - it doesn't matter because the software trusts you to tell it if you answered correctly). The program will also say the word so you know the proper pronunciation.

Step 2 - Look at the Spanish word and type in it in English in the space provided. Here you don't get to cheat, because it can tell if your correct or not. The ones you need work on will repeat more often.

Step 3 - Look at the English word and guess the Spanish one. Again, it will trust you to be honest.

Step 4 - Look at the English word and type in the Spanish one. This has been the most helpful of all the steps for me, because not only do I have to know the word by now, I have to know how to spell it correctly and include any necessary accent marks.

All of the above you can get with the basic version of Before You Know It that is available to download for free via the internet, just as the other reviewer here mentioned. I agree with him/her that you should try it out before you purchase the deluxe version.

With the deluxe version, you get more four more activities which include multiple choice, pronunciation practice where you can record your voice and compare your pronunciation with a native speaker (warning: software does NOT include a microphone), and dictation (which is just a repeat of step 4 of the flashcard portion).

My favorite thing about this software, though, and what made me go ahead and spend the money for the deluxe version, is the user's ability to customize the program in several different ways:
- User can add a word to any list. You just look up more words you want to know online or in a dictionary and add it to the appropriate category.
- User can delete any word from any list.
- User can copy any word from one list to another.
- User can edit any word in any list. This is handy when studying Spanish because you might want to change the translation from European to Latin American.
- User can create entire lists and categories of their own, add their own pictures and record their own voices to demonstrate the pronunciation of each word. You can create lists for anything you want to learn - not just languages.
- User can download additional, free lists from the Before You Know It website, including state capitals, periodic table of elements (chemistry), multiplication tables, as well as lists in other foreign languages. And you can sign up for the free "list of the week." Each week, a new list will be sent to you via email.

This software will help you master your Spanish vocabulary and learn helpful phrases, but it does not teach very much grammar beyond some punctuation and accent marks. You won't learn conjugation unless you look up the form of each word yourself and add it to their lists or create your own lists.

In other words, the customizing possibilities for this are almost endless if you're willing and able to invest the time to do it. But what it comes with already installed is meant to simply increase your Spanish vocabulary and, used alone, will not make anyone a fluent speaker.

This software is a basic flashcard vocabulary driller. It's nothing fancy, but it does include a fair amount of vocabulary, and it gives you the ability to make your own lists with as many or as few features (sounds, pictures, etc.) as you want. It also allows you to edit the existing lists, so you can add personal notes to included vocabulary.

My only real beef against this program is that the vocab lists just aren't that big, esp. for $50 (well, $40 if you get on Transparent's email list and buy through that). It's only got about twice the vocab of the trial version of the program.

If you're an aspiring polyglot and you're looking to use it for multiple languages, my personal suggestion is to buy a single copy and then just make your own vocab lists for every language after the second. The only disadvantage to this is that you won't get the pronunciation, but there are some excellent audio dictionaries available out there which should more than make up for this deficiency.

All in all, not a bad buy.