Product Details

• Actors: Standard Deviants
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Cerebellum Corporation
• DVD Release Date: June 18, 2002
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004UDS6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #84,827 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Jvenile, not advanced!, July 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Standard Deviants - Learn Advanced Spanish - Verbs (DVD)

The title is misleading. This really is not advanced Spanish. They spend the first quarter of the program reviewing basics (noun genders, adjective agreements, etc.) so that's wasted. By the time we reach the end, we're just learning about direct and indirect object pronouns. These are the things you learn in an Intro II Spanish course at the local community college. (The proof is in the syllabus of a course I took!)

Another gripe is the presentation. They use a kind of silly, juvenile format with embarrassingly bad, scripted comedy. It's like something you'd see on Saturday morning cartoons.

Last, of the six or so youngsters who deliver the course (they all seem to be about 19 years old), only one or two of them has a good (i.e., native) Spanish accent. The others all speak with that flat, nasal American sound that sounds so bad in Spanish! And one of the presenters made a bad grammatical faux-pas when he said, "No problema" which is a Bart Simpson-ism. It should be, "No hay problema".

Apart from the bad accents I would have no qualms with this DVD if they'd just labeled it correctly, for instance, "Spanish Reveiew for Kids".

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ahhh the 'Subjunctive Tenses' ! Finally presented and understood!, January 11, 2008

By 

Mark Spark "markspark" (Kansas City, MO United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Standard Deviants - Learn Advanced Spanish - Verbs (DVD)

This dvd teaches you the very important verb tenses, subjunctives, that are used literally all the time in the spoken language. But students are exhausted after learning the all the others, present, past, etc. Did you ever wonder why you often recognize verbs but are confused by there spelling and usage which seem to stray from what you have been taught all these years? This dvd teaches all the verb tenses, including the elusive but frequently used Subjunctive Tense. This alone has allowed me to break through my learning barriers of speaking like a student or tourist all the time. Now I can understand all those weird uses like, " Yo quiero que tu estudies". I want you to study. Notice the spelling of estudies,,, it is not the well known 2rd person spelling, 'estudias'. In your mind, you reason that estudies really means estudias, but you are wrong. I found this dvd to be a treasure of learning for me personally. And of course, you can not fully appreciate the Subjunctive Tense without also further understanding even more about the world of pronouns, hence, even more light is taught on those many forms and usages also. For example, in "Yo quiero que tu estudies." , the pronoun tu seems to be used incorrectly to a student because you might translate that to mean "... study yours, study yourself, etc". and none of those make sense. So buy this dvd and break thought your old set of pronoun usage and enter the everday world of the subjunctives.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Understand Standard Deviants Teaching Style, July 9, 2007

By 

L. T. Ellis - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Standard Deviants - Learn Advanced Spanish - Verbs (DVD)

It seems to me that most of the reviewers have no idea about the teaching style of Standard Deviants programs. These were originally designed as broadcast programs for educational television and within classrooms. The instructional videos came later. The style is intentionally filled with humor and some silliness. The idea is that enjoying the program will bring one to pay more attention to it and to learn better, sometimes in spite of oneself. The programs state that they are no substitute for the regular classroom instruction. My child and I have both learned a great deal from the Standard Deviants programs, the language DVD's as well as math, science, grammar and literature. They are very enjoyable and educational as well.