Customer Reviews

Learn Spanish Now! 9.0

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

For all their intricate windowed presentation, these programs fail to present more than a few vocabulary words, offer no systematic presentation of grammar, and don't even have a voacabulary index. The screens devoted to letting you imitate native speakers can help you improve your pronunciation, but you will do that better and faster with a teacher or native speaker. Same for listening - there are simply too few selections to get you beyond learning to understand some rote passages.

The exercises are very disppointing. They are randomly repetitive, so in a group of 5 questions (or activities, as they call them) you may end up doing the same one 5 times.

Finally, there are outright errors in the English translations, in English spelling, and sometimes, at least in the Spanish version, in the Spanish spelling.

On the whole, maybe worth purchasing cheap and used, but like most computer based language learning programs, you can do far, far better with a printed workbook that comes with a tape or CD.

After getting the hang of this product I can highly recommend it. I expected a linear series of lessons, like an animated textbook, and so I was slightly bewildered by this program at first. A little experimentation, however, soon yields great results.

What you get is 4 "titles", multimedia chapters of a few thousand words each consisting of text and some video (two titles are entirely video based). Basically, it's up to you to make your way through this content at your own pace. The software makes this very easy since each word and sentence is playable individually, pronounced in a clear voice (separate from the video soundtrack), and is playable at multiple speeds. The meaning of each word and sentence is displayed at the bottom as you read or play it, along with a grammatical breakdown. This line-by-line reading and viewing is the core of the program. The quality of the video is excellent - interesting and humorous (Andrés visits Spain, Puerto Rico and Colombia clumsily filming advertisements).

Once you've made your way though a title (or a section within a title), you can then move on to the other activities - crosswords and 7 other games and exercises, generated dynamically from the sections you are comfortable with. The dynamic nature of the activities gives them almost infinite reusability and they are almost addictive. After completing a section I look forward to the games as a fun test.

After that, you can use the pronunciation tools. The software analyses your voice in a variety of ways, but I don't put too much stock in it except as an good way to get you to record and listen to yourself.

Finally a few extra tools allow you to keep custom lists of words to learn, make grammatical notes, etc. These lists can be imported into an accompanying flashcard program. My only complain is that you can (no longer?) export the lists as text for use elsewhere - what gives?

Overall I'm pleased with this purchase - and I've tried the competition. My only caveat is this software is probably not suited for the rank beginner, a basic grounding in the grammar and vocabulary would make this program more productive for you. They do not make this clear on the packaging, though.

I felt intimidated using this program. I have only a limited study of Spanish. I took Spanish one year in high school a decade ago. I need something to give me basic vocabulary and simple sentences, to begin with. This program is great if you need help with pronounciation and further study of the language.

It gives wonderful situations and survival phrases. In the sentences you can click on any word and it gives the meaning, the root verb ( if that applies), you can have the program pronounce the word for you.

It doesn't have a dictionary though. You have to buy another program to go with it for that. I was very disappointed about that.

I bought Learn Spanish Now because of the favorable reviews but have been very disappointed for the following reasons:

- No dictionary. I wanted to find the Spanish meaning for some English words and discovered there was no such capability. You have to buy a separate product for that.
- I wanted to learn some basic things like numbers and days of the week and could find no way to do that.
- The lessons seem to be totally random - nothing builds on previous lessons and there seems to be very little organization to the material.

This program is bad enough that it makes me question the objectivity of other reviews about this product. Maybe it's time to shell out the cash and try the Rosetta Stone product.

While it doesn't have the photos or pictures as some other programs do, the process of learning the language and the interface are the best!

The speach recognition is better than Rosetta Stone. And that is saying a lot because Rosetta Stone is another great program. The age on the package reads 12 to adult but my 9yo loves it. Some kids don't require pictures or "fuff" to learn.

I'm looking forward to buying other languages from this company! You can actually participate in conversions.

I do have to say, though, it does take a little time to figure out where to start in the program. BUT you must read the help section! It really... helps. :) Once you understand how to work the program... it's great!

I just purchased both The Learning Channel's "Learn to Speak 8.1" and Transparent Language's "Spanish Now! v9." I can tell you, first hand, that TLC's product is at least twice as good. I assumed that the higher priced (Spanish Now!)of the two would be a better product. WRONG! This software has a poor user interface, in addition, it doesn't guide the user through the process of learning the language. Save your money and get TLC's CD.

Spanish NOW is very well done and complete. It is loaded with tons of content and things to do to learn Spanish. There are too many good features to list but let me tell you my favorite ones. I really like the fact that Transparent Language used native speakers of Spanish so the pronunciations are all very accurate. Tying in with this is a feature that allows you to match your pronunciation with a native's pronunciation to see how correct it is. Another feature that I really liked (and one a lot of other language learning programs leave out) is a Grammar Tutorial which will teach you the rules of the language. This product does an amazing job with ways to practice the language. There are many games/activites that really do a good job in helping you review (my favorites were Vocabulous, Crosswords, Verb Quest and Plug N Play reading game). Starting here for learning Spanish is my recomendation for anyone looking to do so. Spanish NOW has a lot to offer and as i said before it is very well done.

The good side of this program is that you can click on each word separately to hear it pronounced slowly and then you can click on the entire sentence to hear it spoken at a normal speed.

After going through the section with some essential words and phrases, there is a leap to dialogues and also to the language which moves to intermediate / advanced level. If you already speak Spanish, but your Spanish got a little bit rusty, this may be a fun way to review it. If you're just beginning to learn Spanish, this may be frustrating and you will need to supplement this program with other more solid books both related to language and grammar.

On a side note, Transparent Language has additional CDs as add-ons to this program, which as far as I know are only available through their website. Add-ons deal with different applications of language - for business, travel, entertainment, literature, etc. There is a CD with a movie and it's old, old, old and not all that engaging. You may be better off just getting regular DVDs with Spanish tracks (the translations may be sometimes off, but it's much cheaper way to get used to spoken language). The only benefit of these add-ons is that you can click on each word separately to hear it first pronounced slowly as many times as you need to and then listen to the entire sentence or entire segment.

This software is not as bad as other reviewers have said. It might be a little difficult for a complete beginner to get started with but certainly not impossible. The interface takes a little getting used to but it's not that bad. I figured it out without using any help files. It may not be the most dazzling and exciting Spanish software available, but there is a large amount of info in it and it's worth the money. I don't know if I'll ever learn everything that is in this package.

I like this program for its onboard pronunciation section available in almost all parts of the program. While wearing headphones with a microphone, one can hear a native speaker say a word or phrase, say it yourself, and have it immediately compared with a graphic display and analog meter for pronunciation accuracy. It's really great. One may also repeat the native speaker, your own voice, and the native speaker again. Great for self comparison. There are both male and female native speakers.
Immediate definition and part of speech for any word clicked on, phrase translation, the ability to have the native speaker say the phrase at normal speed or slowly as many times as one wants, and interesting facts about the language included in the practice essays are several other goodies.
I would like to see an on board dictionary. One should have a good understanding of parts of speech before beginning. A standard Spanish language textbook to facilitate learning grammar may be helpful with this program.