Rating: Summary: Not Quite as Bad as it First Seems Review: After opening this product and finding no manual to tell me where to start I was about ready to take the disks out in the yard and break them. After I got disk 1 loaded I found it was not for beginners. Without prior knowlege of Spanish you can't even get started. I read a review (on Amazon.com) that said Rosetta Stone was the best program and found out that the #7 "Spanish Plus" disk is produced by Rosetta Stone. This is the beginners disk, disk #7. Who woulda thunk it? With this I was able to begin learning simple words and phrases and eventually move up to the other disks. My question is: Why don't they have instructions that tell beginners to start with disk 7. The program is OK...
Rating: Summary: Huge Disapointment Review: All in all I am very displeased with this product. It was very hard to use at first and from a learning standpoint it was ineffective. Your best bet is to check out a product called Spanish Now by a company called Transparent Language, they seem to have the best software available for language learning.
Rating: Summary: Try something else Review: I bought this progarm, and returned it after a few days. The program is loaded with bells and whistles, none of which are helpful. This is not a good program if you are learning Spanish. I notice that the only positive review is from someone who aready spoke Spanish when he bought the program. This makes sense as the program is absolutely worthless to the student begining to study Spanish. I agree with most of the others who reviewed this program. There is no real attempt to teach the language. The program is simply a vast collection of material designed to test your knowledge of Spanish, not to teach it. The program is selling the sizzle, not the steak as they say.
Rating: Summary: I got burned Review: I bought this trusting its saying that they have the best method and did not learn anything before giving up. I also bought it in a store and was not allowed to return it because of their crapy return policy (I am now considering a boycott of Best Buy). I am looking for a program that will teach someone who has no knowledge of Spanish at all. If you know of this please email me at Benny365@hotmail.com Thanks Ben
Rating: Summary: I got burned Review: I bought this trusting its saying that they have the best method and did not learn anything before giving up. I also bought it in a store and was not allowed to return it because of their crapy return policy (I am now considering a boycott of Best Buy). I am looking for a program that will teach someone who has no knowledge of Spanish at all. If you know of this please email me at Benny365@hotmail.com Thanks Ben
Rating: Summary: This is a great Spanish tool! Review: I bought this version of Instant Immersion Spanish Pro a few months ago because my spanish has become quite rusty. I was initially nervous about my purchase based on the reviews contained here, but I decided to go for it. After receiving the program and using it consistently, I have absolutely fallen in love with this program. I do have a decent spanish background, which helps, but this program has SO many features in it, I have been able to polish up my rusty spanish skills in a few short weeks. There are so many ways to work on your skills with this program, I doubt I'll ever be able to use them all. I found the menu system to be very user friendly and haven't had any of the frustrations expressed in the other reviews. I would recommend this program to anyone, especially those who already have some sort of foundation in Spanish.
Rating: Summary: Piece of crap! Review: I can summarize my feelings regarding this product in three words: PIECE OF CRAP! This is quite a pathetic program hiding in a nice glossy box. The software is like so ten years ago- makes an atari game seem like i am playing xbox! I feel fleeced and am unable to get my money back due to a no return policy where I bought it. There is no cohesiveness to this "program" whatsoever; rather a mishmash of nonsensical puzzles and drills. And for someone who has no prior Spanish knowledge--you will indeed be instantly immersed -- immersed into chaos!
Rating: Summary: Disorganized and poorly designed... Try something else! Review: I grew up in Miami and my wife is from South America. We speak english, but I have certainly learned some basic spanish over the years. Some other reviewers had said that you cannot be a complete novice and use this Spanish product, but I figured I would have the basic spanish necessary given my background. Let me just say, it's difficult to get much out of this product even with some understanding of spanish basics. This is not just due to the "immersion" teaching method, but more due to the products disorganized content, poor user interface, and general lack of structure. My chief complaints with this product are as follows: 1) The product description says "You'll be guided through lessons...", which is completely inaccurate! --- There are no "lessons", just groups of activities based on skill level. And there is no "guiding" strucutre to it all. You simply jump into a skil level, pick an activity, and go. And the activities simply "test" rather than "teach". For example, you are thrown into conversational segments on the very first lesson where you must pick theright answer (out of three possible ones) in response to a question posed to you in spanish. At no point is there a "lesson" to teach you what you are supposed to know. 2) The user interface is really bad. --- The designers of this interactive product decided to use a "movie set" metaphor for the navigation. And trust me, the result is just as disorganized as a movie set. Every button is a graphical object with no text label (although if you hold your mouse over an object long enough it the text label will appear). If there were only a few buttons, and if the graphics wer super intuitive, this would be fine. But there are way too many buttons at once and the graphics dont make the button's purpose obvious. The whole movie set and movie scene thing is way too forced and ends up making the navigation difficult and cryptic. 3) My third complaint is much smaller, but still relevant... The accent of speakers in this product use the spanish language accent from SPAIN. --- While I understand this is a convention among some teachers / teaching products, the truth is that barely anyone speaks spanish with the Spanish accent in the US. The "th" sound in place of "s", as well as some muting of certain sylables) is extremely annoying if you are used to hearing spanish from any of the south/latin american countries. Anyway, just be farwarned.
Rating: Summary: Not for beginners! Review: I made the mistake of buying this software at Best Buy, which has a no-return policy once you open software. Big Mistake!! I will stick to buying online from now on where I can check reviews of the products first. This product is basically worthless to someone trying to learn Spanish. There is no structure to the lessons at all, even the first one is pretty much impossible for someone that is new to Spanish. There is virtually nothing that teaches you basic words and grammar, other than a glossary of words...what use is that to a beginner?! I wanted to learn simple conversational Spanish, and this product is of no help for that at all. Only someone with a couple years of Spanish would find this product useful. Something that they totally fail to tell you on the packaging.
Rating: Summary: Not a beginner's software Review: I think that this system is excellant for people who have basic knowledge of the Spanish language. The pronunciation and dialogue lessons are very valuable. It is helpful to be able to "have a conversation" with the software to understand and practice the flow of a Spanish conversation. But I think that it is misleading to say that this is for beginers. There is VERY little lessons about basic vocabulary and word definitions. And the grammar lessons are very few. This will help with conversation and pronunciation only.
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