Rating: 
Summary: Worthless junk not even fit for the garbage.
Review: The program "Learn Spanish Now" turned out to be total junk and a complete waste of money. The only lesson I learned was to not to buy computer software without trying it first. Don't waste your money on this senseless mess.
Rating:
Summary: This Product is Garbage
Review: I purchased Spanish Now! in hopes of finding a software that would review my Spanish skills so that I could be ready to enter Spanish IV in my Junior year. Not only is this product hard to use, but it didn't review any useful grammar or fundamental Spanish. After finding that none of the features were helpful in learning Spanish in the slightest, I threw it into the garbage. I would strongly advise you not to waste your money.
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Summary: Good start but lacks cohesiveness in its (Italian) method
Review: The single major flaw in this product is its lack of direction for the beginner. I purchased the Italian version to compare it to Rosetta Stone's method. The difference in price will tell you which is the better one. This product has good ideas (dialogs & memory games) but Rosetta Stone's approach is sound and well organized. This product DOES have more resources than Rosetta Stone but they're left to the user to figure out how to utilize them when studying the lessons. For beginners this will lead to a lot of wasted time and frustration. Stuffing the product with goodies does not make it better. They need to concentrate on the HOWTOs. Until such time this product is not very useful to beginners.
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Summary: poor quality but still useful
Review: I must agree that one could do a *much* better job of making a cd-rom for learning dutch (or the other languages). There's no systematic teaching of sentence structure, grammar rules, etc. - it's very poorly designed as a "language course". Also, the program (I'm using the Mac version) is many years old, and hasn't been updated for OS X. The sound and video are low-resolution and grainy. On the other hand, I do find it useful, if only because a cd-rom is a better tool for practicing than a cassette tape. You can easily skip around the texts, click on individual words or whole sentences to hear them, see the (not always helpful) translation, etc. - so I would say that in conjunction with a *real* language course (maybe a good book) this could be helpful for extra practice. But ideally I would like to find a good-quality cd-rom language course. Anyone know of one?
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Summary: Beware forged reviews
Review: Apparently this company's management had so little confidence in its product's quality that they felt it necessary to upload a batch of fake reviews in July 2003; one or two for each product variant. They did not anticipate that Amazon would display all reviews for all variants, making their fake review language transparently obvious - as others have also noted here.
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Summary: JUNK JUNK JUNK - DO NOT LOOK AT THE FAKE RATINGS
Review: This software is so lame that the company has to make "fake reviews" to sell the product. If you don't believe me, check out the multiple 5 star ratings on the same day sometime in July 2003. I strongly doubt that ANY person would find this software worthwhile. I've tried out all the language programs, and by far, this is the worst of them all (although The Rosetta Stone comes in pretty close with its rediculous price for worthless junk). Currently, I can speak/read English, German, French, Spanish. And I can read Latin. And I am proficient in many other languages. I bought this software to supplement my Japanese, but like most other softwares... it is simply bad. If you truly want to learn a new language, there are countless websites now which teaches you everything from ground-up. Well, you'll have to spend a lot of time to do your searching, but it's so much more worthwhile. And of course, in order to speak proficiently you should always apply that new knowledge with other people who can speak whatever language that you are learning. That's how I learned most of my romantic languages... anyhow, i just thought I had to share this with you, since the reviews for this program on this site are so misleading...
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Summary: Learn Japanese? Don't waste your money!
Review: I was looking for a product that would help me learn some basic Japanese - a few words and phrases. Instead, I got the worst interface imaginable... and I get to see a lot of bad interfaces in my job as Information Architect. I've used a couple of different language CD products as primers to upcoming foreign trips and both were wonderful by comparison. The 'Bonus CD' that comes with this package has a grammar checker for every language EXCEPT Japanese... perhaps that makes sense of the editorial review that mentions "Learn Japanese Now! also adds online features that create an interesting and authentic atmosphere, making learning ITALIAN fast, fun, and highly effective." Italian? Well, it certainly doesn't make learning Japanese the slightest bit fun or effective. Do yourself a favor, when it comes to "Learn Japanese Now! 9.0" keep your credit card in your wallet.
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Summary: Learn Spanish Now
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Sorry I Ever Wasted My Money On This @%$#
Review: I bought this title back in August when the reviews seemed overwhelmingly good. But it is obvious now that someone connected with this company was trying to boost the rating with false commentaries. This is truly the worst piece of software I have ever used. There is no rhyme or reason to the GUI, even the sound of the French speakers is muddled. I have the Rosetta Stone French Explorer that my husband and I enjoy using.We were surprised when we actually started the learn the language. But rather than spend the extra money for the Rosetta Stone complete software program I fell for this drivel. As my husband says, quite often you really do get what you pay for. This lousey piece of &^$# is heading for the Goodwill Store.
Rating: 
Summary: GREAT FOR IMPROVING SPANISH PRONUNCIATION
Review: 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.
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