Rating: 
Summary: NOT for true beginners
Review: As an educational software developer, I know "good" teaching software from bad. This product is not "bad" per se, but it's not for the beginner. This product is good enough IF the user already has some familiarity with the language. I am a ground-zero Spanish student. I installed the software and started the program and was presented with a "progress chart" screen, which is a big grid with lesson numbers down the left side and corresponding activities across the top. That's it. There was no verbal (or written) instruction about what to do at this point. Just this big grid staring at me. So I clicked on the first grid square (Lesson 1's "Dialog: Explore"). A voice asked something in Spanish, and I was supposed to guess the correct answer from a list of three choices. I guessed correctly this time, but I don't see that I learned anything from it. The whole program is like this. No explanations, just activities. I think this program could be useful to someone looking to brush up on their high school Spanish or advance their current skill level, but it's pretty much a big "Huh?" to the true beginner. Very disappointing. Mine's going back to the store.
Rating:
Summary: NOT for true beginners
Review: As an educational software developer, I know "good" teaching software from bad. This product is not "bad" per se, but it's not for the beginner. This product is good enough IF the user already has some familiarity with the language. I am a ground-zero Spanish student. I installed the software and started the program and was presented with a "progress chart" screen, which is a big grid with lesson numbers down the left side and corresponding activities across the top. That's it. There was no verbal (or written) instruction about what to do at this point. Just this big grid staring at me. So I clicked on the first grid square (Lesson 1's "Dialog: Explore"). A voice asked something in Spanish, and I was supposed to guess the correct answer from a list of three choices. I guessed correctly this time, but I don't see that I learned anything from it. The whole program is like this. No explanations, just activities. I think this program could be useful to someone looking to brush up on their high school Spanish or advance their current skill level, but it's pretty much a big "Huh?" to the true beginner. Very disappointing. Mine's going back to the store.
Rating:
Summary: Look away
Review: Both my husband and I were very disappointed with this CD set. I would recommend that you avoid it all together. It was very difficult to navigate through and does not start out on a beginner level.
Rating:
Summary: PLEASE SAVE YOUR MONEY!
Review: I agree with the person who wrote that this software presumes that you already know a good bit of Spanish. I have had 3 years of high school and 2 years of college Spanish and bought this product for review for my job. Believe me when I say this is NOT for a beginner. I found it difficult to start reviewing at the level they describe as beginner. The software is confusing to navigate even if you have a Spanish language background. You are definitely "immersed" in Spanish in this software, but the way it's organized, being "immersed" is simply a euphemism for being totally lost. I suggest you go with a more "beginner friendly" program.
Rating: 
Summary: NOT for beginners!
Review: I am extremely dissapointed with this software! It is DEFINATELY not for beginners!! You jump right into Spanish without "learning" anything. There are "options" to slow down speech but it doesn't work...when you click, nothing drags...There are no instructions with this. It is difficult to figure out. And I'm only on "beginner 1". I will never get through the next 7 cds. #1 is very dissapointing. No instruction...just exercises.
Rating:
Summary: NOT for beginners!
Review: I am extremely dissapointed with this software! It is DEFINATELY not for beginners!! You jump right into Spanish without "learning" anything. There are "options" to slow down speech but it doesn't work...when you click, nothing drags...There are no instructions with this. It is difficult to figure out. And I'm only on "beginner 1". I will never get through the next 7 cds. #1 is very dissapointing. No instruction...just exercises.
Rating:
Summary: Not so hot
Review: I gave this a good try, but it didn't work for me. While flashy, the lessons were frustrating because they assumed I already knew vocabulary, sentence structure, and grammar. When I tried to find a way to learn the vocabulary directly, I couldn't. I suppose this is the "immersion" technique. Personally, it felt like an exercise in futility. I would rather learn material, then work with it, instead of working with it on a basis of ignorance. With no options for straight-ahead memorization, and with the frustration factor too high, it was adios muchachos.
Rating:
Summary: Don't but it, it stinks and is incomplete
Review: I got this software with about 8 or 9 CDs.
It has more bugs in it than in a ant colony. I am an IT person and have gone back and forth changing internal files. Some of the features just flat out do not work, like the help button.
There are some others as well where there are supposed to be documents where they are not put in yet, although you can try to access them.
I was also told to memorize every single phrase I see. That's nuts. Also, I do not get the english translation to come up, it is another known bug.
I got it at Sams Club for $30.00. You get what you pay for I guess.
If you know spanish already and want a review, I guess this can be helpful, but if you want to learn Spanish and spend hours conversing with tech support with all of it bugs, it stinks.
Stay away and get one of the more expensive products if you are not already a spanish speaker. This is a waste of time and money.
Jon
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent and innovative
Review: I liked the speech recognition feature. It took me some time to understand how to it works but then it became amazing. The ideal way to learn how to speak. It is really interactive. Impressive.
Rating:
Summary: The best I've seen
Review: I looked at four or five Spanish programs before buying this one, and it seemed to be the most complete and feature-packed. After doing some research on it, I was told to look for the American Foreign Service Institute's Spanish language course, but I haven't been able to find that, so I bought this instead. I have the 8-CD version. Three of the CDs are audio ones for pronunciation; the other five relate to the lessons plans and other visual material. I installed it and worked with it for a couple of hours for the first time this morning and I have to admit I was impressed. The interface is quite attractive and easy to navigate, and is one of the best I've seen in a teaching program, or any program, for that matter. I've worked most of the way through the first main lesson and several dozen exercises so far, so I have a pretty good idea of how everything works at this point, and it's pretty slick. This program is so feature-packed that I don't know if I'll even use some of the features, but they're there if you want them. Besides the 20 lessons, 10 review lessons, and 20 different "activities," the 19,000 word dictionary, and 8,000 word glossary, which form the core of the course, there are some interesting extra features. For example, there are even Spanish crossword puzzles, which might be good for learning synonyms and getting you to think more in Spanish. Another interesting exercise is matching antonyms, like the verbal part of the SAT requires. Another nice feature is automatic tracking of your lesson progress and what quizzes and lessons you've completed, so you can go right to where you left off, and even audio error tracking of your pronunciation. Actually, in regard to the lesson tracking, there is just one gotcha I noticed here--which is that when returning to the lesson in progress you are popped to the beginning of the lesson and you have to page forward from there to where you left off, but that only takes a few seconds. You can see where you left off visually from the chart that shows your progress, which is okay. Each lesson has vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar, and audio pronunciation of the words and phrases so you can hear correct-sounding Spanish right as you go along. And there are both male and female speakers. A lot of thought has gone into the interface here. For example, if you don't remember the meaning of a particular word, just positioning your mouse cursor over it will pop up the definition. You can also jump directly to the dictionary if you need to. As I said, a very nice interface. My only complaint is that only the first CD actually seems to install on your hard disk. Apparently if you need the others, the program will ask for them. And I don't know how this will work with the three other CDs of audio material, but I guess I'll find out. I would prefer the whole program just install onto disk so you don't have to do the "CD shuffle." Overall, however, this looks to be an excellent Spanish language software program, and I'm quite pleased with it so far.
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