Spanish/English: Set (3-Level Set): VocabuLearn: Music-Enhanced

Rating:
Summary: Winner and Still Champion By Default
Review: I am a professional Spanish instructor and a native of Peru. I have recommended Vocabulearn Learn Spanish to my students as an aid to help to them learn vocabulary words. I have also recommended the Learning Spanish Like Crazy course to them as something extra to study for when they are not in class with me. I believe Learning Spanish Like Crazy comes closer to Latin American Spanish than the other Spanish courses.

To be honest with you, I am not a big fan of any vocabulary teaching method that just says the word in Spanish and then says it back in English and the other way around. That's what Vocabulearn Learn Spanish does. I guess the main reason why I recommend Vocabulearn to my students is because there aren't any other tapes or CDs out there that are only for learning Spanish vocabulary. So this is the only choice I have when one of my students says please recommend a Spanish vocabulary aid. If there are any other courses that only teach Spanish vocabulary, I have never heard of them. So I guess you can say I make this recommendation by default.

As a Spanish instructor, I know that a better method would be to use no English or very little English in the teaching method. That would be better than Vocabulearn's style which uses just as much English as it does Spanish. It would also be nice if Vocabulearn Learn Spanish used the vocabulary words in complete sentences in Spanish instead of just saying the words or frases by themselves.




Rating:
Summary: Great Supplemental Tool for Building Vocabulary
Review: I own both the earlier version of Vocabulearn, without music and this one which is music-enhanced; and I like this one better. The Baroque music, which plays in the background and is intended to enhance your focus, concentratin and retention of the words, doesn't run throughout the recordings, but comes and goes. The reasoning behind this, when they were creating these recordings was that if the music is played all along, you may drift too deep into a trance (I don't think that's bad for learning, though), and that it would be better if you stay closer to the conscious level.

Trying to consciously remember all the words as they are poured out may be too much, but you can have the recordings also play in the background while you're doing other things. It will help to impress them upon your subconscious mind and you may just find yourself enjoying increased comprehension when you read Spanish, listen to radio programs or watch Spanish movies; and then you'll eventually find yourself using these words with greater ease.

Each level contains 1,500 words and it will definitely help you to rapidly increase your vocabulary.

Rating:
Summary: Could have been good!
Review: I own five different Spanish tape series and this is one of the best out there for vocabulary building. I owned the first version over five years ago and bought the updated version recently. It is the perfect tape for listening in the car. The words are spoken slowly and clearly. Both the words and phases are commonly used in today's conversations, and they have helped me build my vocabulary.

Rating:
Summary: Vocabulearn Spanish/English
Review: I own five different Spanish tape series and this is one of the best out there for vocabulary building. I owned the first version over five years ago and bought the updated version recently. It is the perfect tape for listening in the car. The words are spoken slowly and clearly. Both the words and phases are commonly used in today's conversations, and they have helped me build my vocabulary.

Rating:
Summary: Could have been good!
Review: Lots of reviews sound good. I bet they are from the vender of this product.
I could not imagine anyone being happy with these tapes.
One male voice says a word in English loudly Followed by a female in Spanish whispering, or maybe she has laryngitis.
The faintness of the second voice is such that it makes the tapes WORTHLESS. I could even finish listening. Tempted you may be to buy but these tapes are a real disappointment. I had to put 1 star minimum to post here but really it gets none!

Rating:
Summary: One of the most useful language tools
Review: These 6 tapes are one of the most useful language learning tools I've tried, after testing a good number of different courses. They can be used in both ways, to practice Spanish or English. Good stereo sound and clear voices. (About another reviewer's problem, you may simply move the balance control to the center; one can hear more one of the speakers or the other by moving the balance control to the left or right).
Of course you need to listen and answer to these VocabuLearn tapes more than a few times before mastering their thousands of words and phrases. And naturally, this vocabulary building tool is just an excellent complement for other good courses (like Pimsleur), flash cards (like Vis-Ed), books, audiobooks, and other language tools.

Rating:
Summary: (But four stars for anyone learning multiple languages.)
Review: This is a very simple product. Each level has about 1500 words and phrases which are read by native speakers first in one language, then in the other. The word list is split into four sections--nouns, verbs, expressions and other (adjectives, adverbs, prepositions & conjunctions). Within each section, the order is random.

The first half of each section presents the English word or phrase followed by the Spanish equivalent. The second half reverses the order, presenting the Spanish followed by the English. So you get about 150 random expressions from English to Spanish, followed by 150 more from Spanish to English. Then you switch to verbs, from English to Spanish then Spanish to English, and so on.

You have to listen to each word several times to learn it. You will learn it best if you have a short interval before the first repetition, then a longer interval before the second repetition, and longer still before the third, etc. Pimsleur called this the "graduated interval" method. To mimic this process, I listen to a few words at a time, then rewind and listen to them again, possibly adding another word to the list before partially rewinding again. With this technique, I can learn about 30-40 words per day in my 1-hour commute. If I listen to the whole tape straight through, the gap between repetitions is much too long and I only learn about 5 words per day. For this reason, I recommend buying the cassettes instead of the CDs. They are cheaper, and give you much more control for rewinding, pausing and playing (unless your CD player is better than mine).

The cost of the tapes is a bit steep for a simple list of words and phrases. But it's the best set that I've seen, and worth the price if you are a serious student. The CD prices are outrageous. Oddly, the value of the Vocabulearn series increases if you are going to study multiple languages, because they use the same word list (more or less) for each language they offer. I find it helpful to have a basic "core" vocabulary that I can use fluently in each of the languages I study. I haven't found any other set that does this.

The publisher touts several features which I think are just hype:
1) The random order of the words is said to help with learning because it mimics the natural flow of speech. But natural speech is far from random. Words tend to appear in clusters organized by topic. Also, I find it easier to remember related words if they are presented together. For instance, I can learn "calentar" (to heat), "caliente" (hot), and "el calor" (the heat) much faster if I study them together--but Vocabulearn spreads them across different tapes. I think this was just an excuse to avoid the work of creating a useful organizational scheme.
2) The switch in word order within each section (English to Spanish, then Spanish to English) is said to improve your ability to translate in both directions. That would be true if the entire word list was repeated both ways. But instead, half of the list is presented only from English to Spanish, and the other half only from Spanish to English. For any word, you will only master its translation in one direction.
3) The background music (by Mozart) is said to help with learning due to the "Mozart effect". Research on the Mozart effect is less than compelling--and I don't think anyone would claim that simply putting Mozart on in the background can make you you learn faster even if you aren't listening to it (because you're busy memorizing words). If you like Mozart (as I do) the music helps fend off boredom. But don't expect to learn the words any faster.