Spanish Now! 8.0

One of the reviewers of this software said that it was just way too advanced for him. I just don't think he gave it (or himself) a chance. I was TERRIFIED of buying software.. I know nothing about computers and kept thinking it would be a huge waste. I'd never figure it out. I have to tell you that I stuck it in, clicked around, READ THE '?' HELP SECTION and completely got the hang of it and am learning like mad!!

The question for those who are looking to buy language software is the question of grammer based learning or jumping in and doing it. I think it's better jumping in. People say that you should just move to a country where you want to learn a language -- and who can do that?? So I'm thinking software like this is the next best thing. I have high school level spanish (which was 15 some odd years ago) and I live in Los Angeles so I know a bunch of words but couldn't figure out the whole verb meets sentence structure thing. This software is EXACTLY what I needed. No matter what you choose, you have to do is stick with it and commit to learning. You won't learn unless you use it.

Oh, and the ... rebate didn't hurt, either!!


Read before you buy!   June 26, 2000
ultexpert@mindspring.com (Asheville, NC)
110 out of 112 found this review helpful

This program is not for beginners! If you are an intermediate to advanced Spanish learner, then you may get some good use out of the program. As a beginner with very limited Spanish knowledge, I wasted my money trying to learn anything from this program. The speakers in the video talk way to fast to understand and when you slow the speech down, it garbles the audio.


Short on tracks   June 29, 2000
H. Susser (colo spgs, co United States)
40 out of 67 found this review helpful

First of all an excellent learning tool. I use it in my car. VERY few tracks and very frustrating. I like and need to find and replay parts repeatedly. But, they are hard to find because of the long tracks. I have to hold my finger on the FastForward or Reverse on my car stereo and it's not fast. They need to shorten the tracks without question.


Not Recommended   December 2, 2001
32 out of 33 found this review helpful

I do not recommend Spanish Now. First of all, it's not very good for a beginner because it has no good way to build the vocabulary. Other Spanish programs I have tried showed pictures of items and gave the Spanish name for it to help build one's vocabulary. Anything like that is absent from this program. All it does is give a list of sentences and read them to you and, if you're a beginner, you're expected to learn a lot of new words all at once. You can learn words from it, but it is a very boring and tedious way of doing so. Secondly, the program is just stupid. In one section, it gives a list of phrases that you would need to know if you're planning a trip to a Spanish speaking country. Before each set of phrases, it has whole complicated paragraphs that tell about Spanish customs and they're all in Spanish. If a person can read all these paragraphs about customs then they wouldn't need to be learning how to ask the location of a good restaurant or something simple like that. Third, I found the games that this thing has to be pretty boring. Fourth, the company obviously didn't proofread their product very well because it contains errors in the text. Worst of all, it has translational errors. So no matter what level you're at in learning Spanish, I don't recommend this software. As a matter of fact, if you're a beginner and you want to learn the language, don't buy any language software and expect it to be your sole learning source. I've used several Spanish CD-ROMs and none of them alone will teach you much about Spanish. They're only useful when used in conjuction with books, tapes, or other programs. And if you just want to learn enough Spanish to get by, this one will help you but there are far cheaper ones that will teach you just as much. I would recommend QuickStudy Spanish by The Learning Company.