Complete Spanish Learning Suite

Four of the programs, such as the Spanish Alphabet Reference and the Spanish Grammar Basics, install as separate applications and can be launched either separately or from within the main program. You'll find the latter two under "Reference" from the main menu.

The main program is called Language Now! which has all the main features. These include My Spanish Adventure with Andre, which shows you a movie with Spanish narration; Conversations in Spanish; Fundamental Spanish, which contains 100 of the most common words and verbs in Spanish; and Survival Phrases in Spanish, which contains hundreds of phrases in English and Spanish.

Also part of the Language Now! program is the pronunciation program, or digital speech analyzer, which combines a wave form anayzer, pitch analyzer, a fricatives analyzer, and a vowels analyzer, which is even more sophisticated than the one that comes with my Instant Immersion Deluxe Spanish program.

The Survival Phrases section in the main program has phrases for over 30 situations, such as "Meeting and Greeting," "Restaurants," "Emergencies," etc. There is also an Activities area which has games like crosswords, word dictation, Vocabulous!, Unscramble, Verb Quest, Plug-n-Play, and Graffiti. In addition, there is a Pronunciation section and Conversation and Speaking section.

The four smaller extra programs include the "English-Spanish Lexicon" or dictionary, the grammar program, called "Spanish Grammar Pro," which is structured like the Windows Help facility, so if you know that, you know how to get around this one too. It might even be different from the one accessed within the "Language Now!" rogram. The third program is called "Shooting Gallery and Crossword," which are sort of self-explanatory. The fourth one is "Before You Know It," which is basically a vocabulary building module almost 40 different word lists on such things as animals, food, clothing, the weather, travel, and so on.

It also includes a "Flash Card" program which I tried, but didn't find very useful. It only seemed to have a few dozen words and it repeated them too often to be of much help, I thought. I liked the Spanish Grammar Basics program which covers in detail all the different parts of speech and defines all of them for you. So if you need to be reminded about what demonstrative pronouns are, a periphrastic verbal construction, or the preterite (past perfect) tense, this will do it for you.

Overall, this is a very full-featured and powerful Spanish suite that I can recommend although it may take some time for you to learn to use all the features productively. For someone that doesn't want anything this complex I recommend the Instant Immersion Spanish Deluxe edition with 8 CD's instead. It also has a speech analyzer but the entire program is structured somewhat differently from the present one. The lessons are sequential and you have to complete them all in order to progress from Beginner Level I to Level II, and from Level II to Intermediate Level I, the Intermediate Level II, and so on. (This isn't quite true as you can jump between levels and CD's if you want, but the program keeps reminding you to do exercises you've skipped within a CD or difficulty level until you do them). This makes it a little more structured and less flexible than the present one although I think most people will find the interface more intuitive and the progressively increasingly level of difficulty in some ways better for learning. But both programs are excellent and will definitely help you take your Spanish to the next level.


multi-pronged approach to learning Spanish   September 18, 2005
book lover (Waverly, IA USA)
57 out of 59 found this review helpful

Complete Spanish Learning Suite has a multi-pronged approach to learning Spanish that is very effective. The software could use a better explanation of the programs in the suite. It's worth taking the time to explore each one. I found the flashcard (Spanish before you know it) particularly helpful in conjunction with the class that I am taking, since I can create my own word lists that match what I am currently studying. Its programs also give one practice in listening to and speaking Spanish. The linga-match lexicon program's has three settings that allow you to access a 4,000, 25,000 or 60,000 word dictionary. The Spanish Grammar Pro is a good reference, but lacks an organized approach to self-study. LinguaMatch allows you to choose from a variety of places and learn words associated with them by clicking on the items in the picture and then hearing and seeing the words in Spanish. Language Now gives you an opportunity for immersion in listening to Spanish, which is an excellent way to gain confidence in learning a language. The screen-saver is a fun tool, too. The variety the suite offers helps to keep things interesting. It probably isn't as useful without any prior or concurrent classes. Overall, it was easily worth the $20 I paid for it (with rebate), but is not sufficient in itself for self-study.


Good combo package, esp. for the money   December 27, 2007
Clayton B. Thomas III (Salt Lake City, UT USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

OK, I think this probably deserves 4 stars, not 5... but frankly, I'm a little bewildered by the 1-star comments. This stuff trounces some of the more expensive packages (in particular, Rosetta Stone and Tell Me More).

I'd like to address what this software has which the others don't.

First, this stuff has actual spoken passages, with various options for displaying the text in Spanish and/or English. You can pick out individual words, which the program translates. This is really helpful if you see a prepositional phrase with "por" or "de" - it will translate those words differently depending on how the phrase is used.

The software also comes with a flashcard program - very comparable to Rosetta Stone's method, but about a 1/20th of the price. It lets you add your own lists, too, complete with pictures and pronunciation (if you want).

It's also got interactive visual software, which is basically rotatable environments with a variety of objects which you can click on. I'd say this is of moderate usefulness.

It's also got a Spanish-English dictionary, which frankly, is not the best I've seen, but it does have a fairly extensive word set.

Finally, it comes with 3 audio CDs for your car, CD player, etc. These are pretty basic in their approach; fairly comparable to other audio courses, although I'd say the Transparent CDs expect you to have more knowledge of the language's grammar than courses like Pimsleur, Rutledge, or Barrons.

Overall, this is a great package for the money. Again, it's not perfect, but it sure beats paying $250-$500 for stuff that's either boring (Rosetta) or utterly confusing (Tell Me More).


Piece of Cake   August 31, 2006
E. White
7 out of 12 found this review helpful

The complete Spanish Learning Suite is very easy to follow and learn from. The phonetics that are used in the CD ROM are extremely helpful and is great that you can slow the word down to hear the accents of how it is to be said.

Highly recommend this product for those who have never spoken this language and are interested in learning.



Excellent interface and easy to use   July 23, 2006
To Foo (San Francisco, CA)
4 out of 16 found this review helpful

I am very impressed with this product. The company took their time to produce this software and it shows in the end product. The interface is well throught out.