Learn Spanish Now! 9.0 | 
 enlarge | From: Transparent Language
Category: Software
Buy New: $67.95
New (2) Used (2) from $45.00
Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 1350
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Macintosh, Windows
Media: CD-ROM
Operating System: Windows
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 8.1 x 2.4
MPN: SER093CD
Model: 744573051150
UPC: 744573051150
EAN: 0744573051174
ASIN: B00005Y3VA
Release Date: March 15, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Learning Spanish has never been easier! With over 10,000 words and a wide range of activities and games for all ability levels, SpanishNow! will have you speaking and understanding Spanish in no time. Learn through fun and interesting conversations, full-motion video, pronunciation practice and much more. New with Version 9 is the Large-format Video!
Amazon.com Product Description
Learn Spanish Now! 9.0 Deluxe takes you from beginner to confident speaker in no time. Listen and speak activities, grammar tools, and vocabulary games build a solid foundation, while real-life video content lets you interact with native speakers. Learn Spanish Now! also adds online features that create an interesting and authentic atmosphere, making it fast, fun, and highly effective to learn Spanish. Learn Spanish Now!'s four stimulating titles include: Fundamental Spanish, Survival Phrases for Spanish, Conversations in Spanish, and A Spanish Adventure with Andres. GrammarPro!, the software's comprehensive grammar tool, adds more than 10,000 words, extensive tutorials, and grammar quizzes to your desktop. Installed, GrammarPro! integrates seamlessly with all four Learn Spanish Now! titles to provide detailed grammar analyses with just a click of your mouse. Online features, fun interactive games, conversations, and phrases round out this deluxe suite. Practice your pronunciation using the integrated speech features, then record your voice and replay your conversation. Learn at your own pace by deciding when you need translation. Microsoft Windows users also receive GlobalWriter98, a word-processing tool that helps you write in more than 100 languages, as well as a handy screen saver.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 OK for working on pronunciation and listening June 16, 2005
25 out of 26 found this review helpful
For all their intricate windowed presentation, these programs fail to present more than a few vocabulary words, offer no systematic presentation of grammar, and don't even have a voacabulary index. The screens devoted to letting you imitate native speakers can help you improve your pronunciation, but you will do that better and faster with a teacher or native speaker. Same for listening - there are simply too few selections to get you beyond learning to understand some rote passages.
The exercises are very disppointing. They are randomly repetitive, so in a group of 5 questions (or activities, as they call them) you may end up doing the same one 5 times.
Finally, there are outright errors in the English translations, in English spelling, and sometimes, at least in the Spanish version, in the Spanish spelling.
On the whole, maybe worth purchasing cheap and used, but like most computer based language learning programs, you can do far, far better with a printed workbook that comes with a tape or CD.
 Best used as addition to other programs October 24, 2004
22 out of 25 found this review helpful
The good side of this program is that you can click on each word separately to hear it pronounced slowly and then you can click on the entire sentence to hear it spoken at a normal speed.
After going through the section with some essential words and phrases, there is a leap to dialogues and also to the language which moves to intermediate / advanced level. If you already speak Spanish, but your Spanish got a little bit rusty, this may be a fun way to review it. If you're just beginning to learn Spanish, this may be frustrating and you will need to supplement this program with other more solid books both related to language and grammar.
On a side note, Transparent Language has additional CDs as add-ons to this program, which as far as I know are only available through their website. Add-ons deal with different applications of language - for business, travel, entertainment, literature, etc. There is a CD with a movie and it's old, old, old and not all that engaging. You may be better off just getting regular DVDs with Spanish tracks (the translations may be sometimes off, but it's much cheaper way to get used to spoken language). The only benefit of these add-ons is that you can click on each word separately to hear it first pronounced slowly as many times as you need to and then listen to the entire sentence or entire segment.
Learn Spanish Now February 10, 2004
30 out of 33 found this review helpful
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.
 GREAT FOR IMPROVING SPANISH PRONUNCIATION January 26, 2004
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
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.
Really Impressive October 20, 2003
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
I own version 7 of Learn Spanish Now. I bought it a couple of years ago and didn't get into it right away. Now that I am sitting down and using it, I am very impressed. The basis of the program is spoken dialog that also appears on the screen as text. Every single word in the dialogs is hypertexted so that you get its definition, its part of speach, and how it is being used in that context. You can have entire lessons read through, you can go sentence by sentence, or you can go word by word. And you can slow down the pronunciation so it is more easily understood. And as you go, each sentence is translated in a separate box which you can hide if you want to. There are many more features, but this is the basis of it. It is an excellent program.
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