Learn to Speak Spanish Deluxe Reviewer's Comments

(Note: Learn to Speak Deluxe is no longer available through the manufacturer.) Learn to Speak Deluxe is an effective Spanish-instructing software product. This program provides helpful computer conversations, tests and a variety of other applications to help you acquire Spanish fluency. This program is nearly identical to the Learn to Speak Essentials package (ranked #10 by Top Ten Reviews) except that this software package includes the complete lesson course, not just the first lesson as Learn to Speak Essentials does. Learn to Speak Deluxe includes 35 lessons of core curriculum and 25 extended practice lessons-an impressive package for the price.

Features:  

When you start Learn to Speak Deluxe, you are offered the option of creating individual accounts for an unlimited number of students. This allows each person in your family a separate login and progress-tracking program-a fine way to save money while learning Spanish together.

Pre-tests help you gauge where your skill-level stands and post-tests assist you in determining where you need more practice. The computer conversations were quite helpful, allowing you the power to dictate the direction of the conversation as you converse with a computer-generated voice. This is not only fun, but a useful practice tool.

The feature set was well organized and offered a variety of applications, including a convenient feature which allows you to select the area of language acquisition you would like to study. The game section, however, could use improvement; the only games offered were Go Fish and a crossword puzzle. With the addition of a few more games this program would be far more fun to use.

Also, Learn to Speak Spanish Deluxe did not come with a headset. This is a standard feature included in most language software packages and should be included with the program.

Fundamentals:  

The software navigation is well designed-intuitive and straightforward. You begin with basics for beginners then move on to the language essentials segment, including pronunciation and basic vocabulary. The flow of the program is natural, not choppy.

Ease of Use:  

The installation was simple except when we attempted to set up the speech recognition portion of the program. The program crashed with each attempt to apply this feature and often crashed the entire computer.

Teaching Tools:  

The help and documentation section of this program is excellent. There are audio instructions detailing what is required on each page of the program. The program also includes a helpful reference book.

Word Tools:  

This program was an excellent tool in covering many of the fundamentals of language acquisition. The program does an excellent job of incorporating pictures with words to make the program more user-friendly and to aid in language development. However, it would be advantageous to a language learner to have access to more writing and speech-recognition opportunities as these help the learner retain the language basics better. A verb word-root search would also be a helpful addition.

Help/Support:  

The software is a useful grammar tool that delivers an in-depth study of Spanish grammar rules. However, we were disappointed that the speech recognition portion of the program was dysfunctional and we would enjoy seeing a few more games designed to test Spanish skills.

Summary:  

This program is a fine choice for the beginning to advanced-level Spanish speaker. Learn to Speak Deluxe teaches the fundamentals of language acquisition and offers several learning options.