StartSpanish Reviewer's Comments

StartSpanish, created by Braser Soft, is designed to teach the beginning levels of Spanish in order to make you conversant in the language. However, StartSpanish is not similar to many of the other programs we reviewed because it is not very interactive. The majority of the lessons aren’t interactive at all, you simply read a lesson that looks exactly like one out of a Spanish textbook. The only interactivity comes in a dictation exercise that requires you to write the words you hear. The lessons are fairly comprehensive for beginning Spanish, but the activities are inadequate for practicing Spanish and evaluating learning, especially when compared with the other products we reviewed.

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Features:  

StartSpanish offers a very simple progress tracking function that tracks correct answers in the dictation exercise, but not for the lessons themselves. Braser Soft offers a few additional resources on their website.

Fundamentals:  

StartSpanish revolves mostly around grammar lessons, though vocabulary is taught along the way. The program includes sound bites of Spanish words to help with listening comprehension and pronunciation, but there is no way to evaluate improvement in pronunciation because there is no speech recognition system built-in.

Ease of Use:  

This program is fairly simple to use, mainly because there aren’t very many features, although some of the buttons aren’t clearly labeled so it takes some trial and error to figure things out.

Teaching Tools:  

StartSpanish basically relies on a textbook-like interface, where you read the lesson. There is an application for testing your listening comprehension and typing the words you hear, but there is no way to evaluate pronunciation, no images, no video, and not much of anything else.

Word Tools:  

StartSpanish has some adequate references for basic Spanish words, but nothing extensive enough to really aid in fluency.

Help/Support:  

Braser Soft offers a simple tutorial to help you understand how the program works. You can also contact Braser Soft by email, if you have technical problems.

Summary:  

StartSpanish isn’t really much more than a Spanish textbook entered into a software program. If you are looking for interactivity or an intuitive learning environment, try one of our Top-3 products.