Internet Tip - Learn Spanish Online

By Jeff Baker

November 17, 2008

I am determined to learn how to speak spanish. In my determination I have been looking for the best resources to learn spanish. I have just started learning spanish at the beginning of this year, so as I use different resources I will review them here. Please let me know your reviews in the comments section.

Free Online Spanish Resources

The following resources will probably be most helpful if you use them along with a good spanish book or audio CD.

http://www.studyspanish.com/freesite.htm

This site has so many free resources it is like a free online spanish course all in itself. It teaches you how to pronouce letters in spanish and it has many online spanish audio lessons for free. It pronounces many spanish words.

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http://www.learn-spanish-online.de/grammar/content/table_of_content.htm

This site has many free spanish online lessons and it includes audio pronunciations of some spanish words.

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http://www.google.com/translate_t

To quickly translate a word or phrase from spanish to english or from english to spanish I use Google's free spanish translation service.

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Yahoo Spanish Dictionary

Yahoo has a free online talking spanish dictionary. It is a spanish to english dictionary.

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Some spanish words have letters with accent marks. In order for the yahoo spanish dictionary to display some of these words correctly you may have to type the word with the accent marks on the letters. To do this, make sure your NUM LOCK is ON and then hold the ALT key on your keyboard and then using the numeric keypad on the right side of your keyboard press the three numbers that correspond to the letter, then release the ALT key. Or as an alternative method you can click on the letter and it will put the letter in the search box above.

á ALT + 160
é ALT + 130
í ALT + 161
ó ALT + 162
ú ALT + 163
ñ ALT + 164

Spanish Audio Courses

This section could also be titled

Pimsleur vs. Rosetta Stone vs. Rocket Spanish vs. Learning Spanish Like Crazy

. If you do a search for reviews on the best spanish audio courses you will find the above names come up the most. Why is that? It is not necessarily that these are the best audio courses for Spanish. It seems that these companies have an aggressive campaign for getting their product known. This includes affiliate programs. They have partnerships with many companies and many individuals to sell their products. Therefore, you will see many fake reviews for these products on many different websites. Many websites are created just to sell these products because of their affiliate programs.

I guess the only way I could find out which one is the best is to purchase all of them as a new spanish learner and try them out. You can help out too by telling me your reviews in the comments section. Keep coming back to this website as I purchase and try out these programs and I will keep letting you know my real reviews.

http://www.pimsleur-language.com

So far my review on Pimsleur Comprehensive Spanish Level 1: is based on their free audio lesson. The narrator and the Spanish speakers are pleasing to listen to but the lesson seems a little drawn out and slow. The package includes 16 Audio CDs with 30 lessons that are about 30 minutes long each. If you would like to spend less money you can purchase Pimsleur Conversational Spanish which includes the first 16 lessons on 8 Audio CDs. My ranking is also based on the Alexa ranking of the publisher's Simon & Schuster website at www.simonsays.com which is 55,101.

At the Pimsleur Language Affiliate program affiliates earn 15% commission which is about $30. So you may not see as many fake website reviews for Pimsleur because the commission is less than the other spanish courses.

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Learning Spanish Like Crazy

So far my review on Learning Spanish Like Crazy is based on their free access to lesson 1 and lesson 2 which also includes transcripts. The spanish speakers are easy to listen to but they speak a little fast. The narrator is not that pleasing to listen to. They seem to cram a lot into one lesson so you have to listen to it two or three times. If you purchase the box set it comes with 30 lessons that are 30 minutes each on audio CDs. If you do not want to pay as much then you can order Learning Spanish Like Crazy Light for less. It contains the first 16 lessons on 8 audio CDs.

Their website looks like a scam website. You can purchase the download version for $99 and affiliates make 75% commission on each sale. That is why there are so many sites and reviews that promote Learning Spanish Like Crazy.

Barnes and Noble Sales Rank: 42,046. Alexa traffic ranking for www.learningspanishlikecrazy.com: 379,210.

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http://www.rocketlanguages.com/spanish/

So far my review on Rocket Spanish is based on their website since they do not have a free demo of their first lesson to listen to. Their website looks like a scam website. They only have a 3 minute sample of a free Rocket Spanish Audio course, but the audio quality is poor. The creator of Rocket Spanish is from Chile but he seems to live in New Zealand and both he and his editor seem to have a New Zealand accent. Considering all of that, I don't know if you would learn how to speak the type of spanish you would need for Mexico and the United States.

The download version is $99.95 which seems like a good price, but they tell you that the audio quality is not as good as getting it on CD. For $19.95 shipping you can also order the MP3 files on 2 CDs and play in an MP3 CD player possibly. The course includes 31 audio lessons that are about 25 minutes each. If you want 25 audio CDs sent to you then it costs $299.95 (plus $49.95 S&H) for the hardcopy version. This is way too expensive!

In my opinion, the reason why you see so many review sites for Rocket Spanish is because of their affiliate program. Affiliates get a commission of 75%. That means they make about $70 when someone purchases the download version! Alexa Ranking for www.rocketlanguages.com is 54,637.

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Rocket Spanish
Download Version
$99.95

Rocket Spanish
Hardcopy Version
$299.95

Rosetta Stone V3: Spanish (Latin America), Level 1

So far my review on Rosetta Stone V3: Spanish (Latin America), Level 1 is based on their website. Rosetta Stone Spanish does NOT come with audio CDs that you can play in your car or on your home stereo. Instead, Rosetta Stone is software that you install on your computer. Their online demo is very boring. Basically the software shows you photos of things and speaks a spanish word and you click on the correct photo. It also shows you the spanish words and phrases.

Their affiliate program gives affiliates 15% commission on sales. So an affiliate would typically make about $30 a sale. Because of this there are a few fake review sites for this software. However, there are many bad reviews on Rosetta Stone Spanish because the software does not run well on some computers. Alexa traffic rankings for www.rosettastone.com is 28,527. Barnes and Noble Sales Rank: 9,263.

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Learn Spanish Books

I'll try to make this short and simple. To learn spanish you will want to get some books. Here is a list of some of the books that I use and ones I plan to purchase based on Barnes and Noble sales rank and Amazon customer reviews and ratings.

Remember, Barnes and Noble sales rank is based on which books they sell the most of. The lower the number the better. So the book with Sales Rank of 1 is the best-selling book at Barnes and Noble.

Merriam-Webster's Spanish-English Dictionary

At the time of this writing this seems to be the most popular Spanish/English dictionary.

Amazon: 47 reviews, rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Barnes and Noble Sales Rank: 610.

Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish

Someone gave me this book telling me that it was one of the best books to learn spanish. I have been reading it and it is a pretty good book. In the front of the book it teaches you how to pronounce spanish letters and then it teaches you words that are similar in enlgish and in spanish. It also has many good exercises.

Amazon: 77 reviews, rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars.

Barnes and Noble Sales Rank: 25,796.

Spanish Made Simple

When I took a spanish class at a local adult education school this was the textbook that was used for the class. I believe that it is commonly used in spanish classes.

Amazon: 16 reviews, rating: 3.9 out of 5 stars.

Barnes and Noble Sales Rank: 5,444.

Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses

Not only does this book explain Spanish verb forms but it also has exercises for the spanish student. Many people use this book to learn the tenses for spanish verbs.

Amazon: 114 reviews, rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars.

Barnes and Noble Sales Rank: 7,881.

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User Comments

There are 3 comments.

Displaying first 5 comments.

1. Posted By: Tefend - - April 28, 2008, 6:49 pm
Thanks for the good overview of all the options. It's helpful to know the commission each of these companies are paying out for leads - its all makes sense now - thanks!

2. Posted By: Fred Slyfield - - July 31, 2008, 9:05 am
30/07/2008

On purchasing Rosetta Stone V 3,1,2 I found it useful to a point
Until I have to reload Windows, After reloading, the software would not reactivate, I also found out that I have to use the same drive Letter to install the software from, eg: if install from E" if needed to reinstall it will have to be from E", twice I had reactivation problem, when I reload Windows the drive letter change, I got a pop invaild message that I may be using a another Computer, Rosetta Stone seem to lock their activation settings to one specific setting from my machine, so to avoid using it on another computer.

I did manage to get Rosseta to reactivate once, but recently I had a crash and have to reload Rosetta stone from begin, As my Backup did not work, now 8 months since I purchase it, the software do not work.

A little frustrating, in communication with Rosetta I have not got very far in ractivating the software yet.

Fred Sly, Torremolinos, Spain. SONY-VA10 XP PRO.

3. Posted By: Rob Greenwood - - September 25, 2008, 1:51 pm
I recommend a great Spanish language school in Argentina, http://www.expanish.com