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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.
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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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Ranking:
8
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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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Ranking:
7
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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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Ranking:
7
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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.
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á ALT + 160
é ALT + 130
í ALT + 161
ó ALT + 162
ú ALT + 163
ñ ALT + 164
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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.
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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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Ranking:
7
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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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Ranking:
7
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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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Ranking:
4
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Rocket Spanish
Download Version
$99.95
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Rocket Spanish
Hardcopy Version
$299.95
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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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Ranking:
4
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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.
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.
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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.
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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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