Customer Reviews
Good combo package, esp. for the money 
2007-12-27
OK, I think this probably deserves 4 stars, not 5... but frankly, I'm a little bewildered by the 1-star comments. This stuff trounces some of the more expensive packages (in particular, Rosetta Stone and Tell Me More).
I'd like to address what this software has which the others don't.
First, this stuff has actual spoken passages, with various options for displaying the text in Spanish and/or English. You can pick out individual words, which the program translates. This is really helpful if you see a prepositional phrase with "por" or "de" - it will translate those words differently depending on how the phrase is used.
The software also comes with a flashcard program - very comparable to Rosetta Stone's method, but about a 1/20th of the price. It lets you add your own lists, too, complete with pictures and pronunciation (if you want).
It's also got interactive visual software, which is basically rotatable environments with a variety of objects which you can click on. I'd say this is of moderate usefulness.
It's also got a Spanish-English dictionary, which frankly, is not the best I've seen, but it does have a fairly extensive word set.
Finally, it comes with 3 audio CDs for your car, CD player, etc. These are pretty basic in their approach; fairly comparable to other audio courses, although I'd say the Transparent CDs expect you to have more knowledge of the language's grammar than courses like Pimsleur, Rutledge, or Barrons.
Overall, this is a great package for the money. Again, it's not perfect, but it sure beats paying $250-$500 for stuff that's either boring (Rosetta) or utterly confusing (Tell Me More).
You can trust Transparent Language 
2007-09-08
I have not purchased the Spanish product, but I bought many of the Transparent Language modules for learning French. Transparent Language provides an incredible value for the money. I spent a lot more than $99 for the individual add-ons, so I agree with those who say this is a bargain. You get multi-sensory learning through reading, listening, watching videos (including contemporary TV shows), and through microphone feedback to ensure correct pronunciation. The base program provides numerous tools to facilitate language learning.
I am a parent educator who selected the educational materials myself after considerable research. I am writing this review because I am concerned there are people writing such incredibly disparaging reviews that they have no relation to reality. It is much more likely they represent competing products than the people writing positive reviews. The positive reviews line up with what I found with the French version.
Regards,
Phil
Pure Garbage 
2007-02-02
Like everyone else is saying, this is absolute garbage and the company is trying to scam you by posting bogus 5-star reviews on Amazon. All products by Transparent Language are basically a 10-page piece of text spoken aloud by a native speaker. To lay the foundations of your language learning they use short, useless help files (a one-page list of the letters of the alphabet and a very sparse introduction to the different parts of speech) and nothing else. What they're selling individually for $90 was originally all bundled together for $10 on the "101 Languages of the World" CD, but as you can imagine they're making quite the killing doing things this way. There are a few reviewers who seem to actually -believe- the product deserves 5 stars but I seriously doubt they've ever used any other language software in their life. I'm convinced you'd learn more Spanish from Dora the Explorer's Happytime Funland.
DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY! 2006-10-21
What a waste of 90 dollars! No set order, everything is completely jumbled around. There's some software and a book, and the book makes absolutely no sense with the software. Do yourself a favor- go to Best Buy and get a computer Spanish course for 20 bucks, and it'll be better.
Piece of Cake 2006-08-31
The complete Spanish Learning Suite is very easy to follow and learn from. The phonetics that are used in the CD ROM are extremely helpful and is great that you can slow the word down to hear the accents of how it is to be said.
Highly recommend this product for those who have never spoken this language and are interested in learning.
Excellent interface and easy to use 2006-07-23
Whether you prefer audio learning, reading, interactive software, or games, Complete Spanish Learning Suite will have you on your way to Spanish mastery in no time! Includes: Learn Spanish Now!, Spanish Before You Know It, Lexicon Translation Dictionary, LinquaMatch Talking Phrasebook and Tutor, Spanish Learners Tool Kit, Spanish Alphabet Reference, Spanish Learners Tool Kit GrammarPro, and Spanish Learners Tool Kit Spanish Screen Saver
Good Value, So-So Products 2006-03-19
4 stars
I bought this software package to supplement my course materials for a Spanish class and because I wanted to go beyond class material and hopefully really learn Spanish. This package looked like the best deal and seemed to offer a lot for your money (and all the other comprehensive programs were much more expensive).
What you get with this program suite is not a single solution to learning Spanish as a second language. Rather, it's an ad hoc bundle of programs from the same company. They are not really integrated in any sort of meaningful way. You'll have to follow a plan to use each program for its purpose. It comes with quite a lot for your money though, including a complete set of audio CDs that comes with a follow-along work book. I count about 5 programs in all, and the audio CD set. There's really lots of stuff here for the price, but what you'll find is that while some of these programs are pretty cool, others leave much to be desired. The programs are:
* Before You Know It: Spanish (Flash Card Program, for memorizing vocabulary and testing yourself)
* Spanish Now! (Interactive immersion program with video and audio to teach you spanish Grammar, Pronunciation, and vocabulary through conversational and listening/reading comprehension in the context of various story-line scenarios).
* Lingua Match 3 "Talking Phrase Book and Tutor" (Interactive visual learning tool, you click on things in the CGI environment and it says them in Spanish and it has games and a translator/lexicon)
* Lingua Match Lexicon (really just a lexicon for the above program)
* Grammar Pro (Really just a bunch of text files in a help file that serves as a reference for grammar and basic concepts in a number of languages... it's useful, but nothing you couldn't find online for free).
* Unitype Global Writer (an international word processor designed to handle many different languages)
* PDQ Audio CD Set and Accompanying Course Book
Of these there are 3 main programs: Spanish Now!, BYKI, and Lingua Match. The rest is really just filler, and/or side programs that are somewhat helpful and useful.
Before You Know It: Spanish, is a "flash card" program that basically takes away the need to create sets of flash cards (a common tactic in learning languages). It comes with various "sets" of cards and has various activities to go through them. It has audio, so it actually speaks the word to you, which is pretty cool and vital to memory and to pronunciation. This is much better than using homemade flash cards and saves you time. You can also create your OWN sets of flash cards (for ANYTHING) which is really cool. You can even add pictures and sound to them if you like. That's nice. Unfortunately the visual element isn't really used for any of the built in lists other than colors, which is a shame. It helps memory to involve more senses, so to show a picture of a car every time you read and hear the word "coche" is beneficial... but it doesn't do that. Of course you could go through and add pictures, but it's a bit tedious. The major flaw with this program is that while it's very useful and quite practical, it doesn't feel any bit at all refined. Plus it seems to show the same freaking words OVER AND OVER. So it will show some words to you 3 times in a row, and others will barely come up (this seems arbitrary and there are no settings for frequency of certain words, so it likely is a problem with the random number routine they used to built the programs random draw... this is a big draw back... I'd rather go through the cards in order than have it be random and get the same words 6 times in a row, repetition is good, but only when it is deliberate and towards a planned goal!!).
Learn Spanish Now is a good program with a lot of video and such. It's useful and helps, but I haven't used it enough to really talk much about it. I get the sense that it's not very refined either and has a good mix of "wow that's cool" features and "wtf? this is pointless/doesn't work right" features. It's not a bad program, but I question if there aren't better offerings out there.
Lingua Match 3 is one of those "oh, COOL!" programs. Forget the lexicon, that's not so much a separate program as it is an add on that translates and acts as a dictionary (which you can find all you need online for free). But the program enters you into various environments and scenarios and lets you interactively and visually learn. You click on objects and you hear and see the spanish name for it. So you might see a city and you can move about and click on the train and "el tren (train)" will appear on the screen as a spanish voice says the spanish word. This is great for memory and exposure and helps the learner to learn the way a child learns their native tongue: by pointing to things and being given the word for them, and then by parents pointing to objects to see if they know what it is or saying "point to the ____" and having the child learn this way. There are many such built in games and tools included as well as some conversational components. It's not flawless, but it's a pretty nifty learning TOOL.
That pretty much sums up this whole suit: lots of TOOLS, some of which are cheapish but serve a purpose, others of which are just ok, and others of which are pretty neat and handy, but none of which is integrated or comprehensive. It's up to you to use them all and learn. The audio CDs and the book are a great addition, and lend value to the set. But it appears to be a British made set. The English speaker is Anglo and has a British accent, this through me off, and the really cheesy music and feel to these made it hard to take seriously and keep interested. But still, it's value and it does serve its purpose and the book is a nice addition to help you learn. I still far preferred the Pimsleur Quick and Simple Spanish cds or the "Learn In Your Car" set to these ones, but hey.
Bottom line: You get a lot for your money and there's more good than bad. If this was any more expensive I would have had more to complain about and the whole set would feel like a cheap rip off. But for the money, it's hard to go wrong. You get a lot of different tools. None of them is comprehensive and NONE feels very polished, but if you want to learn Spanish and just delve in and get a lot for your money and have the self-driven ingenuity to use all these to get the most out of them without expecting exceptional quality, you'll be happy. On the other hand, if you really want something comprehensive and well made you may want to check out some of the more expensive software and audio options (I'd still like to try Rosetta Stone).
All in all, none of these deserves more than 3 or 4 stars on its own, but all together for a cheap price you can't give it less than 3 stars, and for me I'll give it 4 stars because I've found enough to like here to outweigh the lackluster feel to most of the programs and the glitches and oversights made.
Effective Spanish Starter 2006-03-16
The CD is very useful for learning some of the languages basics. However, it teaches European Spanish and not Mexican Spanish. What almost sounds like a lisp in European Spanish is not present in Mexican Spanish. In addition, the differences in the pronunciation of V.
multi-pronged approach to learning Spanish 2005-09-18
Complete Spanish Learning Suite has a multi-pronged approach to learning Spanish that is very effective. The software could use a better explanation of the programs in the suite. It's worth taking the time to explore each one. I found the flashcard (Spanish before you know it) particularly helpful in conjunction with the class that I am taking, since I can create my own word lists that match what I am currently studying. Its programs also give one practice in listening to and speaking Spanish. The linga-match lexicon program's has three settings that allow you to access a 4,000, 25,000 or 60,000 word dictionary. The Spanish Grammar Pro is a good reference, but lacks an organized approach to self-study. LinguaMatch allows you to choose from a variety of places and learn words associated with them by clicking on the items in the picture and then hearing and seeing the words in Spanish. Language Now gives you an opportunity for immersion in listening to Spanish, which is an excellent way to gain confidence in learning a language. The screen-saver is a fun tool, too. The variety the suite offers helps to keep things interesting. It probably isn't as useful without any prior or concurrent classes. Overall, it was easily worth the $20 I paid for it (with rebate), but is not sufficient in itself for self-study.
Powerful suite although possibly too involved for some 2003-12-18
This learning suite consists of about half a dozen programs, each of which does different things and offers different features. I found it very complete and full-featured but somewhat difficult to navigate around because of all the activities and separate modules. Also, it's hard to tell what some of the mouse buttons mean and you just have to click on them to find out what they do.
Four of the programs, such as the Spanish Alphabet Reference and the Spanish Grammar Basics, install as separate applications and can be launched either separately or from within the main program. You'll find the latter two under "Reference" from the main menu.
The main program is called Language Now! which has all the main features. These include My Spanish Adventure with Andre, which shows you a movie with Spanish narration; Conversations in Spanish; Fundamental Spanish, which contains 100 of the most common words and verbs in Spanish; and Survival Phrases in Spanish, which contains hundreds of phrases in English and Spanish.
Also part of the Language Now! program is the pronunciation program, or digital speech analyzer, which combines a wave form anayzer, pitch analyzer, a fricatives analyzer, and a vowels analyzer, which is even more sophisticated than the one that comes with my Instant Immersion Deluxe Spanish program.
The Survival Phrases section in the main program has phrases for over 30 situations, such as "Meeting and Greeting," "Restaurants," "Emergencies," etc. There is also an Activities area which has games like crosswords, word dictation, Vocabulous!, Unscramble, Verb Quest, Plug-n-Play, and Graffiti. In addition, there is a Pronunciation section and Conversation and Speaking section.
The four smaller extra programs include the "English-Spanish Lexicon" or dictionary, the grammar program, called "Spanish Grammar Pro," which is structured like the Windows Help facility, so if you know that, you know how to get around this one too. It might even be different from the one accessed within the "Language Now!" rogram. The third program is called "Shooting Gallery and Crossword," which are sort of self-explanatory. The fourth one is "Before You Know It," which is basically a vocabulary building module almost 40 different word lists on such things as animals, food, clothing, the weather, travel, and so on.
It also includes a "Flash Card" program which I tried, but didn't find very useful. It only seemed to have a few dozen words and it repeated them too often to be of much help, I thought. I liked the Spanish Grammar Basics program which covers in detail all the different parts of speech and defines all of them for you. So if you need to be reminded about what demonstrative pronouns are, a periphrastic verbal construction, or the preterite (past perfect) tense, this will do it for you.
Overall, this is a very full-featured and powerful Spanish suite that I can recommend although it may take some time for you to learn to use all the features productively. For someone that doesn't want anything this complex I recommend the Instant Immersion Spanish Deluxe edition with 8 CD's instead. It also has a speech analyzer but the entire program is structured somewhat differently from the present one. The lessons are sequential and you have to complete them all in order to progress from Beginner Level I to Level II, and from Level II to Intermediate Level I, the Intermediate Level II, and so on. (This isn't quite true as you can jump between levels and CD's if you want, but the program keeps reminding you to do exercises you've skipped within a CD or difficulty level until you do them). This makes it a little more structured and less flexible than the present one although I think most people will find the interface more intuitive and the progressively increasingly level of difficulty in some ways better for learning. But both programs are excellent and will definitely help you take your Spanish to the next level.
