Which Online Spanish Course Is Right for You?
So you want to learn Spanish, but you
don't know which of the courses available online is
the best for you. Well, it depends on:
Here are three of the best available.
Rocket Spanish
As soon as you go to the sales page
for this course, you'll know it's going to be
interactive. Right away, you have audio messages in
your choice of English or Spanish. Even if you don't
understand it yet, it's a good idea to listen to part
of the Spanish message to get your ear accustomed to
the sound of the language. Then you can listen to it
in English so you'll know what the heck it's
about!
The basic methodology of
Rocket Spanish involves
listening to conversations, and then trying to
formulate your own answers and comments in Spanish.
This is supplemented with pictures on screen which you
must identify in Spanish, which helps increase your
vocabulary. There is also a 300-page grammar
component, which you will use more or less depending
on why you are learning. But in any case, at least
some knowledge of the grammar will be
helpful.
The lessons are in downloadable mp3
format, which is good because you can either listen to
them on your computer or load them onto your IPod for
listening on the go. There are thirty-one lessons in
the course, and the creators suggest that it should
take about three months to work effectively through
it. That's a pretty decent amount of time to become
reasonably fluent in a new language.
When I say fluent, I mean you should
be able to hold sensible conversations in a variety of
situations. If you need to talk to people at work or
in social situations, you should be just fine. The
course is very good about helping you with
pronunciation, which is really important if you want
to be understood by Spanish speaking
people.
This is a proven method of learning a
language, and Rocket
Spanish does a good job of implementing
it. The course is also enjoyable and you're not likely
to become bored with it and drop out.We're confident
in recommending Rocket Spanish.
Learning Spanish Like Crazy
The main focus of the promotion for
Learning Spanish Like Crazy is
that it teaches "real Latin American Spanish".
Although there are undoubtedly differences between the
Spanish spoken in South America and what you will hear
in Spain, they are not as different as this would have
you believe. However, the instructor, Jazmin,
certainly has the authentic accent and you would do
well to emulate it. Frankly,our reviewerwasn't too
keen on Jazmin and it puther off the course, but
that's just one person. You might thinks she's sexy
and great and love to learn Spanish from
her!
The approach is similar to
Rocket Spanish in that lessons
are interactive and fun. Probably the bottom line is
if you like Jazmin's style, you'll like this course.
Synergy Spanish
This one takes a little bit of a
different approach from the others. Instead of the
traditional language teaching approach, where you
learn lists of vocabulary, Synergy
Spanish takes the view that you should
be able to form sentences right from the beginning.
That way, you can actually begin to have rudimentary
conversation right away.
So the program teaches the building
blocks of the sentences, and with quite a small number
of words to memorize you can logically build your own
sentences. If you want to learn Spanish in more depth
and detail, you'd be better off with Rocket
Spanish. But we liked this approach, and
recommend it for anyone who is just interested in
learning to talk in Spanish quickly.
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