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1. Fluenz Spanish

Fluenz is the best Spanish program we have used. We are homeschoolers, and over the years I tried several different programs with our children, including Rosetta stone, Berlitz, and Learnables. All of them fell short of our expectations. Fluenz is absolutely amazing compared to those other programs. (Rosetta Stone was very confusing to my daughter, because they never explained anything, and expected her to learn through 'immersion.' I did the Rosetta Stone program myself up to level/year 4, and I think I only gained about 1-2 years of high school level Spanish ) The Fluenz program is highly superior to all the other programs. It provides a teacher who speaks in English, and who teaches the lesson and explains anything that is confusing.

The practices are very thorough, and my daughter's accent is extremely good. Many people have commented that she sounds like a native speaker. You can repeat or skip any sections that you want to. You learn through pictures and video, conversations, and also through extensive writing/grammar exercises. The entire program can be done on the computer.

As a mom who homeschools 5 children, and who has only a basic knowledge of Spanish, I really appreciated the fact that my daughter could do her entire Spanish program on her own. That freed up my time to help her with some of her other classwork. With Fluenz, I know my children could learn any language, regardless of my own person knowledge. The only negative to this program is that there is a lot of repetition. So if you have a child who highly dislikes repetition, they may not like it.

But honestly, without the repetition, you probably will not retain much of what you learned. Soon, when my daughter is done with this program, she is going to test out of college Spanish through the CLEP program. You can get up to 14 college credits that way. I tend to be very picky about curriculum, but I have to say that I cannot be more pleased with Fluenz.

The concept for this software is good. However it would be better if you could select which lessons and sections you'd like to use and have it randomize it for you. After a while I realized that I wasn't pulling the information from my knowledge of the language, but my memorization of the patterns from the software. Also - this software does not work out of the box in Windows 8.

Fluenz does not put instructions on how to install it on their website, you have to contact them and they make you jump through a lot of hoops to provide your order ids, etc before they'll help. If it's a new order this might not be difficult, but if you receive this as a gift or don't have that information after a few years, then you're probably out of luck. Fluenz is the best Spanish program we have used. We are homeschoolers, and over the years I tried several different programs with our children, including Rosetta stone, Berlitz, and Learnables.

All of them fell short of our expectations. Fluenz is absolutely amazing compared to those other programs. (Rosetta Stone was very confusing to my daughter, because they never explained anything, and expected her to learn through 'immersion.' I did the Rosetta Stone program myself up to level/year 4, and I think I only gained about 1-2 years of high school level Spanish ) The Fluenz program is highly superior to all the other programs. It provides a teacher who speaks in English, and who teaches the lesson and explains anything that is confusing. The practices are very thorough, and my daughter's accent is extremely good.

Many people have commented that she sounds like a native speaker. You can repeat or skip any sections that you want to. You learn through pictures and video, conversations, and also through extensive writing/grammar exercises. The entire program can be done on the computer.

As a mom who homeschools 5 children, and who has only a basic knowledge of Spanish, I really appreciated the fact that my daughter could do her entire Spanish program on her own. That freed up my time to help her with some of her other classwork. With Fluenz, I know my children could learn any language, regardless of my own person knowledge.

The only negative to this program is that there is a lot of repetition. So if you have a child who highly dislikes repetition, they may not like it.

But honestly, without the repetition, you probably will not retain much of what you learned. Soon, when my daughter is done with this program, she is going to test out of college Spanish through the CLEP program. You can get up to 14 college credits that way. I tend to be very picky about curriculum, but I have to say that I cannot be more pleased with Fluenz. I never review products, however I will make an exception in this case. While I cannot compare Fluenz to other Spanish language software, I can compare it to the two years of H.S.

Spanish, a year of Latin and two years of German in college. I really wish this was available back when I struggled with those courses. This requires work, but it is not tedious. Update: My wife, daughter, and I recently took a trip to Mexico.not to the resorts.

We traveled throughout the country with the skills learned from this awesome software. This was the point at which I realized that Fluenz is teaching you the phrases and vocab to effectively communicate and ultimately enjoy your time 'off the tourist trail'. I really wish I could rate higher. Next trip.Peru! I absolutely loved this program!

I first purchased Fluenz for Spanish after I had already completed all five levels of Rosetta Stone and was looking for something else to help further my learning. Once I began using Fluenz, I realized that it was a far superior program. Sonia served as a wonderful Spanish tutor throughout all five levels, breaking the lessons down in a way that fostered true learning. The lessons are practical, relevant and fun all at the same time. My Spanish proficiency is much stronger after having completed all five levels, and my only regret is that there aren't five more levels for me to tackle.

I would definitely be willing to make an additional investment if Sonia and her team ever decides to create an advanced-level program. I highly recommend this program to anyone looking to gain at least an intermediate level of understanding of the Spanish language. I purchased this course back in 2011, and started it then got busy and went on to other things. I recently went back to it, and it is new and improved! It is now available as an on-line experience, and can also be used on devices such as IPAD. I wrote them to see if I was eligible for the on-line version, and they immediately set me up at no extra charge over my original purchase price. I am really enjoying the course.

The Ipad format is most convenient for me as I can use it during commercials, or other times when I'm not at my computer. I even use it when I'm having insomnia!

The audio is perfect and clear with a crisp accent. That is so helpful for people learning a language.

The workouts really help you retain what you just learned. Over the years, I've tried a number of courses, and made headway in all of them, but this is by far the best I've experienced, Mike. I went on a vacation to Costa Rica, and resolved to learn Spanish. I studied French in high school and college, and I enjoyed it for the most part. I've NEVER had an opportunity to actually use my French, as I've found that everyone who speaks French usually speaks English. So, I thought I would try to learn Spanish, and maybe I could actually use it.

I found a website which reviewed many Spanish Learning Software packages, and many of them are only PC compatible. The two highest rated Mac compatibles were Fluenz and Rosetta Stone, #2 & #3, respectively. I had seen the Rosetta Stone commercials ad nauseum, so I thought it would be a good starting point. The 'no drills' and 'no memorization' aspects sounded great, so RS was my starting point.

I started out with Rosetta Stone 1, 2, & 3. RS is a beautiful program, with lovely pictures, and an intuitive interface. There were many, many times when I was clueless as to what to do, so I would just click until I got it right. RS would sense this, and would present the material again until I scored 90% or better.

However, there WERE times when I would figure out the answer through the process off elimination, without truly understanding what I was saying/doing. For example, 'comprar': did it mean 'to shop' or 'to buy'? I couldn't tell.

Also, the speech recognition on Rosetta Stone could prove to be very temperamental. There were some words, some ONE-SYLLABLE words, that RS simply couldn't accept. I would record them with my iPhone, and play it back into the microphone, and it STILL wouldn't work. These occasions were rare, but troublesome. There were multi-syllable words or phrases that I had to use the iPhone trick for.

I could repeat it one hundred times into the microphone, and it would NEVER NEVER accept what I said. After a while, I felt like I was getting great practice on how to record phrases with my iPhone, but for learning Spanish, my progress was slow. Also, I wasn't learning anything practical for use as a tourist. I want to learn how to bargain a little bit: 'I will give you fifty, OK?' I wasn't getting that with Rosetta Stone. I think I completed Disc 2 of RS.

Again, it was good, but there were many things that I wasn't sure about. I heard about Fluenz from that website, and decided to give it a try. I ordered 1+2+3+4+5. A bit ambitious, but, like anything, the unit price goes down when you buy in bulk. I just finished up the first disc, so I'm not at any kind of expert level, but I liked what I've seen so far.

I feel like I've really nailed the present tense conjugations of the following words: To Be (both Estar and Ser), To Go (very useful for meatball future tense), To Want, To Need, To Eat, To Drink. These words will get a tourist through a great many situations. Fluenz's approach is different than Rosetta Stone. They start with Sonia Gil giving an intro, then a simple conversation between two or more people. You can listen to it without subtitles, with Spanish subtitles, or with English and Spanish subtitles.

You should listen to it three times, once with each subtitle option. Sonia comes back, and breaks down the dialog, explaining what each word means, and how they relate to each other. There are then various drills, many of which involve typing down what you hear. These are challenging, and fun for me.

I pride myself on my spelling, and these can be hard but satisfying to complete. Fluenz does NOT use voice-recognition, which simply and effectively eliminates the frustrations I had with RS. My accent may not be as polished as it might be with RS, but at least I'm not fretting about getting stuck on a certain passage, wondering if it is me or the computer that is at fault. However, Fluenz DOES make use of the microphone. The aforementioned conversations are repeated, with you taking the role of one of the characters. You say the line that is shown, and click 'stop', and the conversation continues.

You then play back the conversation, so you can hear your own voice. At that point in the lesson, you can tell if your accent is crap or not. And this works for me. I want to be a tourist, not a Telemundo newscaster. If I can crack a joke in Spanish, and make a senorita laugh, then this whole language thing will have paid off. One thing I've found to be kind of humorous: Sonia Gil is very attractive.

Sometimes my mind goes blank, as I'm just staring at her face, and I miss what she said completely. MacBook users: Both Rosetta Stone and Fluenz work beautifully with my 2009 MacBook. No external microphones needed.

RS adjusts the sensitivity of the microphone automatically, Fluenz does not. You will have to go System Preferences/Sound to adjust it. Once you do, it is done. I recommend Fluenz over Rosetta Stone, especially if you are an adult who wants to 'speak tourist'. Rosetta Stone is good, but the little snags proved to be frustrating for me. Fluenz is more real world oriented, with expressions like: 'We are going to the store together, would you like to come?' , whereas Rosetta Stone had expressions like: 'The car is in front of the house' or 'the dog wants meat' The people at Fluenz are great as well.

I ordered 1+2+3+4+5, but I only received 1+2+3. I contacted Amazon, who said 'Because Fluenz's inventory is constantly changing, we can't replace items sold by them that are Fulfilled by Amazon.'

I could either return the whole thing, or they could refund part of the money. I let Fluenz know about this, and they promptly sent me the missing discs 4+5.

So Fluenz's customer service is great. Over educated young college grads. Follow Up: 5/17/10: I've been using Fluenz, off and on, (it's hard to remain focused), but to address my previous statement: 'For example, 'comprar': did it mean 'to shop' or 'to buy'? I couldn't tell. ' Comprar means both 'to shop for' and 'to buy'.

I trade comments with Sonia on Facebook, she's the best! Nothing wrong with Rosetta Stone, but Fluenz is the real deal, in my opinion. Simply the best. I spoke 0 spanish prior to this, and knew nothing and now in level 4 I can hold up a conversation.

Sonia takes you and is your tutor for the whole program. She explains everything and never leaves you confused with something, but if you are confused, Fluenz has a whole online community that you can ask questions and an employee writes back to you. Or other users write back to you. The online community is fantastic. It is other people trying to learn just like you are. Fluenz takes you on a journey and your own personal tutor is there for it. Sonia is fantastic.

The workouts in fluenz make you remember the words without countless hours of just studying vocab. I'm halfway done with level 4 and at most 1 workout takes me 30-45 mins at level 4. I'm halfway done with level 4, and I watch Spanish TV everyday and I have many Spanish friends who i talk with. I can have a conversation in Spanish at this point.

Fluenz sets up the ground work, but you have to get out there and do more to get that much better. Everyday since lesson 1 at level 1 I was watching TV in Spanish. Fluenz will get to a high level, but with any language program, you need to put work in to get results. This is a serious program for serious people who want to learn spanish. And you will get serious results.

And fluenz is the best program out there to help you learn. BUY THIS PROGRAM IS YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUT LEARNING SPANISH. YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT. WORTH EVERY CENT. I “upgraded” from Duolingo (a decent, inexpensive product, but not moving me forward in an acceptable way). I have found Fluenz to be thorough (I don’t want to just learn a new word, I want to learn how to conjugate a verb, when it’s appropriate to use one word instead of another, any variations I might expect to encounter – I really appreciate Sonia’s detailed explanations of these things), easy to follow and comprehensive (I really like the immersive combination of speaking, writing, going from Spanish to English and English to Spanish).

Finally, I’m really impressed at how the “workouts” press me a little on alternate phrases (pushing me to fill in knowledge from prior lessons and to learn various ways to use a word). It wasn’t cheap. I bought the whole Spanish set (150 lessons?). Unfortunately, it takes a while and I am not moving as quickly as I would like (due to my own time limitations), but I feel really good about the progress I am making – when I complete a lesson, I have really learned something. Thanks to the Fluenz team for a fine product – well thought-out and very useful. A few years ago, I took a job that required me to live in China. Naturally I wanted to learn a bit of the language so I plopped down a pile of money on Rosetta Stone Mandarin.

Six months later, I had decent vocabulary and no ability to speak or understand a lick. Fluenz was new to the market at that time and so I gave them a shot. I immediately began to pick it up and use it on my travels. The combination of listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating in both directions.worked for me. While both Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur would have you believe that their approach 'let's you learn a new language the way you learned your first,' trust me when I say that's ridiculous.

You only get to learn your first language once, and that's while you're a little sponge running around the house listening to your parent. The Fluenz approach is designed for adults who are trying to add a language, and frankly I think it's the right way.

I like the their programs so much that I went on to Spanish as a refresher for my secondary school studies (40 years hence) and I just ordered French for my 2014 challenge. On top of the quality of the program and how well it works, Fluenz is an excellent company that supports its users and products.

Every question I've asked has been answered quickly, politely and efficiently. Their ordering process is without peer, I ordered French at 3:50PM last Thursday and received it at 11AM Friday, and I live on the other side of the country. And, as a repeat customer they offer significant discounts each year around Christmas. If you want to learn and you're willing to devote the time, Fluenz is the way to go. I can't wait to move on to Italian and German. The lessons are thoughtfully planned out, keeping the pace manageable. You're not forced to memorize tons of verb conjugations up front.

Instead, they're woven-in gradually. Learning a language is all about repetition, so there's plenty of time to introduce tougher material in small bites, without ever having to torture the student. I took Spanish I & II in college. And when I purchased Fluenz, I also bought Rosetta Stone. Between these three methods, I find Fluenz to be by far the best. I do a lesson each morning when I arrive at the office.

I actually look forward to it. I'm almost done with the second disc. The effort that when into preparing these lessons is obvious, and it really makes life easier for the student.

A full session from Fluenz Mandarin 1+2 version 1. This software was designed by a small team with a clear mission: get people speaking Chinese as quickly as possible. We designed and built our ideal learning program, combining common sense, solid linguistics and the latest technology to allow for faster learning of what's truly relevant. At the center of fluenz mandarin is a real life instructor, Sonia Gil, a Cornell graduate who went to China to learn Mandarin herself and whose more than 150 video clips in English are embedded throughout the program. Fluenz has been designed around three objectives: 1.

Fluenz Spanish

Instead of learning with Chinese logic, you need to start by relating basic Chinese grammar and syntax to that of English 2. You need to start learning those few words and structures that will allow you to communicate the most in the least amount of time and 3. You need to learn in a way that will allow you to internalize the material to avoid quickly forgetting what you just heard.