Global Spanish: Interactive Language Course

Spanish For The Desktop Learner

A Review of Global Spanish: Interactive Language Course

Grace Smith

Perhaps you’re a business professional who will traveling out of the country soon. Or maybe you’re planning to vacation south of the border for a week or two. Possibly you’re a student who needs to conquer Foreign Language 101, once and for all. Or you’re a parent who thinks your children can learn to speak another language.

Or, as a teacher of foreign language, you’d like to recommend some innovative software for practice at home. Whoever you are and whatever your needs, Global Spanish can help you learn to understand, speak, read, and write in the Spanish language in a self-paced, fun environment. This software has many exceptional features, exercises, music, and graphics. You can even add a microphone, and record your pronunciation to compare with pre-recorded words, phrases, and sentences!

Skills and Themes:

Global Spanish offers an exciting menu of themes for learners at different levels of skills. Designed to be totally flexible, Global Spanish allows you to choose from the following:

Skills (3 levels of language structure – beginner, intermediate, advanced)

Vocabulary (learn nouns, adjectives, and other parts of speech)

Verbs (understand and use gender endings, tenses)

Phrases (construct phrases)

Sentences (combine words and phrases to create complete sentences)

Rules of Grammar (refer to definitions and examples)

Themes (language content and meaning)

Numbers and Dates

Food and Eating

Travel

Weather and Time

General

Entertainment

People

Shopping and Clothes

At Home and Money

In Business

The program’s superb features include:

English/Spanish conversions – allows you to toggle between English pictures/text and Spanish text (and vice versa).

Audio text – allows you to hear all or some of the text currently displayed.

Dictionary of 1000 words – includes Spanish/English translation, parts of speech, audio text, pictorial representation where appropriate, and the ability to add your own words.

La Notepad – lets you create, edit, print, and save text files which can then be used in word processors and other programs.

Parrot Mode – lets you hear pre-recorded audio, record yourself, then play back the recording.

Sound On/Off – toggles sound off or on in the test section.

Time Graph – automatically charts your performance in each of the disciplines for 30 days.

Test -offers Word Search, Multiple Choice, Combined, Fruit Machine, and Building Blocks.

User Profile – automatically records your progress and achievement.

In Spain – lets you listen to, create, and play back animated, Spanish conversations, record the session, break the conversation into steps, and/or practice the spoken Spanish for each exchange in the scenario.

Global Spanish includes a 48 page manual, troubleshooting help, and technical support information. It is part of Mindscape’s Global Language Series which also includes French and German.

Summary: An impressive program for users of all ages.

School House Scorecard

Product:	Global Spanish: Interactive Language Course
Company:	Mindscape, Inc. 60 Leveroni Court Novato, CA 94949 Phone: 415-883-5157 AOL keyword: MINDSCAPE CompuServe: GO MINDSCAPE
Cost:	Not Available

System Requirements:

Base Specification for CD-ROM installation:
386 DX-40 or higher, DOS 3.3 or higher,
Windows 3.1 or higher, 4 MB RAM. 2 MB free disk space,
Windows compatible sound system, CD-ROM drive.

Recommended specification for CD-ROM installation:
486 SX-25, 4 MB Windows 3.1/8 MB Windows 3.11,
DOS 5.0 or higher, hard disk with 50 MB or above with
free disk space for storing recorded conversations,
Windows compatible sound system, CD-ROM drive
and a Super VGA 640 X 256 color display.

Breakdown:

Ease of Use 5
Learning Value 5
Entertainment Value 5
Graphics 5
Sound 5

Overall Score: