That said I feel a lot of it has to do with having someone who can speak Spanish around as well. I am personally amazed at the level of Spanish I have learned in 3 months and my wife is blown away. Without my wife I would not have the drive or care to continue learning Spanish but hey we all need some reason. My wife took 4 years of Spanish in HS and 2 years in College. I have been progressing through Rosetta Stone. On the other hand, those podcasts, youtube videos are good for improving listening skills, however, due to lack of systematic structure, relying on them alone would be like building a house without architecture diagrams. Also the videos on SD don't help much with listening. In hindsight, I would not cram through so much "grammar rules" before I got a feel for the speaking language first. I did the SD videos first, before I found out about Pimsleur. Since you are pressed on time to pick up Spanish to a certain level before your friends' visit, I would suggest to use the Pimsleur level I DVDs in parallel to SD videos. Plus, all of your Latin American friends are native speakers, so they will understand you (or not ) regardless the dialect you use. I would go down the path of least resistance. To me the Peninsular Spanish sounds clearer and more distinct than the Latin American talking style. Perhaps you can listen to some podcasts in different dialects, to see which one sounds easier to your ears. It wouldn´t be difficult to add and it would really help. I don't know why they don´t include short authentic texts using the target vocabulary and recordings of full conversations at gradually increasing speeds. I think it is worth the money if you are just starting out. It probably does help you with reading because it teaches you how to guess what things mean from context. Rosetta Stone is a good substitute for traditional flashcards, it helps you with skills like spelling and vocabulary and pronunciation, it does not help with listening at all because they speak so slowly and only in individual sentences, and now that it includes lessons with native speaker I imagine it might help with speaking now, while it did not before. Also the Latin America one doesn´t teach vosotros, so it really depends on where you want to travel to, as someone probably pointed out already. And there are some differences in vocabulary. Of course the accents are different, but they are very neutral in both. In both they speak very slowly (naturally slowly even) and clearly. I have only used version 3, not 4, but the Latin American and Spanish versions are almost the same. And they almost always comment on how good my accent is. When I converse with a Spanish-speaker they are always very surprised that I start speaking Spanish to them (I guess I look pretty Gringo). meaning it will only accept what I say if it really sounds like the native-speaker in the course. I turned the "accept" level when I say something to the highest level. Price some local classes and then figure in the gas and calculate out what it would cost for a few courses. if you keep your eyes open, you can find it right from Rosetta Stone's website for around $450 for all 5 levels. but it's amazing how you pick stuff up without knowing what you are learning! By this, I mean that they don't explain grammar or structure. Rosetta Stone (admittedly) doesn't teach you anything. You can go back and do the Sessions over and over and over again as many times as you wish. 50 minutes of 100% Spanish (or whatever language you are learning). In these sessions you talk to a Coach and up to 3 other learners and discuss the Unit that you just learned. There are typing games, and speaking games available for both listed above.Īlso, after every Unit, you sign up for Sessions. and that are learning your native-language. You can also play games with people that are fluent in the language you are learning. You can play games with people that are fluent in your native-language that are learning the same language that you are learning. The course is the same, but with TOTALe, you can now go online and play games with other learners at the same level as you. I had Version 3 and was able to upgrade to Version 4 (TOTALe). Cuz I've just tried a test version of Level 3 (Version 3) and wasn't impressed at all.
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