Smart Start Spanish Deluxe
© 2000 Syracuse Language Systems (Vivendi)
This is a three-CD re-release of 1997's Smart Start Spanish and includes a grammar CD, a games CD and an audio CD. The most important components of the product are the thirty games and comic strips designed to help the learner read, speak and understand words and phrases in Spanish. Vocabulary and conversation are both presented. To use the program, you first you pick a mode— Listening, Reading or Speaking— and then a topic like food, numbers or people. For each subject, between five and seven non-glitzy games are offered, spread among three difficulty levels. Examples of activities include Concentration, Bingo and word/object matching games. The written materials are unusually comprehensive but the activities are relatively unexciting when compared to other programs for kids. The grammar CD contains mostly written instruction on grammar basics. Again, the presentation is fairly unexciting, but the information is useful. The third CD is simply a sound track of the program.
$39.95, Win 95, Win 3.1 (CD-ROM)
Teaches: Spanish, foreign language