Say It In: Spanish

reviewed by Robert Pritchett

Transparent Language takes learning languages from the point of strong grammar understanding mixed with multimedia and a hypertext-like interfaceusing vocabulary, 15 lessons, pronunciation exercises and dialog activities.

I went to see the Spanish Say It In Spanish version, even though there are other languages available and there is a Learning Suite http://www.transparent.com/languagepages/spanish/spanish.htm based mainly on Castellano and not Latin American Spanish.

There is free software, vocabulary-building games, other resources, online quizzes, a Word of the Day and a Spanish Language Meetup Group to find out if there are local folks who are doing essentially a Spanish Language Users Group. If not, there are resources available to create one. I’m guessing that Transparent Language has done the same format for the other languages they offer.

The CD has 15 lessons and those have video clips, that tie in with the displayed sentences. There are also buttons that go to lesson quizzes, voice practice and other areas that engage your brain to enhance learning the concepts.

The opening window shows the agenda, the buttons along the bottom open up vocabulary cards per lesson, a link to the website, etc.

The Practice Vocabulary also links to the Before You Know It (BYKI) website for more interesting information regarding languages, academics and fun facts. To use, this requires a free download of BYKI Lite.

Lists from a file or from the BYKI site can be added to the List page that appears here when the Practice Vocabulary button is selected.

When a lesson is selected from the main page, the screen will look like this:

Each lesson is laid out with tool buttons along the top, a dialogue follow-along box, navigation tools, a video window where a person speaks the languages according to the text shown in the Segment Meaning section. There are also Word, Root and Phrase meaning sections as well as a Grammar section, Notes and Check Words for further study.

The buttons along the top open  Conversation Practice, one of five game scenarios, one of three dictation or pronunciation activities (Listen and Speak), the main lesson screen (Illustration Mode) , an audio visual feedback graph section (Sound Palette), just the dialogue box, or the Theater Mode. There is also a Help button that acts as the User Guide and plays nicely with Mac OS X.

To me, the pages look very “hypercardish”, but the audio and video works great and the lessons pull up quickly and correctly. I found it interesting that the online links pull towards enhancements to the program for the other apps available from Transparent Language. This makes the Say It In series appear to be a loss-leader app with the intent to get us to quickly advance to the other “better” apps.

The complete Suites contain:

·       Learn Language Now! - the top rated program that leverages the Transparent method. Immerse yourself in language articles and videos to learn quickly.

·       PDQ Audio - a complete language audio learning course on 4 CDs with a workbook.

·       Before You know It - learn phrases and vocabulary with Perfect Recall in a flash.

• Translation Dictionaries - access over 65,000 words and their translations.

For beginners who feel the need to get into the grammar side of things, Say It In leads one to the other apps. Go ahead and give it a try.

There are also the Languages of the World Series for $20 USD each: