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Instant Immersion Spanish Levels 1, 2 & 3
by Lions
I've been wanting to learn Spanish for many months now but all of the free ways to do it just were not working for me. After hearing some good things about the infamous Rosetta Stone, I decided to look into that. However, that idea was thrown violently out the window when I saw the £479 price tag on Amazon. After a bit more searching, ... I came across Instant Immersion Spanish. The packaging stated that it was "As effective as RosettaStone for a fraction of the cost!". Unfortunately, only the "fraction of the cost" part is true, for the "as effective" definitely is not.
.:~First Impressions~:.
I was very excited when Instant Immersion Spanish finally arrived in the mail. The packaging looks very professional and the back of the box states all the reasons why Instant Immersion is superior to both Rosetta Stone and Berlitz (another major language learning software which I will mention later in this review). After seeing all of the advantages, I was naturally very excited to try out Instant Immersion.
.:~Installation~:.
Installation of the software was a breeze for me. I just popped in the first CD and it installed very quickly and painlessly. I will also note that just in case you were wondering, the CD is required to be in the computer to use it, so even after installation you must make sure you've got the CDs. This is annoying, but it's hardly different from much other software so I can't really complain.
Unfortunately, Instant Immersion starts to seriously lose some points in the installation section though, for I soon found that EVERY TIME you insert a new CD you must install that CD too. Since I already knew a little bit of Spanish prior to purchasing this product, I soon found the first CD to be rather ineffective as I already knew pretty much everything on it. So I popped in Level 1 Lesson 2, and found that I needed to install that too! Just to be sure this wasn't just some crazy bug or whatever, I tried out Level 2 Lesson 1. Another installation. Let me tell you, it's a big pain. Imagine purchasing Microsoft Office (the whole package) and having to spend 10-20 minutes installing Word, then doing the same for Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Publisher, OneNote, etc. That's what this was like. Time-consuming.
.:~Effectiveness~:.
This software is far from effective as effective as Rosetta Stone. First of all, it has a very unprofessional and disorganized manner of teaching you. There is no way of tracking your progress. The pictures they use to represent actions or objects are unclear and confusing. For example, when I think of "thank you very much", I don't picture two poorly drawn hands shaking. And that's not all, a bunch of their pictures are worthless in assisting you.
Another very frustrating aspect of this software is that it doesn't have any way of helping you with words or phrases you are having trouble with. The best way I can give an example of this is the "Berlitz" language learning software, which I purchased soon after I realized what a piece of crap Instant Immersion was. With Berlitz, when you get a question wrong, it gives you the correct answer, and then another question, and then the one after that they give you the same question you got wrong a second time. If you get it correct this time, they will ask you another question, and then come back to that same one you got wrong AGAIN. They do this again and again so it and you learn the phrase easier and more naturally through repetition. With Instant Immersion, a wrong question means NOTHING. It simply moves on, leaving you to struggle to learn the words. It is insanely frustrating, it's almost like the software is working AGAINST you. I really have no idea how anyone uses this to help them, it made me angry after a couple of minutes of sitting at it.
.:~iPod and MP3 Lesson~:.
Instant Immersion also sports a lesson that you can put on your iPod or MP3 player. I only really used it once but I have to give them credit for it, it worked pretty good. It's certainly better than their computer software, probably because I didn't have to look at confusing pictures that look like they were made by kids in kindergarten (just kidding, that would be an insult to the kids as I'm sure they can draw much better pictures than the ones Instant Immersion uses.) Seriously, I don't understand why Instant Immersion didn't just try to make their software as effective as their portable lesson, they would probably much more successful. As it is, the portable lesson is what keeps them from getting a one star review.
.:~Recommendations~:.
I would certainly not recommend this software to you if you are looking to learn Spanish quickly and easily. In fact, I wouldn't recommend any language learning software from Instant Immersion, for I read reviews on their Italian learning software and they all said pretty much what I have said here, meaning it's useless. I assume they simply have not tried out their own product or they would know how ineffective it is.
So what do I recommend for learning Spanish? Well first, if you could get in on a local class maybe at a community college or something, that would probably be the best thing for you. If that is not an option for you, then the next best thing would be to go for Rosetta Stone. I have some friends that used it to learn French and said it was very quick and easy, and worth the money. If that still isn't an option for you (remember, Rosetta Stone costs almost £500) then I suggest you take the same path I did. I picked up Berlitz Spanish Premier for only around £10, so it's even cheaper than Instant Immersion. I am very happy with Berlitz and it is much better than this software, and I will be leaving a very nice review on it sometimes soon here on DooYoo. In the meantime, I suggest you stay away from software made by this company, I wouldn't want you to become as frustrated as I am.
Adios!
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FIFA Superstars
by alnilam
I was quite happy to see one of the great game developers get involved in Facebook games and with cooperation with one of the in my opinion best game developers on Facebook at the time. With EA games and Playfish one could only expect a game with great potential and on a higher level than other Facebook games.
It was launched ... in the middle of the World cup so even I'm not exactly a football fan I installed it.
And then came the disappointment, my high expectations were shattered. It is basically a click and wait game. You are given a 'match credit' every six hours (up to 4 credits) which you use to play matches against other football clubs - in different leagues. How do you play a match? You click play button and that is it! You can then choose to watch the animation (which gets repetitive and I promise you you will not want to watch it twice) or thankfully skip it - tadaah you get the result. Result is determined by your skill (average skill of your players - you get them by purchasing random packs of 5 players so don't dream of signing Ronaldo anytime soon, its all luck), your training (you get training points by training your team - by clicking train button and choosing the time period yawn, if you don't train you will loose training points) and luck, the later being the most important from my experience, which kind off kills the fun.
There you have it that's all the game-play there is, well you can 'decorate' your stadium with a few training aids'.
Goal of the game is probably to become as good as you can and beat all the leagues that are given (they will be adding them regularly) with free match credits (attainable by waiting 6 hours per credit or playing with your friends once a day - max 3 extra credits) this alone will take ages. You can also purchase match credits with your real life cash but for a game like this I would not go there.
Not all is black though, the game does have great flash graphic and pretty good music.
I recommend it only to those that need finger exercise since this will add about 50 clicks per day to your routine and for those who like collecting things, since getting the right team together requires collectors nerves and patience - since for top rated players it will take days to get enough coins to purchase them (without reaching in your own wallet)
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Rosetta Stone: Spanish (Level 1 & 2)
by RachyD
Rosetta stone works on the principal that you can learn a language as an adult exactly the same way as you did as child. Primarily this means you are repeatedly shown pictures associated with words and eventually you'll figure out how the words being said correlate to the picture.
**For example, you'll see 4 pictures, one a ... red ball, one a blue ball, one a green ball and the fourth a yellow ball. A native Spanish speaker will say 'A blue ball' (but in spanish of course!) and you'll see these words written in Spanish. It is then up to you, initially via trial and error, to match the words to the correct picture.**
I found that because you use trial and error initially to come to understand what's being said then it tends to stick with me better than if I'd just read some vocab in a book. Because I've actually had to use my brain (if only to eliminate 3 pictures before arriving at the correct one!) then I will remember more. It helps that every time you make a wrong choice the phrase is repeated so if nothing else you hear that same phrase over and over and the words stick in your brain.
The initial vocab you learn (the standard dog, cat) is built upon, gradually pulling in new aspects (questions, verbs etc) whilst revisiting things you've already learnt to really drum it in and to keep it fresh in your mind. This combination of things I've already learnt and things I don't know works really well for me and realising I can understand half a sentence keeps me motivated enough to figure out what the other half means.
My only negative is the price, over £200 mark for levels 1 & 2. Not great if you're not 100% sure about the language you want to learn, or about your dedication to learning but well worth the money if it's something you really want to do!
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