Superb, thorough site devoted to beginners! (studyspanish.com)

Member Name: tdilly

Product:	studyspanish.com
Date:	24/06/02 (734 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An excellent introduction to Spanish grammar. Methodical, logical, complete. Easy to follow, many examples, quizzes & tests.

Disadvantages: None -- it's a self-paced program requiring student dedication, which is *not* a disadvantage.

I believe Study Spanish (hereinafter "SS") is the best free instructional site for *any* topic on the web, whether a language or any other subject. It does a wonderful job of presenting Spanish fundamentals to beginners. Truly, beginners are SS' intended audience & the site addresses that group exceptionally well.

I also think the earlier reviewer (martinaheale) misunderstood the site's purpose. She says users should not "... expect to learn about pronunciation hearing examples ..." (sic). However, SS does not purport to teach conversational Spanish & short of offering streaming audio, analogy is the only way to explain the sound of an 'a' in Spanish (like the 'a' in "father").

I'm not sure what she expected for free. She fails to provide examples when she complains in just comprehensible English that, "... they explain that the spanish language separates their noun in gender they make their point and you can feel that there's something missing." (sic)

Well, Spanish does classify nouns by gender & the student must master that concept to speak properly. There are even a few words that are used with both genders & they have very different meanings depending on the gender that's used. For example, "el cura" is "the priest," but "la cura means "the cure."

It doesn't seem that martinaheale spent much time looking at the site. What's missing from SS for the beginner? The answer is, "not much, if anything at all!" The lessons are accurate, concise & easy to understand -- exactly what a beginner needs. I think the reviewer was biased by her native Spanish abilities & I believe her comments were far too harsh.

The free portion of SS -- which is far more extensive & much more complete than any other Spanish instructional site I've found -- is a *grammar* site. Now, it may be a form of adve
rtising for the owner's more complete course that teaches conversational Spanish, but so what. SS has dozens of excellent lessons & readers will be hard pressed to find another form of advertising that offers so much thorough instruction & so much useful detail, not to mention which is so well organized & clearly presented.

More than 60 separate grammatical units begin with the most basic elements & progress in very logical steps all the way through the subjunctive mood, one of Spanish's most difficult concepts for native English speakers. There are examples galore as well as quizzes & tests, and one doesn't need to know the first Spanish word or concept to realize immediate learning at the site. Equally important, SS explains English grammatical concepts when they are needed to help students grasp the Spanish equivalents.

I specifically take issue with the assessment that SS isn't for beginners. As stated above, the site focuses strictly on beginners. In fact, an advanced student (more than a year of college Spanish) will find little benefit at the site other than for review & perhaps vocabulary practice.

Additionally, I believe that if martinaheale's husband had devoted a mere 20-30 minutes a day every day to the site, he'd have had a tremendous understanding of Spanish in just 3-4 weeks. And with the advantage of a Spanish-speaking spouse, he could have gained an entire college semester's worth of knowledge & ability in just a couple of months.

But make no mistake: devotion to the task is mandatory. Self-study requires discipline & dedication, and learning a language requires dutiful study & continuous practice. Nothing will help the student who isn't dedicated to the effort, not even marriage to a native speaker.

I used the site extensively for 11 months beginning two years ago, when I first began to fulfill a 25-year desire to learn Spanish by enrolling in a local college cours
e. The alternative explanations & practice were invaluable in my studies. I now have a solid foundation of Spanish grammar & I believe SS contributed to my skills.

What's more, I referred my classmates to the site & received effusive thanks for doing so. SS was a valuable resource to those who wanted or needed extra practice. Any English speaker who devotes a reasonable amount of time to the site can begin to acquire the basics of Spanish grammar in just a couple of months.

It should be noted that students must register *only* view test results. Quizzes are reported online, but test results are sent to the email address provided at registration. Moreover, the owner is a man of his word when he says he does not use the registrant's email address for anything except to email the test results.

In conclusion, I want to reiterate the tremendous amount of education & practice offered completely gratis at the SS site. No other site offers as much Spanish instruction & a student can easily develop a solid basis in grammar & vocabulary without any cost whatsoever. In fact, I think reasonable readers will conclude that the impressive volume of topics & extensive practice actually impede the owner's goal of selling his complete course via the site.

Disclaimer: I am a former user of the SS site & nothing more. I have no material interest in the site, financial or otherwise. In addition, I have no relationship of any kind with the owner. I live in Texas & he lives in Alaska. Although I emailed him to report a couple of errors on the site & to ask for a clarification or two, we are thousands of miles apart & have never met. Please feel welcome to contact me directly for more information. You can write to dilly-dooyoo at dilly dot net.

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