Feedbacks Fluenz Spanish - Spain version - after completion of the 5 levels
I have just finished the 5 levels of Fluenz Spain version of Spanish. Throughout the course I took notes with the issues (and reported most of them) and the difficulties I encountered during the program.
I will highlight them here in the hope that Fluenz will address them or at least consider them for improvement.
This is more to be considered constructive criticisms or lessons learned, as Fluenz is a commercial program.
Theses are mostly my views but we are two people in our family taking the same program and we both agree on our feedback.
I was primarily using the web version.
This program has helped us so we consider that the investment was worthwhile and we will most likely recommend the product to our friends.
Here we go:
1 – Irregular verbs in preterit are inserted in some of the early lessons when the verb and the tense have not yet been reviewed. (Lesson 4 – level 5)
2 – Speed of speakers – especially Isabella, Sonia and the taxi driver in the earlier sessions. I have stuck to the program till the end hoping that I would understand properly by the end of the course. There were some sessions where I could not grasp what there were saying without the translation. I repeated the sentence up to a dozen times without success. I would recommend improving the program to have a slow down option (like Yabla) to slow down the speech when needed. This was VERY frustrating!
Switching to the Latin American version was not an option. They spoke very slowly… so we had two extremes. Personally I did not like Isabella’s voice, I preferred Claudia, as her voice is clearer and softer.
3 – There are no voice recognition exercises: Some of the other commercial programs have them included. I recognize that the voice recognition is not 100% but it would help in the pronunciation when you say a word and the system rates you for the understanding of that word based on your pronunciation.
4 – Lesson 4 – level 4: The summary indicates Chili (same as the Latin American version). This needs to be cleaned up as the lesson indicates a trip somewhere else. Was reported.
5 – The program is somewhat inflexible. For example you do not accept Madre when Fluenz wants Mamá.
6 – Throughout the program Fluenz never rmentioned the preterit tense. It was referred as simple past tense to distinguish it from the Imperfect, but why not call a spade, a spade and call the tenses by their exact names?
7 – In the web version, Fluenz misses may times part of the first Word of the dialog when going into the lesson directly via the web version. One had to repeat to get the full sentence
8 - Suggest indicating a normal time of study in the summary of each lesson. The earlier lessons are shorter than the later ones. It will give a guideline on how much time you can spend just for planning purpose.
9 - In “Type the sentence you read”, one sometimes a correct sentence but it is not accepted. To go forward one needs to copy and paste the answer and accept it. This is both on the web version and the CD version. It happened to both of us.
10 – In “Pick the right answer”: I believe that this does not show in the workout menus of the individual lessons. In any case, when the right answer is chosen it should go automatically to the next one, like “match the pictures”. Would also suggest some type of subtitle in the earlier sessions (or option for it) for the meaning of the sentence.
11 – level 5: Would recommend more but shorter reviews.
12 – Numbers: Spelling of numbers when using the numerical form.
13 – lesson 5-20. Irregular verbs. This lesson is confusing. Would recommend to explore how Standard Deviants explain those.
14 - Unfortunately Fluenz uses what is called “pedestrian” English. For example the verb “sacar is to take out” or “volver to return”.
Fluenz basically uses these words to say : “I got money out of the bank machine” instead off “I took out” and “I got back” instead of “I returned”. I am not great with the English language (not my first language) but I would recommend Fluenz to do better.
15 – The level 5 Spain version has many bugs (many reported). It was annoying!
16 – Would recommend to add specific DVDs or Podcasts on higher level of grammar for those who are interested.
17 – It needs a level 6 concentrating on comprehension, speaking and so on. In any case I do not consider myself now fluent in Spanish. Merely an intermediate level and I need to explore other options to improve.
18 – The current podcasts: I listened to one and was turned off and did not try the higher levels. The CDs are OK as a complement to a course.
19 – Current Commons: This is good. The only issue I had with those was the login. Sometimes I had to re-login multiple times to go to where I wanted.
20 – Not sure if the program can customize itself depending on interests, current knowledge of the language and grammar and age. group So I learned the terms for how to play tennis or golf, go to a bank, and open an account, but I will never do these activities as I do not intent to live in the country or play these sports (I am too old). Maybe at some point when Fluenz is more mature?
Overall the most frustrating parts were the speed and understanding of some of the sentences by the native speakers and the length of the lessons in the higher levels.
Good luck to everyone and thank you for letting me posting this.
Status:
Open Jun 16, 2015 - 12:17 PM
Spanish, Spanish > Culture