Answer Question
"Seasoned Citizens" beware Spanish lessons
I've written about his before and at least one post has been removed from this site because they don't want you to know, even though program development ceased a long time ago (from what I can see) and nothing will be done about it.
Seniors often have hearing issues and many of us use hearing aids of one sort or another, me included.
In the Spanish Upgraded program there are workouts where a lady speaks Spanish phrases and you are to decode them to English and write them down. Well, I'm here to tell you that if you have significant hearing issues for high-pitched sounds and you can't use your hearing aids with the program - like me, I have to use headphones - the lady saying the phrases you are supposed to translate is nearly unintelligible. In contrast, I can understand the "dialog" voices at the beginning of the lesson just fine ("Isabella", "Oliver", etc.). However, "Ms. Mushmouth" of the workouts sounds as if she has a half cup of oatmeal in her mouth as she's attempting the phrases. As you can imagine, it's very hard to learn to translate to English when what you hear is "mishzhsh fshkwero estchas" from Ms. Mushmouth.
I was in Madrid for a few days in early August 2023, with hearing aids, and the words people were saying were perfectly understandable. I didn't understand the sentences very well at my Spanish level, but I could hear every "word" very clearly. I would like the voice actors in Fluenz to enunciate clearly so I could "hear" the lesson as if I was hearing someone speak in front of me.
So, beware of at least this one issue. It's a shame they didn't use the same voice actors for the Workouts as they did for the Dialogs because the Dialog voices enunciate clearly and are therefore much easier to understand.
I am plowing ahead because the rest of the Fluenz program is excellent, and I try to get through the Ms. Mushmouth episodes as best I can.
Seniors often have hearing issues and many of us use hearing aids of one sort or another, me included.
In the Spanish Upgraded program there are workouts where a lady speaks Spanish phrases and you are to decode them to English and write them down. Well, I'm here to tell you that if you have significant hearing issues for high-pitched sounds and you can't use your hearing aids with the program - like me, I have to use headphones - the lady saying the phrases you are supposed to translate is nearly unintelligible. In contrast, I can understand the "dialog" voices at the beginning of the lesson just fine ("Isabella", "Oliver", etc.). However, "Ms. Mushmouth" of the workouts sounds as if she has a half cup of oatmeal in her mouth as she's attempting the phrases. As you can imagine, it's very hard to learn to translate to English when what you hear is "mishzhsh fshkwero estchas" from Ms. Mushmouth.
I was in Madrid for a few days in early August 2023, with hearing aids, and the words people were saying were perfectly understandable. I didn't understand the sentences very well at my Spanish level, but I could hear every "word" very clearly. I would like the voice actors in Fluenz to enunciate clearly so I could "hear" the lesson as if I was hearing someone speak in front of me.
So, beware of at least this one issue. It's a shame they didn't use the same voice actors for the Workouts as they did for the Dialogs because the Dialog voices enunciate clearly and are therefore much easier to understand.
I am plowing ahead because the rest of the Fluenz program is excellent, and I try to get through the Ms. Mushmouth episodes as best I can.