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153 of 157 found the following review helpful:
 Slick and easy to use Nov 26, 2006
By C. Brown
A note to help you avoid some confusion. Instant Immersion appears to be a discontinued program. Though it is produced by Topix Entertainment it has a license from a company called Auralog, that makes a program (also available on Amazon) called "Talk to Me Spanish". When you use the online features of Instant Immersion, you find yourself at a site called "Talk to Me" and the icon on your desktop for Instant Immersion is also labeled "Talk to Me". It appears that the Talk to Me Spanish program is the current offering, costs $5 more and offers some additional features beyond what you get with Instant Immersion, in particular three different leaning modes.
On to the review...
In my native English, it isn't the rules of grammar or pronunciation that I know (and I don't know many), but simply what sounds right and what doesn't that lets me know if someone is speaking "good English". I reached that point I'm sure by imitating those I heard speaking when I was a tot. If I can be said to speak well it is only because those I was exposed to spoke well. For this reason, my concentration has always been on learning to SPEAK rather than to write.
How can one duplicate this learning process as an adult? I've tried books, classes and courses such as Instant Immersion and Rosetta Stone. Books are fine at the very beginning for finding out how to put together a simple sentence and as a reference for discovering the fine points of language structure, but to learn to speak from them I've found to be impossible. A live class is best for getting over anxiety and having others who are in your same situation sharing the experience, but a class is usually once a week and only for a couple of hours, not enough time to progress rapidly.
But whatever you do, you have to dive in and SAY things as best you can. The biggest barrier I've found is the anxiety about saying something wrong, but you HAVE to make mistakes to correct them. The feedback from your listeners or a speech recognition program is what makes you better. Of course, speaking to a computer saves you embarrassment, but you have to face that eventually. In person on with a computer, you either are corrected or you notice immediately that the sounds you are making are not the same as those of the native speaker and you change your pronunciation accordingly.
The ability of a PC to provide speech recognition is a fabulous thing and many programs now provide this. I chose Rosetta Stone because of its reputation and Instant Immersion because it looked like a good buy at $40. Is the former worth 5 times the price of the latter?
The two programs take a different approach. Rosetta Stone starts you with a single word and builds on it. It is a very carefully designed course that returns you again and again to similar if not identical pictures, presenting them in a new way. You might see a picture of a child standing on a picnic table. The scene is described in Spanish and you repeat it. Later the same child is on the ground next to the table and that is described as well. By seeing the difference and hearing the difference in the two situations you are learning the language, in this case the Spanish for "table" and "ground". Later, you see a picture of a cup on a table and you find you know the word for table! What you know (the picture) is expressed in what you want to know (the language) and in this way you learn by imitation rather than any stated rules.
Instant Immersion takes a different approach, far less carefully structured and formal than Rosetta Stone but also far more entertaining and likely to keep you at it. There are so many different things for you to do with Instant Immersion that you eagerly press on with each activity and I found that I could stay with Instant Immersion for well over an hour without fatigue. The variety of ways in which you are required to produce words and sentences is valuable because you must repeatedly come up with them in different environments, say, a crossword puzzle and a hidden word maze. My sessions with Rosetta Stone go for about 30 minutes before it seems to turn into a rather numbing chore. Not that I won't return to it enthusiastically but I need a break after 30 minute sessions.
But how about the actual speech recognition process? Instant Immersion offers native speakers speaking at their normal talking speed, sounding just like you might hear them on a street corner. The speakers are from Spain rather than Latin America, but I found this to be no problem. It is great to hear them just as you would in real life. The recognition software does not require you to go as fast as the model speakers. If you take your time and properly pronounce each word in a sentence, you will get a good score, but the waveforms that appear are of limited help, I ignore them. If you do not pronounce something right, the particular word will appear in red and you try again. A very nice feature is the ability to translate any word at any time to English, you just highlight it with a translation icon and it is both pronounced in Spanish and translated in print.
With Rosetta Stone the speakers use Latin American Spanish and the speed with which they speak picks up as you move through the course. They always speak distinctly and you are rarely in doubt about the words they are using. They sound more "professional" in their speech than those used in Instant Immersion, but not to the point of sounding like radio announcers. You do better if you approach or match their speaking speed and pronunciation is critical. The waveforms provided are excellent and show in several ways how the words sound, both theirs and yours. The volume and pitch of their voices and your voice are precisely shown along with an indication of sibilance (the hissing or S sound). Instant Immersion waveforms are just fun to look at, Rosetta Stone's are a valuable asset to the program and to you.
There is no printed supporting material with Instant Immersion. Rosetta Stone comes with a transcription of every lesson so you can identify the words that you don't understand when they are pronounced (a rarity). There is also a comprehensive index of words and a user's guide.
So which to choose? Rosetta Stone shows the amount of effort that has been put into it. I can believe the company when it claims it has been used by many government agencies to train their employees. If you are dedicated to learning and willing to stick with something even if it may not be "fun" then go with Rosetta Stone. If my boss said "Learn Spanish as soon as possible or you are fired!" I'd grab Rosetta Stone. For enjoyment while you learn, a nice touch of humor and a real feel of being thrown into Spanish culture, Instant Immersion Spanish is a good choice. You might even run it just to play some of the word games once you get beyond the learning of the language. For $40, Instant Immersion is a steal!
25 of 25 found the following review helpful:
 True immersion Jan 06, 2007
By Jaroslaw Aniszewski
It is hard not to have some beef with the editor about the cover with a map of Mexico on it. No Mexican Spanish spoken in the program. It is pure Castillano.
Apart from that it is a slick program, easy to use and I can really say that after a few weeks of using it my brain is starting to function in Spanish.
I do not think one mode of study, even the best program can teach someone a language to proficiency.Starting with this program may be slightly too hard for an absolute beginner, so first steps with a "meat and potatos" beginner course with a book and tapes may help.
Nevertheless this program gives you an excellent guided path through different topics of daily life with very useful vocabulary. One can easily omit certain steps and concentrate on blocks of interest. Pronounciation exercises are excellent - but one will not sound Mexican after mastering them.
Topics build on each other as they get more difficult. It is very easy to get the translation of words or phrases at any moment and full conjugation of every verb in the text (great advantage). I find vocabulary and phrase retention excellent after going through all exercises in a lesson. Repetition of phrase and words occurs in different settings. This makes it very interactive and efficient learning tool. One can also make a copy of the whole lesson text, burn it on CD and listen in the car or wherever.
I think this program is a great learning tool and and very affordable too comparing to some other programs that do not offer much more. And most importantly it is easy!!!!! to use and fun.
16 of 16 found the following review helpful:
 You'll get a lot of Vocab Jun 01, 2007
By QueenBean84
Well, the software is interesting and entertaining, but you are not going to learn much more than vocabulary using it. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the presentation of words and sentences. I was hoping for more of a tool that would start with some basics words and then build from that. One of the activities has you randomly scrolling through a spanish/english dictionary. I wasn't sure what the goal of that exercise was. They have a grammar section, however, it's exactly the same concepts, presented exactly the same way, EVERY TIME. The Spanish speakers in the listen and repeat section of the DVD speak too fast for beginners.
I did get manage to learn something from the audio CDs. Basic greetings, how to conjugate verbs, pronoun and adjective usage. The woman speaks clearly and slowly in both English and Spanish. However, for some reason, they seem to think the plural "you" in English is y'all. I couldn't help but to laugh every time I heard that on the CD!
Rosetta Stone is much more expensive than this software, but there's a reason why! You will learn Spanish with Rosetta Stone. You won't learn much with Instant Immersion Deluxe.
7 of 7 found the following review helpful:
To add to other reviews posted on this product... Jun 05, 2007
By jobert
This software is not very helpful, but it might teach some vocabulary to patient people. It is not Latin American Spanish, as some reviewer wrote about Version 2.0--it is Spanish from Spain, nevermind that there is a map of Mexico on the cover. The games are actually not very fun, and I did not feel I was immersed. I also agree with the reviewer who wrote that the software was hard to use. The interface is not very intuitive, and the instructions are not clear. I should have put the $40 I spent on this toward buying level 1 of Rosetta Stone, which I have used in the past, and is a high quality language learning program with a simple interface.
7 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Version 2.0: Buyer Beware Oct 29, 2007
By A. Nony Mousse
I purchased version 2.0 of this program and immediately had numerous problems. As a learning tool it was not very useful with the default settings. When I tried to change them, I could not. After hours of trying to get help (as there was no manual included), I was finally able to contact tech help. Here is the email I received the next day:
TOPICS Entertainment is a publisher of third-party software applications and distributes software on behalf of the software developer. We make every effort to select titles to distribute that provide an excellent choice for the consumer. The programs that the developers created are more complex and have more features than what we contracted to publish. That is why some advanced features are disabled. The full programs can be purchased directly from the developers, but most of the time they are more expensive. We try to maximize the value that you get, while keeping the price of the product as low as possible.
Those instructions to enable Free-To-Roam Mode and the other advanced options are valid only for the original Deluxe series, not the Deluxe 2.0. Unfortunately I do not have instructions on how to change those settings on Deluxe 2.0 (if possible).
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![Rosetta Stone V3: Spanish (Latin America) Level 1-2 Set [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mUYar%2BL7L._SL75_.jpg "Rosetta Stone V3: Spanish (Latin America) Level 1-2 Set [OLD VERSION]")
