Traveling is one of this most exciting things you can do in life, and from my point of view, even more than this! To prepare for a trip there are many things you should do, but in this article I am going to focus on the potential visitor to Europe and Japan, specifically on somebody willing to visit Spain, France, Germany or Japan.

As you may know, the level of English in Europe can be pretty good in some countries but it needs a lot of improvement in some others. Spain and Italy leading the way, followed by Germany and France are 4 of the countries where, probably due to the power of their native language or simply because the educational system has failed in integrating a good plan for foreign languages, there is simply a lot of people not able to speak English.

The problem, far from being only a communication problem (innovative and funny signs can be useful to take that problem away... or to make it even worse!), this is a problem of cultural immersion. Visiting a country is not going to a new cool place, looking at some big and old buildings and taking the plane back home. An adventure to the outside should really be a way to discover a new place and get to know how the people living there is, gaining insight on how culture affects the way they do so and, in the end, having something else that some pictures with your funny face smiling in front to show to your friends and make them become jealous.

One of the main problems that can avoid this from happening is the language barrier. Once you know the language of a country, you get to know the people. Language is expression, is the way they express themselves, and if you understand it you get to know what has made this people communicate in this particular way. I find this thing a great deal you get from traveling. Unfortunately, many times I have not been able to follow my own recommendations and I still regret it and consider it as mistakes from my past.

But we no longer have an excuse. The answer is interactive language courses, and nowadays many companies are not only selling dictionaries and "Learn that language in 10 days" books, but they also are creating computer-based learning methods, in which the user experiments more and more interactivity with the learning process, up to a point where it can, at least in some part, replace the role that a teacher would develop.

The variety to select from is really wide, but after my experience with the German course of one of those companies, I think it is good to give it a try. They offer a variety of interactive courses: German, French, Spanish and even Japanese! Their software is based in a high degree of interactivity, going from conversational skills you can practice with the computer, to hundreds of pages with grammatic explanations, games, videos, links to free downloads, and a level that begins with the most basic concepts to some advanced skills, in a way that it can be useful for almost any level between beginner and high-intermediate.

To be very sincere, they say you can use this method and learn the language in 3 months. That is a reference but I would not like to say this is a fact. It really depends all on you and how much time you have to learn that language and how many hours can you spend a day on it. For my trip to Germany I was a bit on a hurry, I followed the method for 2 months and I went there. I was not an expert I admit, but I could catch some expressions and even I was able to keep some basic conversations.

For the French, Spanish and Japanese courses, I haven't had the opportunity to deal with them, as I already know French and Spanish and I am not planning to go to Japan... still! But provided the experience with the German course, I imagine you can expect more or less the same result.

Interactive Language

Learn Spanish with your own personal language tutor.

24-7 Spanish - Vocabulary is a fun way to learn a language. Going beyond a talking phrasebook or set of flashcards, this title provides a set of interactive study tools to help you learn the language, including traditional flashcards, a multiple choice quiz, an entertaining hangman-style game, and a write-in quiz to test language recall.

Content includes basic vocabulary organized in 21 categories including Family & Friends, Travel, Home, Office, School, Countryside, Around Town, Other Nouns, Food & Drink, Clothing, Weather, Time & Date, Pronouns, Adjectives, Opposites, Colors, Descriptives and Numbers. Spanish - Vocabulary is different from 24-7's other Spanish language tutor title Spanish - Basic Phrases in that it provides basic vocabulary terms versus full phrases.

Spanish - Vocabulary is a useful tool for beginners who may wish to refresh basic Spanish skills, and a great companion for a trip in a Spanish-speaking country.

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Most helpful customer reviews

162 of 167 people found the following review helpful.
Comparable value to similar programs on other devices
By Jeremy Aldrich
As a language teacher (including Spanish), I wanted to check out this program to see if I can recommend it to others. In 21 categories like Travel, Food/Drink, Adjectives, and Weather, each with between 16-39 words (for a total of more than 500 words), this program allows you to interact with the vocabulary in 5 different ways: by viewing them in a list with their meanings, by doing a multiple choice test, by completing a hangman-like game (with 5 mistakes allowed), by typing in the words (without accents), or by looking at flashcards. In each activity, the word order is randomized and for the multiple choice, puzzle, and write in activities you can save your percentage score. Each activity includes all the words in that category; it doesn't seem to remember what you've already demonstrated learning.

This program was well suited to my Kindle 3, and I appreciated that an effort was made to include some regionally distinct vocabulary (marked as LAm, Mex, or Sp). I'm not sure I'd call it "fun" as the product description does, but this is a well-thought-out program with a decent amount and variety of vocabulary, at a reasonable price. I hope there will be more like it for reviewing higher-level vocabulary and vocabulary in other languages.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful.
Great Methodology
By Nancy Tan
Quiet Mind, Healthy Body: The Art of Low Stress Living

I bought a Kindle because I wanted to keep up my Spanish while traveling. Amongst the six Kindle books I purchased for this purpose, I found this one the most useful. Being an interactive book, the answers were immediately available. Because I liked the Practice makes Perfect series in book form, I had also bought three of those. They were not interactive and I found it tedious to constantly go back and forth to check answers. As a result, I hardly used them.

Besides the convenience,I think the method of instruction in this book is rather brilliant. First there is a list of words in a category. Then these words are presented in a multiple choice form, from Spanish to English, allowing guessing from a process of elimination. Then the words are presented in a puzzle form, from English to Spanish, so it gets a little harder. But once an alphabet is chosen, it shows up in all the places it's used in the word so a little guess work is still allowed. The next exercise is writing the words from English to Spanish, requirinh a further degree of familiarity as well as refining spelling, eliminating the common errors. The final exercise consists of flash cards so quick reviews can be made.

Being an older learner with poor recall, I found this method of instruction immensely helpful. To my surprise, I actually managed to memorize all the vocabulary, even those that had felt hopeless in the beginning. The exercises not only increased the difficulties by logical increments to facilate learning, but they made repetition that could have been tedious a lot of fun. I plan to look for more interactive programs such as this one for learning Spanish even while I'm home, and maybe I'll get one of their German vocabulary programs as well.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
a bit too simple
By M. Webber
This would probably be a good tool for a total beginner. I used to be fluent at an intermediate level and found this program way too basic without enough words to be worth doing. If you have much spanish at all, you'll probably be dissapointed, is my guess.

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