Hi everybody! I thought I'd present myself and our application for you. My name is Daniel and I am one of the developers of "iCaramba Spanish Course", an iPhone/iPod Touch application that teaches you Spanish from the ground up. It is based on an academic course in Spanish, but we try to make it much more fun and engaging by varying texts, images, animations, sounds, and interactive exercises. At the moment 6 of the 20 lessons are available from App Store. You can either get them as a package or individually - what ever suits you best. I hope it sounds interesting, and you can read more about it on App Store: Spanish Lesson 1 - iCaramba iCaramba Spanish Course (contains 5 first lessons) P.S. If anybody is interested I can give away some free codes for lesson 1. The first two posting a review will recieve a free code to the full package as well. Just post here or send me a pm. Ill leave you with some screenshots:
WoW this looks really cool! I always wanted to learn spanish and ill go and buy it this week! A promo code would be more then welcome so i can see if its worth it. Ill write a review to and post it here in this tread! An idea is to translate it in other languages like Dutch German Etc! I can help you translating it to dutch if you like. I speak proper dutch.. for now a great start of your series and ill hope to get some answers to the following questions: How much time you spend on 1 lesson? Later this spring the next course means lesson 5 - 10? translating it into dutch? it sure looks really great and really interesting!
I'd be happy to try this and post a review for you. I have experience with both Rosetta Stone and Tell Me More and can make a comparison with those products. I don't feel comfortable doing that kind of comparison based on 1 lesson, but can provide an 'early feel' type review if you'd like.
Good luck with your release I will be interested in some more intermediate to advanced classes. I have lived in Barcelona for over 3 years and my Spanish is ok but it would be much better if it wasn't for mixing it up with Catalan.
Hey, Could I possibly have a code, I'll happily post a review here/on itunes after i've tried it out. I've never done any Spanish, so I could do one from the aspect of a complete beginner, seeing how far the lessons take me. Thanks
Is there any way I can get a promo code for lesson 1? I looked at the description, and I am way beyond that level, but I just want to see what it is like before buying them.
I have taught Spanish in an American university. I am looking for new ideas to teach as I might go back to teach it. It would be very nice to try this app.
scarboroughkid, Yagami_Light, and organerito: Ive sent you each promocodes to your private messages. Hope you'll enjoy it Thank you Learning two similar languages at once is more dificult than one could suspect, so I understand that you have your hands full. Here is a list with descriptions of the content of each lesson that has been released (currently Lesson 6). That way you can hopefully determine which lesson corresponds to your level, or if you should wait for future lessons. http://www.iphonespanishcourse.com/content.aspx
Here my review of Spanish lesson series: The first time i started Spanish lessons i was stunned by the overview I have.. You can do what you want and start were you want...! What i did second was starting with the introduction it made me clear that this program really started from the beginning and that was all that i want. If you do have some knowlege of spanish you can just start from lesson 2 3 etc if you want! that is 1 of the things that make this program so complex and easy to use... Now this program makes learning fun! The interactive characters to the funny pictures makes this program really enjoyable in all ways! Its really fun to learn spanish with this program as example you can make puzzles do gues games and a lot more that is really great to do! this program you can use anywere in your car on the bus in the plane etc. make sure you have headphones because you will have to hear the words so you can speak them yourself! Also great at this program is that it contains a really great vocabular with a lot of words you would use in daily life or on holyday. For now i have 2 versions and ill get them all this week.. I really recommand this program to any1 who is willing to learn proper spanish! My opinion is a 9,5/10 beacause of its great way of learning and of its overall use!! (0.5 for the short first version what may disappoint people and refusing them to take other versions.. The second version is full of more contant and more things you can learn, so if the first version disappoint because of its little content dont worry because in other versions there is more content!) Continue with the rest of the episodes because i really wanna have them all!!!
IS this more like a holiday guide to speak some phrases and does the program develop strong grammar skills as well? I'm interested as I did live in Spain for a year but can barely remember much grammar now. But I'll wait for more reviews I think.
There sure is a large scale of grammar, as de discription said you can learn with or without any grammar or as much or less as you like..
The course is actually based on a complete academic course, which means that all aspects of the language - including grammar - is included. However, as lars1134 mentioned, the grammatical sections are optional for those that cant bear the thought of studying grammar You will still learn Spanish, but perhaps not as thoroughly. This page contains a list describing each lesson and its content (including the grammatical subjects). http://www.iphonespanishcourse.com/content.aspx To this date lesson 6 has been released, but we are working fast on getting the rest of the lessons out as well.
Thanks for the feed-back, Lars I think you have a point with the first lesson being a bit small. The glossary only contains a couple of words, as compared to the second lesson and all subsequent ones containing A LOT more. So this might put people off. Thanks for pointing that out. Do you have more suggestions? We are working on a major update at the moment, and would like to include any good ideas that we might encounter. Ive gotten good feedback from others here on this forum, and I would like to ask your oppinions on some of them: 1) A Spanish soundtrack playing at various times. Would it be appreciated, or do you find music distracting? Of course, there would be an off-button. 2) Notification wether you've visited a page already or not, to help navigation?
I have tried lesson 1 and 2 and I agree that the first lesson is very short. Is the woman speaking a native speaker? The guy's voice is very clear. The quizzes are very fun. I remember a memorama-vocabulary activity. One card had the written name and the other one the picture. I really like it. I am just afraid that some people will find it too short. I hope I am wrong. I wasn't annoyed or anything like that by the woman's voice but it is not as pleasing like the guy's voice. She also sounds a little robotic. I know you have to pronounce as clearly as possible. It is a great Spanish lesson app.
i do have some other suggestions not huge but would be nice to add here they are: - Make a nice graphic start screen it doesnt seems important but it would be really nice if spanish lessons would have one. I dont know why but i really feel missing it - maybe let the 3d character with the introduction talk - another thing i thought of: make some things for if you are on a bike or walking.. ideas are repeating a vocabular of words for learning in audio afcourse. It also would be nice if you have the same for grammar.. Because youll keep remembering things if you hear it a lot! And on my bike or while im walking would be the perfect time for that . This suggestion i miss the most i hope it could be done in the next update For the rest still a great app that anyone should have on their idevice if you wanna learn spanish My answers for you: 1) YES a sound track would af course be great It would really make you feel like you are in spain would be awsome! 2) Notification could be but i dont need it now.. Because you dont know things if you do them once.. A popup would be annoying so pls dont do that.. You might give it as option.... but like i said before i dont need it
While this program can be downloaded one app at a time are all the sections consolidated into one app? In other words will you have multiple apps on your springboard if you download this program one app at a time?
Thanks for the info, organerito Did you get any ideas for your own classes? Yes, and the second lesson is quite a leap from the content in lesson 1. For instance, in lesson 1 there are 4 (!) words/sentences, where as in lesson 2 there are 20. For the male voices (and all the words and other audio) we have used a native speaker. However, since the two females (Anna and Maria) in the course are not supposed to be Spanish we decided to go with a non-native speaker for those parts, also considering the female voices are a lot fewer. She is fluent and her pronounciation is correct, but from her accent and rythm you can tell that she isnt native. But Im starting to think that youre right and we should have gone with a native speaker even for the female voices. What do the rest of you think? You mention the exercises - do you think they are enough, or would you have liked more of them for each class? We didnt want to swamp the student with too much stuff, so we kept it at a moderate level. Is it too little, youd say?
