#1 Rocket Spanish

Rocket Spanish is our highest recommended product, and it's also one of the cheaper products at $99.95. If you want to learn the Spanish language thoroughly, then there is no better product on the market than this.

Variety of Activities

The software that comes with this package is minimal in comparison with that of the Rosetta Stone course, but we found that to be an OK tradeoff considering some of the benefits of the Rocket Spanish course. The software includes two basic word recognition games, and works well as a review of lesson objectives.

The first thing that you'll notice about this program is that there is a lot more audio lessons than you'll find in a standard software product. This is perfect, because it covers everything from beginner level vocabulary and phrases to advanced profieciency words. All of the audio files are in MP3 Format, and as such, they can easily be transferred to a CD or MP3 player so that you can learn on the go.

Rocket Spanish also gives you a textbook and a dictionary, both in ebook form, which you can use throughout your lessons to practice grammar and translation. Here is where the program differs from Learning Spanish Like Crazy, which is solely audio files and no written word component.

Practicality of Lessons

Instead of wasting your time teaching you words and phrases like "The farmer jumped over the fence" like the Rosetta Stone program would do, Rocket Spanish is tightly focused on useful vocabulary that you'd learn in everyday life. Introductory vocabularly lessons include things like numbers and measurements, clothing and body parts, and modern-day technology and transportation words. If you're using this course to get some introduction to the language before a trip, then this will teach you enough to get around without wasting time on the fluff.

Linguisic Fundmentals

Here is where Rocket Spanish distinguishes itself from other Spanish software programs on the market. Because this course includes a textbook, they are able to delve into sentence structure and train you on tense and flow. In other words, you'll learn to speak like a native speaker, and that's a huge benefit of this course.

In addition, this course includes both basic and advanced lessons, so you can really go quite far into the curriculum with this course, whereas with other programs, you are sometimes left out after the introduction.

Overall

This course is an at-home version of a college-level language course which is specifically geared towards people who are learning a language for the very first time. It offers you some flexibility in deciding what to learn when, and comes complete with a textbook you can view from your computer, including an English-Spanish dictionary, a nice addition you won't find in other programs.

Overall, we found Rocket Spanish to be the best of the Spanish Language programs, and it goes highly recommended to everyone of high school age or older.