Spanish Computer Programs

• Learn To Speak Spanish CD-ROM course (MAC) A complete Spanish course based on materials developed by the U.S. Foreign Service Institute, emphasizing speaking and aural comprehension. The HyperCard-based course has 36 lessons. Each lesson is centered around a situational setting and a dialogue, and contains setting, dialogue, grammar, vocabulary, cultural notes, and interactive exercises, both for grammar and listening comprehension.

• Pronunciation Tutor (MAC) Covers the basics of vowel sounds (unaccented, accented, and combinations), consonants, words, phrases, and full sentences. By clicking on the syllables, words, and sentences, a native informant repeats them as many times as the student wishes.

• Survival Manual and language Laboratory (MAC) Over 8 megabytes of high-quality, native speaker voice reproduction compressed into four diskettes using Farallon Computer's new Sound-Edit digitized sound compression an real- time decompression technology. More than 600 recorded everyday Spanish words and phrases covering such topics as Food, Hotels, Transportation, Communications, Doctors, Numbers, Clothing, and more, as well as notes about everyday life in Spanish. Includes more than 500 additional non-recorded words and phrases.

• Verb Tutor (MAC) With all 200 sentences recorded in high quality, native - speaker voice reproduction. Click on a button and hear the sentence pronounced. Ideal for working on oral comprehension skills as well as verb conjugations. The sentences comprise over 1,600 words with an average sentence length of 9 words. These are not simple little three-word sentences but lengthy, real life everyday conversational type phrases.

• Tense Tutor (MAC) A companion program to Verb Tutor With Sound. Drills on 200 additional sentences, all read in high quality digitized sound by a native speaker. Whereas the Verb Tutor tests on all tenses of a single verb, tense tutor allows user to select the tense he wants to be drilled on and then drills him on many verbs in that same tense. It is totally user modifiable. You can change the sentences it comes with, delete them, add new verbs and sentences; modify, delete and add translations and explanations as well. Add conjugations for the new words.

• Word Torture (MAC) Automated vocabulary drills. Comes with from 1400 to 1600 verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, comparatives, etc. Use as drill and type in the translations, or use as flash cards. Program can keep score and redrill on missed words. You can create drill sets of different sizes. Drill from target language to English or English to target language. Random generation assures that words will never appear in the same order (unless you want them to be). Set the time interval between seeing the word and its translation. Can be user modified; add more words to those that come with the stack.

• Spanish Partner Spanish Partner is designed to supplement first-year college Spanish courses. The program consists of grammar and vocabulary exercises. The program includes fill-in-the blank, matching, and multiple-choice exercises.

• Spanish Idioms (IBM) Extensive practice of Spanish idioms, with fill-in-the-blanks and multiple choice questions. Designed for advanced students. 800 questions.

• Spanish Assistant (IBM) A program designed to work with a word processor in writing Spanish documents. It helps with grammar, vocabulary, verb conjugations and translations.

• PICS Listening Tool (IBM) A computer controlled video disc workshop designed to tutor language students with carefully picked foreign movies, TV shows and commercials. A video disc player containing French, German, or Spanish videos is connected to a microcomputer to control viewing from different chapters to scene by scene viewing, to frame by frame viewing. This control is provided to step through the video sentence by sentence allowing careful listening of each sentence and comprehending each meaning. The application also provides a number of lecturing tools for the student and/or teacher to use: sentence by sentence play, keyword on demand, transcript on demand, alternate soundtrack (used to provide a slower more pronounced soundtrack of the dialogue), listen-then-read, preview via images, video before audio, audio before video. The teacher may use this application to make a presentation for a lecture or the student may use this application to practice on his or her own. The following is a list of videos available with the videodisc and computer workstations.

  Spanish Videodiscs

  • Segunda Ensenanza: La religion y el hombre (IBM) Pilar, a teacher at a private college in the dramatic series Segunda Ensenanza, her family, her colleagues, and the students all react in different ways preparations for the Christmas holiday season in Spain. 55 minutes.

  • Telerrevista (IBM) Includes Radiotelevision Espanola's short reports on 1)"a tienda de alimentos"; 2)the famous "ZZZ bota" factory; 3)Elena Santoja's recipe for and preparation of "higado encebollado"; and 4)Laly Ruiz of "Con tu cuerpo" teaching warm-up stretching exercises for the entire body. 30 minutes.

  • THINK & TALK (MAC) This cousre is audio CD-disc oriented. That means your involvement with the recorded sound and your participation in the foreign language will become second nature, without any need for translation into your native language. The script, which also includes reading and writing exercises, remains only an auxiliary to complement your work with the drama of language--the experience of growing up in the language of your choice, regardless of your age, at whatever station in your life. Our Think & Talk program steers away from standard lessons. Indeed, there are no lessons! Instead, there are Scenes that will begin to form your Think & Talk experience. In addition, all Scenes involve your personal instructor (the male voice) to guide you as you participate. The control guide (The female voice) provides the correct responses as our stage/scene presentation unfolds. We have THINK & TALK in French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

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