StartSpanish.comReviews of startspanish.com

I have been taking classes at StartSpanish for almost 2 years now. The teachers are wonderful, very good, patient and nice. They have definitely helped me to improve my Spanish. The price is very good, especially for the private lessons. My only reservation is that for the last 6 months or so the group classes have been more crowded so there is less opportunity to practice. However, included in my package rate are 4 private classes, that alone is more than worth the money Any classes I get to take over and above is gravy! You may also purchase additional well priced private class packages.There are also other written resources available on the website to help including feedback from the class by the teachers. I enjoy the positivity and encouragement of the feedback as well as the notes of the class. Alfonso, the owner is wonderful with any technical issues that arise.

The instructors in this course are very friendly and encouraging. Never demeaning. The writing exercises are short but helpful. The most frustrating parts for me are when certain exercises need to be listened to and they are loaded with idiomatic expressions and are said very rapidly and secondly when the definitions of certain words that can be called false amigos are defined differently in established dictionaries(I use three) that somehow seem to very on occasion with the REAL dictionary de Espanol that that is only in Spanish. I am an intermediate.

This site has been really great (and FUN) to help take me to the next level. I do self-study (Practice Makes Perfect books), hour-long one-on-one classes (via a school in Nicaragua, for now), and Start Spanish. With SS, I use the daily 40-minute lessons most often (though lesson time is only about 30 minutes; the first 8 are spent waiting for other students & chatting). In Intermediate classes, you learn some vocab, but the lesson isn't a strict vocab or grammatical focus, usually (thankfully!); it's reading a passage fully in Spanish, discussing it, answering/asking questions about it, and doing activities related to it. It forces you to listen in Spanish and respond in kind, which of course quickly improves your level and ability to talk with natives. They've recently implemented a pre-window allowing you to test that your audio is working BEFORE the class, which has seemed *really* helpful. (That was [and still is, sometimes] really annoying, to lose several minutes dealing with people's audio too loud, too soft, choppy, broken connections, etc. Those 30 lesson minutes are precious! Hopefully they can implement something that will normalize volume across the mics of all participants, including the instructor. It can be quite distracting to have to turn up and down your volume each time different people speak just to keep up with what's going on and learning a language is challenging enough without having to deal with not hearing it well, lol.) But like I said, they've made improvements just in the short-ish time I've been there, which is inspiring! I like to see that they're aware of certain issues and care to improve our experience. The only negatives are that one of the instructors has seemed a little gruff and rather impatient with questions, particularly for those who don't understand every single thing or aren't able to exactly follow the fast pace of their particular lesson. This means that you don't get quite as much out of the lesson (and it can be, of course, rather frustrating). However, the last time I had this person, they were more relaxed and nicer. Maybe they were having a difficult month/week before... Of course, my level has improved quickly though, and I'm better able to follow, which also makes things go smoother with that instructor now. Everything else is fantastic. I just love Los Reyes, the little cartoon all in Spanish! It's cool to notice my progress in terms of whether I'm able to follow/understand exactly what's going on without rewinding a lot or using the subtitles. The Facebook-like social network is cool for practice when you have a few extra minutes to socialize with others, though the software has a couple of bugs. What I love most is that EACH instructor has her or his own strong points that allow you to get a lot out of the instruction they provide, in the way that they provide it. Interestingly, I don't have a "favorite" because they're each so strong at what they do! Some classes move slowly, some move just right, and a couple of them move quickly: this allows you to adapt to different styles and keeps the variety in what you're learning. After all, every Spanish-speaking person you meet isn't going to speak slowly, repeat themselves endlessly, or be patient with you, and so I appreciate the real-world TOPICS and writing/speaking experience that SS provides. Tips: Remember to do the writing exercises after the lesson; read over the lesson PDF beforehand (if you can); and if you want to study the lesson further afterward, save it beforehand. Have fun!

Really enjoyed the class and learned a lot in a short-period of time. I think the platform is easy to use and my teachers were very helpful and personable. For me I don't really have the dedication for an online class so I ended up not renewing but I can see this being a great solutions for others who are a bit more disciplined. My only other critique is that at times I felt the class moved too slowly but that is probably a good thing for new learners.