Collins Talking Spanish-English Dictionary
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List Price: ££19.99
Our Price: £
Your Save: £ 0.00 ( % )
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Manufacturer: Intense Educational
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: CD-ROM
Brand: Intense Educational
EAN: 0812424000258
Label: Intense Educational
Model: 0 812 424 000 258
Number Of Items: 1
Platform: Windows Me
Publisher: Intense Educational
Release Date: 2002-04-16
Studio: Intense Educational
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Does the job fairly well, but showing it's age
Comment: I like this software. I tried a demo from the publishers web site before I bought, so knew what to expect, and would suggest anyone else does, otherwise it may not meet your expectations...It's good, but you may be disappointed if you buy it based on the sales description.
The good points...
Overall, it's good. I really like the one-click cross referencing. Very efficient.
It's also fast. No real delay in jumping to a word as you type it. Even when playing the audio of each word there is hardly any delay, and I'm using it on a fairly slow computer.
The shooting gallery is good, particularly for people like me who struggle to remember loads of vocabulary, and/or want to learn a lot of new vocab quickly... and there's an option in the shooting gallery to have the native speaker automatically remind you of the pronunciation of each word every time, which is great.
Having the audio element is excellent. I've never really got the hang of interpreting phonetic symbols, so having each word spoken really is a great feature.
The bad points...
It's showing its age. Although it's effective, it could really do with a cosmetic overhaul.
I get the impression the audio recordings were done a while back. They are still very very useful as they are, but could possibly have been done with higher quality recordings.
They could also have done with some examples of pronunciation by different speakers from around the world. (But even just having the one person speaking all the words is still very useful).
The copyright for the Collins part (I presume the dictionary contents) is 1995 !! Not exactly up-to-date.
Additionally, the dictionary is only a concise dictionary. It isn't a substitute for a proper full size dictionary if you're a serious learner (but a great complement to such a dictionary for quick reference of common words, and learning the basic vocab, etc).
Having each word spoken is great, but the facility to record yourself at the same time is useless. The recording just does not sync with the original playback when you choose the record yourself while listening to the audio option. You may sound perfectly in time with the native speaker when you record your voice, but when you play them both back, they're way out-of-sync. Not sure if this could be my soundcards fault though.
But overall I like it; it may not be super stylish, but it's functional and ignoring the recording feature, does the job pretty well (for a concise dictionary). But download the demo so you know what to expect when you buy the full version, otherwise you may be disappointed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Badly dated, and belongs in the bargain bucket
Comment: According to the packaging, this software was first published in 1997, and boy does it show! The interface and graphics look clunky, crude, and old hat by contemporary standards, and are woefully in need of a design overhall to drag them into the 21st century.
As a language teacher and multimedia developer myself, I think it would be fair to say that maybe I was expecting more from this package than the average user; although in view of the manufacturers boast that it incorporated the very latest computer-based learning exercises in their review, and also the price of the title, I would imagine that am not the only person who will have ordered this software in the expectation that it was considerably more current than it turned out to be, and who will have been more than a little disappointed.
To be fair, there does seem to be a lot of reasonably good content within the package, and the serious adult language student who is prepared to put in the time needed to learn how to navigate through it will no doubt find it useful. However, the interface is not particularly intuitive or user friendly, and the way that the content is presented is by contemporary standards pretty dull and unimaginative. In my view, this package would be unlikely to succeed in grabbing the interest of the average teenager studying languages at GCSE sufficiently to persuade them to make much use of it.
To anybody considering buying this software, my advice would be to hang on and wait until they bring out an updated edition.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Almost there...
Comment: I've found this a valuable tool to have installed on my laptop. The "trap" feature which allows you to highlight text and drag it into a box for translation in the dictionary is fantastic! I also found the one-click cross referencing very satisfactory - far quicker than looking up both sides of a bi-lingual dictionary. However, I find the language and terms in this dictionary limited and often find myself reaching for that large dictionary I was so desperate to escape when I bought this software. Overall, its simple to use, great if you're on the move, efficient but in my opinion too concise to replace your normal dictionary.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I like it, but, there are serious problems
Comment: Collins are no doubt masters in the field of linguistics, but the delivery of the software to the end user however is in this case rather clumsy and lets the whole thing down.
In depth knowledge of computers is needed for instance to set up the spanish keyboard as the tutorial gives no advice of any use whatsoever, and without the proper keyboard language intalled you'll get all the excersises wrong. The help section also states that the keyboard will change automatically to Spanish when the programme is run, mine doesn't! They also offer no help in telling the user where to find accents and stresses for certain letters, which you will need if you want to do the excersises on your computer. I have had to do it through trial and error, and this again has presented another hurdle, I might remember how to spell a word with accent, but then I have to struggle with finding the accent on the keyboard.
I've given it a 4 star rating. If it wasnt for the amateurish and some times thoughtless way in which the software was written, (it reminds me of something that was writen in a hurry) I'd have given it a 5.
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Editorial Reviews: |
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: Does the job fairly well, but showing it's age
Comment: I like this software. I tried a demo from the publishers web site before I bought, so knew what to expect, and would suggest anyone else does, otherwise it may not meet your expectations...It's good, but you may be disappointed if you buy it based on the sales description.
The good points...
Overall, it's good. I really like the one-click cross referencing. Very efficient.
It's also fast. No real delay in jumping to a word as you type it. Even when playing the audio of each word there is hardly any delay, and I'm using it on a fairly slow computer.
The shooting gallery is good, particularly for people like me who struggle to remember loads of vocabulary, and/or want to learn a lot of new vocab quickly... and there's an option in the shooting gallery to have the native speaker automatically remind you of the pronunciation of each word every time, which is great.
Having the audio element is excellent. I've never really got the hang of interpreting phonetic symbols, so having each word spoken really is a great feature.
The bad points...
It's showing its age. Although it's effective, it could really do with a cosmetic overhaul.
I get the impression the audio recordings were done a while back. They are still very very useful as they are, but could possibly have been done with higher quality recordings.
They could also have done with some examples of pronunciation by different speakers from around the world. (But even just having the one person speaking all the words is still very useful).
The copyright for the Collins part (I presume the dictionary contents) is 1995 !! Not exactly up-to-date.
Additionally, the dictionary is only a concise dictionary. It isn't a substitute for a proper full size dictionary if you're a serious learner (but a great complement to such a dictionary for quick reference of common words, and learning the basic vocab, etc).
Having each word spoken is great, but the facility to record yourself at the same time is useless. The recording just does not sync with the original playback when you choose the record yourself while listening to the audio option. You may sound perfectly in time with the native speaker when you record your voice, but when you play them both back, they're way out-of-sync. Not sure if this could be my soundcards fault though.
But overall I like it; it may not be super stylish, but it's functional and ignoring the recording feature, does the job pretty well (for a concise dictionary). But download the demo so you know what to expect when you buy the full version, otherwise you may be disappointed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Badly dated, and belongs in the bargain bucket
Comment: According to the packaging, this software was first published in 1997, and boy does it show! The interface and graphics look clunky, crude, and old hat by contemporary standards, and are woefully in need of a design overhall to drag them into the 21st century.
As a language teacher and multimedia developer myself, I think it would be fair to say that maybe I was expecting more from this package than the average user; although in view of the manufacturers boast that it incorporated the very latest computer-based learning exercises in their review, and also the price of the title, I would imagine that am not the only person who will have ordered this software in the expectation that it was considerably more current than it turned out to be, and who will have been more than a little disappointed.
To be fair, there does seem to be a lot of reasonably good content within the package, and the serious adult language student who is prepared to put in the time needed to learn how to navigate through it will no doubt find it useful. However, the interface is not particularly intuitive or user friendly, and the way that the content is presented is by contemporary standards pretty dull and unimaginative. In my view, this package would be unlikely to succeed in grabbing the interest of the average teenager studying languages at GCSE sufficiently to persuade them to make much use of it.
To anybody considering buying this software, my advice would be to hang on and wait until they bring out an updated edition.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Almost there...
Comment: I've found this a valuable tool to have installed on my laptop. The "trap" feature which allows you to highlight text and drag it into a box for translation in the dictionary is fantastic! I also found the one-click cross referencing very satisfactory - far quicker than looking up both sides of a bi-lingual dictionary. However, I find the language and terms in this dictionary limited and often find myself reaching for that large dictionary I was so desperate to escape when I bought this software. Overall, its simple to use, great if you're on the move, efficient but in my opinion too concise to replace your normal dictionary.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I like it, but, there are serious problems
Comment: Collins are no doubt masters in the field of linguistics, but the delivery of the software to the end user however is in this case rather clumsy and lets the whole thing down.
In depth knowledge of computers is needed for instance to set up the spanish keyboard as the tutorial gives no advice of any use whatsoever, and without the proper keyboard language intalled you'll get all the excersises wrong. The help section also states that the keyboard will change automatically to Spanish when the programme is run, mine doesn't! They also offer no help in telling the user where to find accents and stresses for certain letters, which you will need if you want to do the excersises on your computer. I have had to do it through trial and error, and this again has presented another hurdle, I might remember how to spell a word with accent, but then I have to struggle with finding the accent on the keyboard.
I've given it a 4 star rating. If it wasnt for the amateurish and some times thoughtless way in which the software was written, (it reminds me of something that was writen in a hurry) I'd have given it a 5.
The Collins Talking Spanish-English Dictionary is a CD-ROM that forms part of a new concept in talking dictionaries, and is designed for all learners of Spanish as a foreign language. Aimed at a range of language learners--from beginners to professional and business users--it is a means of being able to advance their Spanish vocabulary. The dictionary is touted as the highest quality bilingual dictionary around, and this is not a wildly implausible claim, for it is particularly strong on the idiosyncracies of the various Spanish-speaking countries. It is one of the few dictionaries around that recognises the importance of distinguishing between, for instance, the various guaguas ("bus" in Mexico; "baby" in Chile); and each definition comes with a sign as to whether it is used in Spain or in the Americas. The dictionary has some audio elements. Each of the words in the dictionary and in the accompanying language learning exercises is pronounced by a native speaker; the only criticism might be that some of the Latin American accents are not always particular to the words used in each country. Nevertheless, the dictionary also comes with a set of tools that can be uploaded onto your PC and used to translate text on your machine. As a computer dictionary, this is hard to beat. The only major criticism might be that, on its own, it is not enough to develop a really strong grammatical base but, taken together with a good course, it will be an effective tool for language learning. --Toby Green
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