There are many books and courses available to teach yourself Spanish. I have spent a lot of time reviewing many of these and have summarized my findings here, in order to save you time in your searching for a product to meet your needs.

Courses are available in all price ranges, but I found that the quality ranged from good to excellent; I didn't find anything that I considered poor quality.

However, like most things in life, the better things cost more.

So, in this review, affordability, presentation, and overall ease of use are the major criteria.

In my view, the product with "the most bang for the buck", the one I would choose, is Visual Link Spanish. Last year, I would have said "Rocket Spanish", which is very good, especially now that the price has been lowered (temporarily) to under US$100. But this year, VL Spanish takes top honours because, in my opinion, it's a whole lot better. Their visual linking technique works for me, and probably will for you, too.

Who am I? I am Doug Anderson. I first visited Spain in 1965 when I was 18, and fell in love with the country and the people. I lived in Marbella, which, at the time, was a small village. It's located between Malaga and Gibraltar. I bought an old Lambretta scooter. I quickly learned, the hard way, that "gas-oil" was "diesel fuel" and not a gasoline-oil mixture that I was told my bike needed. I also learned, after asking in a farmacia for "sopa" that the word for soap was "lava", not "sopa", which means "soup". Learning by making mistakes is a fun way to learn, but today we have some incredibly good courses available for very little money.

My #1 Choice

Lots of Pictures
Lots of Audio
Videos or Games
Affordability

One thing I really like about this course is that they guarantee that if you aren't conversational in 30 days, you get a full refund. Of course, they mean basic conversation, not the ability to give a speech to the United Nations, but still... If you can't make sufficient progress with their method, quit, ask for your money back. They will refund 100%.

Click Here for more information.

"The best way to learn Spanish in 2009..."

My first choice uses a visual technique of linking objects on screen to make complete sentences. VL Spanish uses cute 3D animated characters to help your brain link the sound, word, and image.

If you click here (opens in a new window), you will get an example showing how you can make complete sentences using quiero and necesito plus the verb ir plus one of a dozen nouns to make complete sentences. The technique is effective and works for me, so it probably will for you, too. My only complaint is that the female voice gets a little shy and quiet, for some reason, part way through, but turning up the speaker volume fixed that.

Visual Link Spanish offers two freebies, so you can try before you buy:

• Free demo CD-ROM; click here for details of what's on the CD (opens in a new window). There is a small handling charge (US$2) added to cover postage.
• Free 11 day on-line course; click here (opens in a new window). Enter your details, and they will e-mail you the link to the free course.

Click Here to get instant access to Visual Link Spanish.

My Second Choice:

Lots of Pictures
Lots of Audio
Videos or Games
Affordability

Click Here to get a FREE 6-Day Spanish Course!

If you like their course, buy the package; for a limited time, it's under US$100.

There is an 8-week money-back, no questions asked, guarantee. I doubt very much that you will do that, though, this is a high quality, useful course.

Rocket Spanish includes

• 31 tracks of audio in MP3 format; provides a basic vocabulary and grammar so you can talk about things like food, locations, direction, fares, etc. Transcripts are provided.
• 45 illustrated grammar lessons; grammar is the foundation of any language, including Spanish. You get more than 3,000 audio tracks to supplement the printed pages of notes and exercises. They will take you from a beginner to master level. You can, of course, take them at your speed and to the level you want.
• MegaVocab Software Game is a fun way to learn vocabulary.
• MegaAudio Software Game is a fun way to gain and improve listening comprehension.
• MegaVerbs Software Game; verbs are the most difficult part of Spanish; this game helps you learn them, in a fun way, without a lot of heavy memorization and conjugation drills.

With their money back guarantee, this is a no brainer. Either you master Spanish or you get your money back! Either way you have nothing to lose at all! To check the quality of their course, just click the link to the left to get their Free Six Day Course.

Click Here to get access to Rocket Spanish.

My Third Choice:

Lots of Pictures
Lots of Audio
Videos or Games
Affordability

Click Here to get 10 free video lessons; these free lessons assume you already know some Spanish; they are useful for improving your comprehension and learning some new vocabulary.

The beautiful Jazmin Barrera, with the charming accent, would be reason enough to get this course, if she were in it. Like many other native Spanish speakers, she can't make the TH sound in English ("tousands", instead of "thousands") and she often says "choo" instead of "you", but she is very pleasant to look at and has an upbeat, positive way of speaking Spanish that will make you wish you were in her classroom, instead of just watching her video.

She speaks Latin American Spanish, as opposed to European Spanish, and has a beautiful accent.

Unfortunately, she is not part of the course, she is only in the free downloaded videos.

In my opinion, Visual Link Spanish is a better package because it is a re-think of how to teach Spanish, and the result is fun and very usable. Learn Spanish Like Crazy comes across as old-fashioned in comparison, requiring hours of boring listening to audio MP3s and reading grammar lessons.

Get the free download videos, put them on your computer, but buy VL Spanish if you want to learn Spanish quickly in a fun way.

Learn Spanish Like Crazy is available as Level 1 and Level 2 (Nivel Dos). The Level 1 (beginners) package is actually two courses in one. The first part consists of 30 audio lessons with accompanying transcripts in PDF format. Click here for the contents (opens in a new window).

It also has Foreign Service Institute (FSI) level 3 and FSI level 4, Spanish sayings and insults, and access to their Spanish forum, where you can get help with grammar and vocabulary, not just from other learners, but also from the company's own staff.

FSI Spanish was originally developed in the 1950s by the USA Foreign Service section of the State Department for training people working at embassies, foreign missions, etc. It has been digitized and thus made available to modern computers in MP3 and PDF format. It is, today, a little dated in its approach, but definitely usable; it works best with a teacher or at least a native Spanish speaker.

Learn Spanish Like Crazy is available as a $100 download and as a $300 CD-ROM package, which is shipped to your door. The CD-ROM package also includes FSI 1, FSI 2, and FSI Fast Course. There are no videos or software with Level One, although Nivel Dos does come with some video lessons.

Click Here to get access to Learn Spanish Like Crazy!

If you do a web search on "Foreign Service Institute", you will find many companies selling these FSI courses, which are now in the public domain. There is even one company with a website www.foreignserviceinstitute.com, with a disclaimer printed in very faint gray text saying that they are not really the Foreign Service.

I think the people that own and promote Learn Spanish Like Crazy need to update their offering, now that VL Spanish and Rocket Spanish are easier to use and at a similar price.

Honourable Mention

Lots of Pictures
Lots of Audio
Videos
Affordability

Click Here to for more information.

This course is not in the same league as the others, but rates an honourable mention because it is a complete course in an eBook (PDF format). There's no audio, and no video, but it is reasonably complete and, if you follow it daily, you will learn enough Spanish in 12 days to carry on reasonable conversations.

In other words, if you've got no money, honey, but still want a simple course to get started, this one will do it for you.

You can supplement this with videos on YouTube (do a search for "learn Spanish" to get some free videos); these will help your pronunciation. Or sign up for the Learn Spanish Like Crazy 10 free videos with the beautiful Jazmin.

Click Here to for more information.

I have had this course available on my Learn Spanish web site for a couple of years, and to be honest, have not sold very many copies, I think because it is just a basic eBook in PDF format; there is no software, no audio, no video, it's just a book. However, I did receive this feedback from a female student in Cleveland, Ohio:

I bought this eBook because I wanted a book I could put on my laptop; I can buy books at any bookstore, but I don't want to lug around another heavy book. This one stays on my hard drive.

I was motivated to learn Spanish by a Mexican lady that I met in my apartment building. We happened to meet in the laundry room, and after saying hello, I told her that I had always wanted to visit Mexico and learn the language.

I'm a student, and money is very tight; this book did not break my budget. I quickly mastered the vocabulary, and even a lot of the grammar, by using this book. My friendly neighbor helped me with pronunciation, and within 2 weeks, I was talking in Spanish, and listening to her as she spoke Spanish... carrying on a conversation. OK, she did most of the talking, and I had to ask her to repeat some things, but I was amazed at how much I could understand and even contribute to the conversation. Now we chat regularly (in Spanish) every laundry day, and my Spanish is progressing very nicely.

So thank you for making this book available at such a low cost.

Georgina M., Cleveland