Learn Spanish Travel Spanish Blog

Tired of studying grammar?   Wondering why you’re hitting the books when what you really want to be doing is SPEAKING SPANISH?   Thinking “Why isn’t this MORE FUN?”  And bemoaning the fact that you just don’t have that many opportunities to hear real native speakers?

Well, TA-DA!  LoMasTV to the rescue.  Call it “online video immersion” or an “online video magazine” (they call it both) or even video podcasting, this series is well put together, has lots of variety, is filled with nice techno options and most of all it’s fun.

Let me do the bad news first (and yes, it is bad news if you’re a bit “frugal” like me).  It ain’t free.  Me, I want everything to be free.  This program is a lot of things (a lot of good things), but free isn’t one of them.  But that’s it.  That’s all the bad news.

But the good news!  410 videos, totaling over 22 hours.  10 categories ranging from Action to Drama to Musicians to Interviews.  Lots of features.

Here’s how it works:  You click on a video of a soccer game.  Two people are walking alongside the field having a conversation – a very rapid conversation.  Below the video screen are subtitles – in BOTH English and Spanish. That alone makes it worth watching (and the videos are interesting).  But wait, there’s more!   The video player is feature laden.

Player Features:  Pitch Corrected Slow Play,  English and Spanish Captions,  Instant Click Dictionaries,  Phrase Repeat,  100% Native Speakers,  Fun Listening Game.

Pitch Corrected Slow Play.   Just press the “slow” button and the conversation slows down.  And the pitch is corrected so that it’s just a slower conversation and not like the phonograph is grinding to a halt (what’s a phonograph?).   It’s great, because it’s useful for many different levels of learners.  Advanced students can listen to the rapid (normal) conversation and beginners can slow it down.

Phrase Repeat:  Just click the “back” button and the video goes back just a little – to repeat the very last phrase.  Didn’t quite hear it?  Repeat it.  Still not hearing it?  You can repeat it again and again, AND see it in captions in English and Spanish.  Cool.

A Fun Listening Game.  It IS fun.  Here’s an example.  Fill in the missing vocabulary.    The person on the video says something and it’s written in the box below the video.  But a word is missing from the written dialog.  Type in the missing word in the appropriate space, click enter and it will tell you if you are right.  Poco?  YES!  10 points.  And remember, you can repeat, slow it down, whatever you need to do to hear it.

There’s even a Spanish Spell Checker.  You don’t see that every day.

The Music category has songs, with the Spanish and English translations, so you can sing along AND know what you’re singing.

I like it.  A very useful program.  There is the argument, you know, that you don’t even need grammar – that you should learn like children learn their native tongue – by listening and repeating.  I think, for the adult brain, that grammar is pretty useful for deciding how to say something new.  But when you get tired of grammar, try this.

Okay, How Much?  $9.95 a month (they say it’s less than 35 cents per day).  It’s cheaper for  6 month or one year periods (2 free months if you sign up for a year), but you can get one month at a time.   There is also a newsletter and lessons by rss feed.  Add this to your arsenal, right in there with Pimsleur, Coffee Break Spanish and Destinos.  Try it out. Let me know what you think.

Tags:   Learn Spanish · Learning Spanish · LoMasTV · speak Spanish · Video Lessons · Yabla1 Comment