A game to learn Spanish… or any other subject
Computers have turned out to be excellent tools to learn new languages, as you can tell from the many different educational tools you can find for this pupose.
Practiquemos (Spanish for “let’s practice”) is one of them. This tool comes with a basic menu of exercises covering different areas of the Spanish language, but the good thing is that you can freely download more exercises from the developer’s webpage, or even create your own sets. This means that you could use Practiquemos to practive just about any subject.
The program doesn’t include any theory. It simply plays the current test question after question, rewarding you with extra points if there’s an extra difficulty. You can go over the exercises as many times as you need, depending on your language skills.
Now, the negative side: Practiquemos needs a lot of work on its interface: design is fine but usability is terrible. You can’t resize windows properly without losing track of certain buttons. What’s more, the program has a strange tendency to resize itself with every new question. Also, be aware that in those exercises where you’re required to fill in the gaps, you must copy the whole sentence just as it appears, including the missing word. Otherwise it will count as a mistake. Practiquemos is certainly a nice approach to computer-assisted language learning. However, it still needs a lot of work on its interface and usability.
Do you want to learn Spanish? Are you making a Spanish course? Are you preparing yourself for a Spanish Language examination (like DELE Diploma de EspaƱol como Lengua Extranjera)? Or maybe, you can already speak some Spanish but don’t want to forget it? Then, Practiquemos is the right application for you.
It works like a videogame: You have 3 lives. The purpose is not to be killed. You have to answer the questions right and … in time. Fortunately, there are bonus that make you recover your lives and increase your score.
It’s so easy to use: just double-click it and start playing. No installation needed! Just unzip it after download. You can even put it in a USB stick and take it with you.
As soon as you get used to learn Spanish using Practiquemos, you will want to use it to learn other subjects. Well, no problem. You can easily create your own list of questions and answers. Have fun and tell all your friends!