Whistlefritz: Spanish For Beginners is the latest in the award-winning Spanish for Beginners series! Shot in high definition and packed with lots of music and lessons plus a handy insert which has a list of Spanish to English translations.

Maybe its just me but I felt this DVD was terrible. It could have been great, a benefit educationally for kids and adults looking to learn Spanish, but there was a huge gap between teacher and student. That gap? The entire DVD is in Spanish with only a small number of moments which clearly indicate English and Spanish translation. Yes there is a lot of visual such as the host waving and saying Hola which clearly translates to hello but with the entire DVD being in Spanish and not enough interaction with body movement or item interaction I was lost and so were my kids. We used the insert before the film to test one another on our Spanish and found we knew next to nothing but the program clearly states there is no previous Spanish knowledge required when obviously there is. Another unthought-of downside is the lack of subtitles which could have been used as a translation tool as well. A family member had once told me they watched English speaking films with foreign subtitles to teach themselves the language. I don’t see why they wouldn’t have thought to do the same here. There are just to many avenues that could have been explored instead of simply making the entire program in Spanish but in the end there just isn’t much you can come away with and I can imagine, that being even tiresome for me, kids will more then likely be put off.