KLOO's Race to Madrid - The Learn to Speak Spanish Language

This game is wonderful! I bought the Race to Madrid version, which contains packs 1 - 4 and a board for the game, which is basically just a visual way of keeping the score. We moved to Spain in April. Both my husband and I had in the past reached intermediate level in Spanish, and the kids, aged 8 and 14 had had a few months of lessons with a tutor once a week. The area we live in has a few English couples, but we are the only English family in the village, so the ability to speak Spanish is key, as well as both kids attending Spanish schools here. Originally, we employed a local teacher to teach our teenager, but this didn't really work as in typical teenager form, she resented having to learn a language! Then I discoverd Kloo! We have played a game every day, starting with pack one, then as we mastered the words, we've moved onto pack 2, and plan to do this with all the packs, then jumble the packs up, to make things harder. Things I like about Kloo! 1) Everyone can play the game, without those at a higher level having too much of an unfair advantage. 2) It's simple to play. No complicated rules, so you can just concentrate on the language. 3) You can tailor the game to your own needs ie there are more games that can be played with the cards which are explained on the Kloo website, which is free to access. 4) My kids BEG to play Kloo every day, so it must be doing something right! 5) You really do learn the language and faster than any other way I've known, and I've tried a fair few language tapes. 6) The board game makes scoring easy, and the result at any given time visible! We usually play at least 2 games to get to Madrid, which takes us between one and two hours, so it's not a long drawn out game, which keeps the children's interest. I don't understand why Amazon have added packs 3 and 4 with the Race to Madrid game, as they are already included in the Race to Madrid version. Clearer labelling on the part of Amazon required I think! It's not a reflection on the game. 7) Each pack only has 2 persons in the verbs, so it makes it easier to pick up verb conjugations. In pack 1 for example, all words are "I" or "we". In pack 2, both singular and plural forms of you are used, but not I or we. My teenage daughter was struggling with Spanish verbs, but Kloo has definitely helped. Small criticisms of Kloo: 1) At the moment, only the present tense is covered in the game. I understand though that very soon, past and future tense packs will be available on the website. I guess later, this could be expanded by Kloo to include other tenses as well, which would make it a game for even advanced language learners! 2) In the game, every sentence has to have not only a verb and a noun, but an adjective, yet in real life, sentences don't have to. The cards have coloured arrows on them, indicating which type of card can go next ie verb, adverb adjective or whatever (I'm no language expert)If you get dealt a hard with a lot of one type of card, and can't make a "proper" sentence, then you are forced to just play one card. For example, if your hand is lacking any adjectives (describing words) then you can only play a verb, or throw away any single card. 3) At the moment, the vocab is limited, though again, I understand there are plans in the not too distant future to add more vocab packs on the website. 4) It's a shame that the board seems to bear no relation to the geography of Spain. It would perhaps add interest if some attention had been paid to putting small symbols for the different places on the board, and having a larger variety of places from around Spain on the board. Northern Spain is very poorly represented for example! If you are looking for a way to learn a language, pain free, then you should start here! I really can't recommend it highly enough! Before we got the game, I suspected that my kids grasp of Spanish was better than they allowed me to believe, and this has just been verified! After all, they have been attending Spanish schools for a term, so must have picked some words up from their friends! KLOO's Learn to Speak Spanish Language Board Game - Race to Madrid

We loved that we were creating sentences in Spanish as part of a game. I played this with my 11 year-old son, and we both enjoyed it. Figuring out the meanings of words during the course of the game was fun, and an effective way to learn. The only downside was that my son realized that this is not the same Spanish he is learning in school (Latin American Spanish)l, and the differences were somewhat confusing and frustrating. I had read this before, and I should have realized this from the title of the game, being a city in Spain, but had forgotten about the two different dialects. However, if he can keep them separate in his head, we'll keep playing the game, which is a learning bonus. There were some words that had meanings he wasn't used to, and the articles were different. Much was the same, however. We'd recommend it, but know which dialect you are getting.

When I saw this game I thought it'd be perfect as I'm learning Spanish. It's got cards for all the building blocks of a sentence and every Spanish word has its meaning given somewhere else in the pack. So we found that by playing it a couple of times you quickly got the hang of some vocab just by looking at your cards. Not sure how much use its be to build complex sentences later but for now it's a good game to pick up and remember the basics.

I went for the "whole enchilada" and bought the full Race to Madrid board game! After traveling through Spain this past summer, I love seeing cities like Salamanca, Valladolid, and others on the board! This game is being used 1) in my home with my family to improve our Spanish, 2) with a 2nd grade student that I teach Spanish to, and 3) in my classroom for use during free time. I am definitely getting my money's worth and everyone loves the ease with which they can learn and enjoy Spanish. This game is an effective motivator for those who are reluctant to learn Spanish or for those who haven't had a positive classroom experience learning the language Also, it inspires interest in countries using the language. My guess is that this game is just as fun in the other languages (French, Italian) offered. Thank you, KLOO, for really thinking through the game design; we love it!

This game is OK, but the reviews made me expect something better. I'm frankly annoyed that so many of its cards are devoted to the conjugation using Vosotros, which my kids aren't even learning in their bilingual school. It would be good if you could choose between Latin American Spanish and Spanish spanish. I also found the instructions a bit confusing about whether, once you've made a sentence and put it down, if it's OK to add other cards or words to that sentence from your hand, or if you need to instead start a whole new sentence on the next turn.