Vista Higher LearningReviews 105

I had to buy Portales 1 and 2 for my college Spanish classes. Both access codes were priced north of $200. Other Spanish learning applications are much cheaper; their price gouging works because VHL likely forces professors to pay little to nothing, allowing all of the financial burden to be shifted to the students who obviously have no choice. I also do not know of any other language-learning platforms that share their features compete against them. Additionally, the lessons and activities are sometimes hard to understand and don't actually improve Spanish fluency--only immersion and interactive learning can do that.

This website is terrible I wouldn't even give it one star. The questions are subjective and then have a right answer. It'll show you a photo of two people drinking coffee outside of a cafe (no books in sight), and the correct answer is that they're both students. Adds in vocabulary words that weren't in the textbook, and half the time you have to submit your answers twice. I hate that I spent money on this and any teacher who uses it clearly didn't research it first.

Welp. D-U-M-B, would rate a 0. The french textbook puts in lots of stupid words you don't know, and expects you to know how to order the phrases to get the damned answer. Like how to confuse people more than the language already does is to make the site even worse than the language! The language typeing parts are the worst! And the only half decent parts are the multiple choice parts where the parts are already typed out for you. In short: don't use this damn site unless you need to.

I use this site for my Spanish class and it is so annoyingly picky with how it wants questions answered. I wish I could give it zero stars. Often I have to think about my answers. I also have to do other things alongside it such as research. The result of that is that it gets too impatient after a long period of inactivity, getting me annoyed at it for the whole time I'm on. Sometimes it's unclear of what they want from me and others whenever we give an answer to a question because everything will look right from the spelling to the grammar as well and then we realize that we got the question wrong. LIKE WHAT DID YOU EVEN WANT?!?!?! WHAT WERE YOU LOOKING FOR UGH! Sometimes instructions are unclear and I swear this website is too precise with what it wants it's $#*!ing annoying. Seriously though, if you can avoid this website at all costs, please do. It's not worth the time and money to deal with the annoyances it carries.

I have to use this site for college Spanish and its horrible. The questions make no sense at all, sometimes my HISPANIC FRIENDS don't even understand what it wants. Also the book barely teaches anything either and is even more confusing. I know several free sites that are way better than this. This website pisses me off even more when theres only "one attempt" for an activity that I completely fail due to the directions making no sense. I usually fail all the lessons the first time because I don't know what it wants and it takes 20 tries to get it right.

This is NOT a program for learning! Instructions are in the language you don't know, no explanations or instructions when you get answers incorrect, and after the allotted number of tries you get the answer wrong.
Total scam! My money would have been better spent on Rosetta Stone, or drugs than this program. After I pass this class (because that's all I actually care about) I'll get Rosetta Stone and actually learn Spanish.
Thank you for reinforcing the voices that echo the scam college has become.

I'm not a slouch and I may end up failing this class destroying my present 4.0. Horrible! The first lesson was okay but the second lesson has you spending hours upon hours trying to understand videos with words you haven't mastered yet and some you haven't even learned yet so you can write answers to questions in Spanish you don't know yet. I'm kind sad about it because I really wanted to learn Spanish. I've never felt so discouraged by a class in my life. Somehow you're expected to understand the dialect by week three and by some miracle translate a language you haven't learned. No partial points for missed accent marks or slight mispelling. That's the problem with computers. No teacher and its totally teaching yourself. Hating this class and no free time left for other classes. Avoid at all costs!

When purchasing a book or code through the site, be extremely careful. The site did not give me the option to look up the correct book for my class until after I purchased a very expensive online code. I ended up paying $75 extra for the book because of a horrible designed website with little to no direction. After talking to a very nice woman in customer service, I STILL was not able to get my money back to buy the correct book. I do not recommend using this site for buying books or codes, you're safer using an outside site.

The rage. All teh rage. There are no directions, no guidance, no "this is how you navigate this flaming dumpster fire of completely random and pointless assignments" map. The text is the opposite of helpful as it lacks introduction, structure, and is basically a paper version of the online course. VHL makes Pearson look like God's gift to students. Aside. The professor is excellent and the Blackboard shell is excellent. I would do better squinting at a textbook and having a conversation in person. Heck, Duo has provided a greater grasp of the language. Seriously, VHL is the worst. I'm less than two weeks into the course and I've ragequit more times than I haven't.

First things first. I am doing my activities on this website and get the urge to blow up mankind's entire existence. Literaly. I want to smash any object in my path with a 50 foot long sledge hammer with THE RIDE OF VALKIRIES playing in the background. THe level of anger is indescribable. The lessons are so stinking hard and I want to punch a hole in the computer. I don't have anger issues its just simpily the sheer pain of these tedious and hard lessons is unfathomable. Honestly I would rather do a whole chapter review with 30 questions than this poop. Plees for the love of my sanity make these lessons more eaisyer and Don't make the lesson questions IN SPANISH WHEN I DONT KNOW WHAT THEY SAY. I AM IN SPANISH CLASS TO LEAR SPAISH NOT LOOKAT DIRECFTIONS FOR A LESSON AND GET MAD CUZ I DONT KNOW WHAT ITS SAYING TO ME. This website is trash. Like trash is to the grouch from elmos world. It is like the pain in my side that when my teacher says that we have vhl I scream inside.