Spanish With Paul (Course) Review: Too Dull In My Opinion

Excellent review. I have seen a review of this which says the author is “Paul Nobel”, i.e. not Paul Noble, the well known language teaching author, but “Paul Nobel” as in the spelling of the Nobel Prize. I suspect that this is B.S. and I bet that a lot of people think they are getting a personalized course by THE Paul Noble. I think Paul Noble’s course (i.e. the one by the REAL Paul Noble) is excellent and if this one were by him I would probably subscribe to it. But it isn’t. I agree with the comments made above by Jada Lòpez in her excellent review, based on my review of some of the free offerings that this “Paul” gives on Youtube. It’s not bad but it matters to me that he does not have a native speaker helping him. I don’t think I will be paying $199 (or even $99) for a one year premium course when I can buy the main 12 CD Paul Noble course on Audible for less than $19 and his more advanced “Next Steps” course for about $15. For less than $40 you own these forever and, though they do not have a lot of written material, they do have PDF booklets. Or, if you are an Audible member anyway you can get each of them with one monthly book credit. Of course, Paul Noble does not have an advanced level. Still, I hesitate to pay “Paul Nobel” for non-native, albeit apparently competent, instruction. I think I’d rather buy a used set of CD’s for the full Pimsleur course on Ebay for about $100 to have the more advanced level included. I like the idea of having a “forever” copy of courses. Or maybe I will subscribe to Pimsleur for a few months after I’m done with the real Paul Noble course. This is just my opinion and I am not saying that Spanish with Paul is terrible. It may be just right for many people. But no one should think that they are getting the real Paul Noble who, in my opinion, is vastly superior. Thanks for posting this review. Best regards.

The first course was the best one for beginners. The others are total waste of time and money. No support from Paul or his team. Many mistakes in the format of the Ultimate Drill course in the questions and answers section which I wrote to them about with no respond. My advice is don’t waste your time.

I spent alot of money for Spanish With Paul because I did connect with the teaching. It became apparent that Paul was out to strip me of as much money as possible. Everything he puts out expires in a years time, even the 5000 word PDF that I mistakenly thought was mine because I paid for it separately.
Paul advertises that you will have access to him for questions. In the 3 years of using and paying for Pauls material, there was a number of times I sent a question to Paul and it was never answered by him but by an assistant and lacking good feedback.

I had been working through the mini course for some time and enjoyed it. Even though I have a basic understanding of Spanish by ability to string sentences together are lacking.

So, I decided to buy the ‘premium’ course with all the bells and whistles that are promised in the overly long sales page.

Accessed the course. All looked good. Did a couple of lessons and thought I would print the accompanying PDF’s for reference - no where to be found. Contacted Paul, Paul never replied but Elena did. Only a couple of PDF’s in the entire premium course are available for download - that was the first disappointment.

A couple of days passed and I thought I’d look at the much touted ‘Video Vault’ where you are supposed to get access to tons of lessons that don’t make it on to YouTube or the premium course. There are 3!!! One of Paul showing off his balcony view, one of the the theme tune to his lessons and one genuine short lesson. So, the prized video vault has exactly 3 lessons in it!

Moving on, wanted to listen to the native speaker audio that the course promises. It mentions that you can listen to native speakers in conversation - would help as Spanish to me is spoken much quicker than Paul teachers it. Searched and searched for them in my course dashboard but they are no where to be found. That was well over 2 weeks ago and 4 emails later still no reply from PAUL!!!

So, in summary. Is the premium deluxe course worth it? No - simply because you don’t get what you pay for. It is clear in their sales pitch that you should get access to Paul - you don’t. They advice you will receive PDF’s for the lessons, I found a couple (out of quite a number of lessons). There are no audio conversation files to listen to or download. They simply ignore your emails when you are complaining or asking about their misleading sales pitch.

Am I disappointed? Very much. I like Paul’s way of teaching . What I don’t like is the way they lie about the course and it’s contents.

Even though they will not reply to emails they have the cheek to try and sell you additional courses after you become a member.

So, in summary, just a word of warning - clarify with them what you will receive compared to what they say you will receive on the sales page.

I am writing these words in 2022 March 3.
I am midway through the course Spanish with Paul
I do agree to a certain degree with other participants.

I will tell you what i like, and then what i don’t like.

Likes:
The way the course does it, they help you to remember the words. They have a learning technique that resembles Michel Thomas, Pimsleur, Paul Noble and the likes.

If you faithfully go thru the sentences they supply, you are sort of conditioned to speak spanish.
It is straight forward. You get what you pay for. Spanish statements in chunks.

What i don’t like
Consumers are required to finish the course in 1 year. What i refer to is the Premium course. It was initially offered at $199++. Then they send you an email to say that it is reduced to $99.

So now we know where they are heading.

There are mistakes here and there in the English spelling.
Then i recall that they mentioned in their marketing words that there are mistakes in the wordings, and even then, their students still want them, and think that the words are useful.

I have looked through the slides or presentation. Actually it’s not too hard to correct and remove the spelling mistakes. It can be done. But they are just too lazy to do it.

I asked them if the course comes with pdf notes. The impression that was given before i signed up, is that there are pdf notes.
So i went in the course. i noticed that certain lessons, actually a minority of the lessons have pdf notes. So that means i have to complete the course and make sure i remember what i go through???
Do i have a super memory? If you do not let me keep the video for the premium course, then at least give me a list of the words which we have gone through!

Also, the emailing. Yes it’s true they do not reply to email.
i had some questions about some of the spanish lessons being taught. i felt it was not clear.
However, they simply did not want to answer my email.

What i saw was, they selectively answer emails. Get what i mean?
They answer emails that they think they have answers to.
And then they choose to ignore some of the learning needs of the students..

So what is my score for them: 3/10

If they were willing to correct the spelling mistakes (which is not hard to correct!)
Ensure that the language related questions were answered in a forum
Provided PDF notes for everything that is taught.
Kept their word that their spanish teachers would answer the questions..
(So far, there is no access to native speakers and spanish teachers)

I would have given then at least an 8 out of 10.

Now can a person learn from this course? Definitely.
But there are little bits of inconveniences along the way, which is the result of willful poor service.

I had initially gone thru the course and hoped that my kids could go thru it. However, based on the abovementioned flaws...you would need to reconsider such an action.

I appreciate this forum or comment section. And Spanish with Paul is sadly complacent.
If only they would resolve these little issues, they would even be world class.

However, they just choose the road that they are now taking.

If its possible, i invite those who read these words to direct your friends to this website, and even copy (in context) the words i have written. Best is to direct them here to this website.

Spanish with Paul needs to do something.

Disappointed customer

I cannot use the password to get to the course I just paid for. they sent a bunch of dots and no letters or numbers. Of course I cannot read the dots. I agree that the course is just to hard to use and more time is looking for it than is spent on learning Spanish

If this course has direct access to a teacher and native Spanish speakers, I have yet to find them and I’m halfway through the course. The admin. doesn’t even answer emails. I agree with the tedious slide show lesson style