Race to Madrid | Learn Spanish Board Game | 4 Decks | 1–4 Players | Fun Spanish Learning Game for Families, Kids & Adults | Race Through Spain | Build Sentences, Tenses & Everyday Phrases

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

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.

We really enjoy the Kloo range of language learning products, and decided to try the Race to Madrid board game to add to the fun. This is another well designed product that offers the same great format you will soon learn to love. The twist that keeps the children interested is the classic race to the centre style board. Choose your coloured car and you are ready for the off. There are four decks of cards available in the game, People, Clothing, Eating and Drinking, and Everyday Objects. The most useful categories for everyday interaction in a foreign climate! This is perfect for learning conversational Spanish. The children who are 16 and 11 were really engaged and the competitive sibling rivalry soon kicked in, each being determined to win. It was actually the younger child that cottoned on to looking at the cards in his hand (as yet unplayed) to assist him with translations, as well as looking at the cards already in play. He was soon streaking ahead on the first attempt. The object is to build sentences using the clever colour coding to help nudge you in the right direction. Points, which equate to squares moved, are accrued by constructing the sentences and then by translating them. So a three card sentence can potentially accrue you 6 moves, IF you can translate it successfully! There are added action squares to further increase the fun, and give players a chance to earn extra moves forward, and even in one case send another player back 2 if they fail to translate the card. The game is really good fun, we were surprised how much time we had been playing for, an hour passed really quickly and the children were still really engaged and determined to win. I think we play slower than the rules suggest but the fact that the time was taken up with lots of discussions about the words and the structure is definitely good in my book. They were animated and happy, and more importantly they were learning. I am sure most school lessons are not met with this much enthusiasm. There was some argument over the occasional word, specifically pronunciation but we were able to clear that up really quickly because the cards do help you with that, it is just simple phonics pronunciation. As the game progressed, even the first time we played it, I was hearing shouts of ‘oh I know what that means’ and then they would start repeating to each other what they already knew - which was helpful repetition. My 11 year old has repeatedly referred to various food items in Spanish since we started playing, specifically cheese and chicken - he is very impressed with himself and whats more he is learning words as second nature. Overall this is another great option in the Kloo range, we really love the products and thoroughly enjoy the learning experience.

BORING! Played once, can't see it ever seeing the light of day again!

I bought the Spanish Kloo board game (Race to Madrid) after feeling a little disillusioned with a recent educational DVD that my kids just weren't interested in! ( As a languages graduate, it has always been my aim to get my own children ahead with their French and Spanish). I found Kloo purely by accident while searching online for language resources, and decided to give it a go based on its very positive reviews, and am so glad I did - I am genuinely delighted with it so far! Apart from being a very enjoyable game in its own right, after a very short time my children have learnt almost all the words in deck 1 which relate to food and drink, ordering in a restaurant etc. They can build sentences using all the relevant parts of speech and they and have an increased awareness of masculine/feminine nouns, placement of adjectives, verb conjugations (1st person singular and plural only in deck 1 - which is perfect) not to mention a varied and useful vocabulary that is relevant and fun for children. I have also brushed up on my own, slightly rusty, Spanish and my children love trying to catch me out! We don't play the whole game every night but rather just leave the game out and continue where we left off, meaning that there are no battles over going up to bed as they can't wait to play each night. My son, who has additional support at school with his English, finds this game motivating and enjoyable - the results are better than I'd even hoped initially. His pronunciation needs a bit of work but with the phonetic spelling on each card, even this aspect has been thought of and addressed in a way that allows children to sound authentic. I have now also bought the first two French card decks, however, I just want to focus on the Spanish for another week before we swap. I am pleased to see that the French deck 1 corresponds quite closely to the Spanish, which means we already have plenty of clues and a good head start. Overall this is a fantastic game and I wish teachers would use it instead of simply teaching a string of sentences without any explanation of how they are built up. I'm certain that by using this as a teaching resource chidren would learn much more effectively and be more inspired. Just need more hours in the day to play it. My favourite purchase in a long time.

A really good idea but very disappointing. I bought this for my husband who has some knowledge of the Spanish language and wanted to advance this. However neither of us were able to understand the rules of the game and have given up!

The balance of the cards available to make the sentences does not work well, so the game can be very long-winded. The overall idea is a good one though. I think it best to adapt what there is to make it 'work' for you. The verbs are only given in the 'I' and 'we' form for decks one and two, and only the 'you singular' and 'you plural' in decks three and four. I think it is expensive for what it is. A useful tool. It could be very helpful for families who are moving to Spanish speaking countries, where the whole family needs to learn the language. Younger children could help the adults. The vocabulary is basic, but with some imagination and BLANK cards to personalize, definitely useful.

This is a good game for beginners. The repetition within the game and cards works well for memory. However this isn’t a sustainable game once the words have been learnt but it is good for the inital purpose.

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.

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.

Today, "Race to Madrid" arrived. We are a homeschooling family and use textbooks and online resources to study Spanish. Even though it had been a long day, I was too excited to wait until tomorrow to play it with my kids. But they were tired and reluctant to play at such a late hour. I convinced them, and even my husband joined in. Well, it was a big hit! Everyone was laughing, learning, and engaged. What a great way to encourage foreign language learning. So thrilled that I came across this game and I cannot wait to share the news with our homeschooling groups. I love that learners of all levels can play and that the players are eager to master the vocabulary as they also earn grammar.

Fun way to learn a language with a group of people! This is coming from a dad who didn't really even care much about learning Spanish to begin with, but others in my family did and I've honestly had fun playing along and learning it with them. It assumes you know zero Spanish to begin with, which was perfect for me. It teaches you individual words while also encouraging you to use them in a sentence. Gameplay involves drawing hands of cards which each display a Spanish word, used to construct sentences on your turn. The cards are color-coded by word type (verbs, nouns, etc), and you must play those colors in the correct order to construct a sentence, even if you don't (yet) know what the words actually mean. You get points for each card you play and bonus points for any words that you can translate. Each card also provides the Spanish-English the translation for a DIFFERENT word in the game, which everyone can later reference after the card is played, as it remains visible for the rest of the game. That's how you learn the translations, so that you can snag those bonus points. TIP FOR PLAYING - Here's a "house rule" that I recommend: Separate the red cards (verbs) from the others! Have two stacks instead of just one. The game practically requires you to play at least one red card on each of your turns, but we would often find ourselves without any reds, repeatedly, which was very frustrating. Having a separate draw pile which only contains red cards, and allowing players to pick from either pile when they replenish their hand, made the game a lot more educational and fun for everyone. Before we did this, we were about to just quit the game entirely out of frustration. ALSO for the first few games, consider only using red cards that start with "yo"; this avoids the frustration of having to learn all of the conjugations ("I am", "you are") at the same time that you're learning the words themselves.