What our customer's say!"Think again", The sound quality and pronunciation are good. But, the program locks up easily and is poorly organized. I would not recommend it.
"Best Simulation of a Classroom Setting", The product comes with 7 CDs:
--Language Course Level 1
--Language Course Level 2
--Language Course Level 3
--Language Course Level 4
--Conversation Trainer
--Grammar Trainer
--Audio CD
The first six CDs use the same formula. You start on the main screen with a virtual hostess. She talks to you and responds to your voice commands--all in the foreign language. From the main screen you can go to 5-10 different areas. Each area provides 2 or 3 stories presented with pictures and recorded voices. Following each story are 10 or so exercises.
The exercises consist of word matching, selecting or typing words to fill in blanks, conjugating, pronunciation, etc. Some exercises use the mouse; some require typing, and others are voice controlled. This variety makes the program a lot more interesting than many other Spanish software packages, in which you click-click-click-click... with the mouse the whole time.
You can navigate through practically the entire thing with voice commands, which is a fun way to improve your speaking skills in the language. The virtual hostess also gives the software a certain personal touch, like really being in a classroom. (No other language-learning software has done that for me.)
One Warning
This title may not be the best for beginners. I already had some Spanish knowledge and found the software perfect for me. But newcomers to the language may be a bit overwhelmed by the language difficulty right from the start. If you understand Spanish well enough to follow simple instructions, you shouldn't have a problem.
A Couple Complaints
The story/exercise pattern works great, but it gets old after the 3rd or 4th CD.
The audio CD only has 20 minutes of material, and isn't that helpful.
"Absolutely brilliant!", If you want a CD ROM that will really help you learn a foreign language, then buy this.
Okay, it may take a couple of minutes to familiarise yourself with the layout, but this is a virtual language course and not a children's toy.
In short, this is why I loved it:
- excellently structured course
- interesting content (lots of additional cultural information)
- voice recognition (enabled constant practice of my pronunciation)
- error correction (for my weaker grammar spots)
- online help at all times
Enjoy!
"Absolutely brilliant!", If you want a CD ROM that will really help you learn a foreign language, then buy this.
Okay, it may take a couple of minutes to familiarise yourself with the layout, but this is a virtual language course and not a kids' game.
In short, this is why I loved it:
- excellently structured course
- interesting content (lots of additional cultural information)
- voice recognition (enabled constant practice of my pronunciation)
- error correction (for my weaker grammar spots)
- online help at all times
Enjoy!
"Absolutely Awful", I'm not normally one to rant, but this software is simply and truly terrible. The discs include one 470 MB executable - I don't know what they were thinking - which takes even my brand new, state of the art Dell forever to load.
The interface is terrible, random, and confusing. There is no help in getting started - no printed manual - and little rhyme or reason to what's going on.
Stay away at all cost! Garbage!
