outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4951 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean
| Message 1 of 4 28 September 2011 at 8:22pm | IP Logged |
For those in the United States: I have just seen these programs at Office Depot going for 9.99!! A $10 Berlitz rebate plus a $20 store mail-in rebate. So from 39.99 down to 9.99 after you get your rebate on the mail.
Honestly, any language program at $9.99 might be a nothing-to-lose proposition, but being Berlitz which has a reputation, and the look of the program (at least from the box it looks like it would be quite useful), it makes it quite a bit more compelling.
I would buy the Chinese/Japanese one (there's for English, French, Spanish, German and Italian also), and I was wondering if anyone had used them. I may very well buy anyways, for 10 bucks it seems like a steal as long as you learn something from it.
ps- there is a limit of only one rebate per person. But I guess no way of them preventing your friends from getting more for you if you wanted :p
1 person has voted this message useful
|
hobbitofny Senior Member United States Joined 6235 days ago 280 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian
| Message 2 of 4 29 September 2011 at 9:44pm | IP Logged |
These are an earlier verion of Transparent Language produces. They are not a bad buy for 9.99.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
psy88 Senior Member United States Joined 5593 days ago 469 posts - 882 votes Studies: Spanish*, Japanese, Latin, French
| Message 3 of 4 30 September 2011 at 3:36am | IP Logged |
This sounded good but the Amazon reviews for the French were pretty negative. Any one else have experience with it?
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4911 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 4 of 4 01 October 2011 at 9:38pm | IP Logged |
I think Transparent Language was a fantastic idea, which unfortunately got derailed by fancy features.
Basically, TL was about having a text in your target language, with everything clickable for information. You click on a word, and get the meaning of the individual word, as well as a translation of the full sentence. It tells you grammatical information about the word, such as person, number, or whatever is needed. It was great because you could read a large amount of text, with as much or as little help as you need. You can also listen to the audio, at full speed or half speed, with the translation windows following along. It's basically L-R in software form.
Where they went bad was when they tried to make it more attractive by adding features. Initially, you could buy add on texts, and many of the texts were literary texts. For example, I have Das Urteil in German for TL. I also have a German grammar written in German. But as they went more for more of a whizz-bang look, they now only have texts with video, and they don't offer add on texts anymore.
Still, it is good software if you use it. In the UK you can buy a cheap version called "Teaching You ..." I got Teaching You French for £2 at a used bookshop, but I think it's about £10 on Amazon.co.uk, and well worth it. It only has 2 beginner titles (totalling about 8,500 words), but it's still good software.
The software is only as good as the amount you use it. At first, it seems odd and you might not really find it very useful. But as you get used to using it, it is a very effective method of supporting your language learning.
1 person has voted this message useful
|