Rating: 
Summary: Useful in Learning Spanish
Review: I work as a border guard at a USA-Mexico border stop and let me tell you that Spanish Now has helped my Spanish speaking skills a lot while helping to give me a valuable job skill. Before I picked this product up I spoke Spanish on a very limited begining level. Spanish Now enabled me to work on several aspects of my language learning. With the very good audio features my pronunciation and interpretation of Spanish improved greatly. The amount of vocabulary I was able to learn from Spanish Now was astonishing. The games made for good practice and review of the various lessons/knowledge obtained from the program. The conversation practice feature allowed me to develop my Spanish communication skills with life like practice. The overall performance of this program surprised me and I highly recomend it.
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Summary: Try this program for Language Learning
Review: Hi I was an exchange student from the USA who went to Sweeden and was prepared for my trip because of this program. Before going to Sweeden I was able to learn a good amount of the Swedish language with Swedish Now which kept me from being left in the dark. While in Sweeden this program provided great review and practice so my language skills could improve and sound well. If you are intrested in learning a new language I would give this a try. It works well and I really enjoyed the interactive learning this program provided through games and other media. Being able to hear the words made my pronunciation much better and clearer. I was able to expand my vocabulary because of the sizeable content in the program. My experience with Swedish Now is nothing but good.
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Summary: Learn to Speak Polish
Review: I spoke several foreign languages( Spanish, Italian, German) before picking up Polish Now and I must say this is a great way to learn a new language. Every other language I learned was in a classroom setting but Polish Now changed this. Everything I needed was in one program and it was very sucessful at teaching the basics. The games and other activities provided for hours upon hours of needed practice. The amount of practice and learning that can be done through this program is immense and very interactive. I was able to learn the basics of Polish and many situational phrases very easily. From there the program lead me into the more advanced areas of learning the Polish Language and did so quite sucessfully. I would recomend this program to anyone who wanted to try and learn another language.
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Summary: Good for Learning German
Review: This product is good for learning and practicing the German Language. As an American businessman working for Volkswagen/BMW, a German car company, learning German seemed like a good idea since I took frequent business trips to Germany. I started with a class but soon started looking for alternatives. I picked up German Now and found that using it helped a lot. It focused on the language skills of listening, speaking, reading&writing, and vocabulary & grammar. The programs ability to say many of the words through audio allows you to recognize and pronounce words better. The Plug-n-Play game, along with others, helps to teach you to read and spell German. I highly recomend this product if you want to learn a new language or use it to help you in a language class. It has numerous games, activities and videos. The content is just endless and it works.
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Summary: What an amazing Tool
Review: Hi I'm an English teacher who teaches English as a Second Language (ESL) to students in China. Before starting this job I took a Madarin Chinese class and found it very hard. I got this program and using it helped me immensly. I was able to put into practice what I learned in class through this program. This provided excellent practice in pronunciation and contains a very large vocabulary section. The games and media were very good tools to practice and learn with, especially Vocabulous, my favorite game. After the class, when I was in China, I still used this program to help keep my language skills sharp and to expand my knowledge of it. Chinese Now is a very good learning program and it works.
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Summary: Helpful in Learning French
Review: This product helped me so much in learning French. This last semester of college I took a French Language class and this product provided immense support and practice. With French Now I was able to go into the program and practice what I had just learned in class that day with games and more. The program is easy to use and effective as a learning tool. Furthermore, the interactive aspects of French Now enabled me to hear proper French and learn the correct pronunciation. This fall I am going to study abroad in Paris and thanks to this product I will be able to keep practicing and learning French till then.
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Summary: Effective Learning Tool.
Review: This product, Russian Now V9 by Transparent Language, is great for language learning. Being able to hear the words pronounced greatly enhances ones ability to correctly learn the right way to speak Russian. Russian Now emphasizes the important language skills of listening, speaking, reading & writing and vocabulary & grammar. The games are excellent and help to provide good practice. The product provides a CD interactive learning experience. Adding to this is Transparent Language's free web-based learning resource that will support and expand your learning. Overall, this is a well put together and useful learning tool.
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Summary: Very useful way to practice German
Review: German Now! 9 is an excellent way to improve your German. There is plenty of variety in this program. Listen to conversations, speak and have your pronunciation graded, and of course plenty of exercises. There are only a few minor quibs I have: The sound quality could have been a bit better. There is noticable static in parts. The acting for the video segments is mediocre. I normally wouldn't care, but occasionally the actors looked a little nervous and it distracted me. The speech analysis in this program is excellent. In addition to just a rating, you can see graphs of aspects of your speech (vowels, frictives, pitch) so you get an idea of what you specifically need to improve. My only comment is that you'll need (or at least I needed) a high quality microphone to get the most out of the speech analysis. When I recorded my voice with several different[...] mics, there was just too much static. Have fun, that's the best way to learn any language.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I started knowing no German, but because of recent work assignment, need to develop basic conversational and written skills. I did a reasonably thorough investigation of PC-based learning packages, but was only able to demo one fairly expensive option. Being frugal, I went with this lower cost alternative. I am disappointed in the product for the following reasons:
- There is not an obvious starting point and not an obvious lesson sequence. The opening window is a video of a conversation. Although labeled Beginner, it is far beyond where a new learner would be at. I suspect it was done to show off the "multimedia" features as the first impression.
- The content is not organized in lessons. It's like using a dictionary and phrase book to teach yourself.
- The various References Tools have different user interfaces - suggesting this is an aggregation of completely different products. I was expecting a carefully designed and packaged product aimed at helping me learn German. This looks like a quick effort to put together some multimedia sequences with translation, bundled with a few references. It is not a learning environment. So, I recommend avoiding this product. I'm going to look at some other lower cost alternatives, but if I don't find anything suitable, I'm going to either find a German friend to help me learn, or bite the bullet and get the expensive solution.
Rating: 
Summary: Learn Hebrew Now by Transparent Language
Review: I found this program very difficult to use, counter-intuitive with very clumsy and amateurish looking graphic interface. It doesn't have step-by-step lessons that allow to progress from basic topics like alphabet and pronunciation to more advanced topics. I would only use this program for as a "speaking" dictionary. I'm an experienced educational software user and have multi-lingual background.
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