Rating: 
Summary: Simply an excellent program
Review: This is a great program. Previously I bought another Russian language software program and it was pitiful compared with this one. Anywhere in this program you can right-click on a Russian word and bring up its grammar characteristics. An example might be (noun, feminine, 1st conjugation, possesive case). This is important to know when you are learning what ending a word needs based on that information. You can also hear words pronounced by Russian speakers at full speed or half speed and have the word repeated as many times as needed to imitate it. The only things this program lacks are a dictionary (you can download a free Russian/English, English/Russian dictionary off the internet from Russlang) and a "back" button to go to a previous training sentence. You can tell the program to go to a specific sentence and word (i.e. sentence #202, word #5), but without a printed-out sheet of all sentences how are you to know what sentence #202 says? Even so this is an amazing product and a great deal of work obviously went into developing it and it shows. One piece of advise though. You should also buy a good Russian language textbook to complement this program. Either one without the other will eventually leave you confused somewhere down the line. Just be aware that Russian is a complex language and the more reference tools you have at you side, the easier it will be. I have 3 books and often must read the same topic in all 3 to fully understand it. I give this product 2 thumbs up. If your local library has the book/tape series "Modern Russian 1" printed by the Georgetown University Press. I highly recommend you check out the book for a few weeks. It is a great reference tool. ...
Rating: 
Summary: Nice, but not my style...
Review: I find this system too confusing for me. The explanations of the cases are too mind boggling for me to understand what it is that they are talking about. The voice part of the software is nice, however, it's definitely unreliable when it comes to telling you how well you are at pronouncing a word. I should know; just for fun, I said a word in english and it gave me a WOW for my "russian" pronunciation. What a joke! The movie "The Adventures of John Stevenson," although incredibly entertaining and fun to watch, didn't do a thing when it came to teaching me the language. I'm more of a visual learner and I prefer to be taught a language through pictures. This system just didn't help me at all.
Rating: 
Summary: Good way to learn Chinese
Review: This is an amazing software.
I can enhance my vocabruary and correct my pronounciation through recording my voice and compare with the native pronounciatin on the PC. This is very helpful to learn new language. And also, my version came with bonus CD which includes multiple languages word processor.
Considering the price, this has very high cost performance and I strongly recommend this software to lean Chinese.
Rating:
Summary: Great New Product!
Review: I received my copy of this new product today. First impression is very positive. I have bought most all the CD-based products for German and this one is way ahead of the rest. For my money, the others are toys with no depth at all. What makes this one effective for language learning is a design and technology that makes use of concurrent inputs: sound,text,and visuals. And these three sensory inputs can be slowed down and/or repeated as desired. It's not perfect, but it is clearly better than the rest.For this reason, I give it a 'relative' rating of 5.
Rating:
Summary: Very nice program
Review: A good thing about this program is that it introduces you to the alphabet, pronouncing the letter sounds and the letter names themselves. Too bad they don't have that feature for numbers or counting. For that, you'd have to look them up or happen upon each number during dialog lessons.
I wouldn't completely rely on the 'Advanced Speech Analysis' feature in helping with one's accent, which basically has an arrow which points to one of three areas depending on one's accent ability: Keep Practicing, Good, and WOW. Though, it still is nice that I can play my voice back to back to back with the native speaker, determining how I need to improve myself. One doesn't need a meter for that.
The program will also allow one to type Russian characters and letters on a standard English keyboard. Nothing has to be reprogramed for it to type Russian.
The program also exercises listening comprehension along with the reading and writing. They have a dictation game, in which one will hear a Russian native speaker dictating sentences and the player will, in turn, type it in Russian.
The grammar tutorial is also very nice, giving you lessons in conjugation, etc., as well as a short but interesting history of the Russian language itself.
They have these dialogs for several situations that gives you examples of how words are used. They give you over ten-thousand words, all right. They're not made up into vocabulary lists, however. Instead it's made up of every single word for every single sentence in every single piece of dialog in the dialog sections.
Also included is a multilingual word processor, so one can type in their new language outside of the "Russian Now" program.
The only thing I don't like (and is the reason I knocked off a star) is the fact that it is a bit difficult to navigate through. One could get lost without a way to get back to where they started.
Rating:
Summary: For Intermediate Conversational French
Review: I really enjoy using this program and I highly recommend it. This program has very good conversational skill levels. You practice speaking and it rates your pronunciation. It helps you to improve your listening skills as well. It has word games, grammar tools and vocabulary building. The real life videos are average. However, it would be difficult to use this program unless you have learned some grammar. I recommend this program to all intermediate french learners.
Rating: 
Summary: JUNK JUNK JUNK - DO NOT LOOK AT THE FAKE RATINGS
Review: This software is so lame that the company has to make "fake reviews" to sell the product. If you don't believe me, check out the multiple 5 star ratings on the same day sometime in July 2003. I strongly doubt that ANY person would find this software worthwhile. I've tried out all the language programs, and by far, this is the worst of them all (although The Rosetta Stone comes in pretty close with its rediculous price for worthless junk). Currently, I can speak/read English, German, French, Spanish. And I can read Latin. And I am proficient in many other languages. I bought this software to supplement my Japanese, but like most other softwares... it is simply bad. If you truly want to learn a new language, there are countless websites now which teaches you everything from ground-up. Well, you'll have to spend a lot of time to do your searching, but it's so much more worthwhile. And of course, in order to speak proficiently you should always apply that new knowledge with other people who can speak whatever language that you are learning. That's how I learned most of my romantic languages... anyhow, i just thought I had to share this with you, since the reviews for this program on this site are so misleading...
Rating:
Summary: Very solid product...
Review: I started out with "Learn German Now 9.0" when it was still called "German Now 5.0", and I've purchased various versions with other languages (Dutch 7.0, French 5.0, Latin 8.0, Italian 6.0, Spanish 9.0). I think this product is best suited for someone with some knowledge of the foreign language already (even a very basic knowledge), and/or someone who's already living someplace where the studied language is spoken a fair amount.
This software basically gives you a written passage, story, dialogue or whatever; a means to listen to that passage, story or dialogue spoken by a native (some titles are actually text to a TV show or news program and accompanied by the video of the show); and a translation of each word while identifying what part of speech it is, as well as an overall meaning for each of the sentences. Very nice...
Both the Dutch and German packages helped immensely. Before I started using them, my knowledge of German was decent, and my Dutch was notch or two below that. After buying a few more advanced German modules (you can buy additional titles, stories, etc for each language), I definitely saw an increase in comprehension. The Dutch I ended up using in conjunction with another book, and it did an awesome job at better training my ear. The only language I've started entirely from scratch (hadn't studied it before I got the software) is French. So far, I'm impressed. Of all the other "learn French" books, CDs and software I have, this is definitely the best. Of course living in a French-speaking country has probably given me the impetus to use it more than I would were I still living back in the states (which is where I bought the "French Now" long before I moved back to Europe).
As for the Latin, Italian and Spanish, well, I basically bought them to just learn a bit more about Latin/Romance languages. Really never intended to learn those languages (and therefore haven't really tried) unless of course I move someplace where it would help...
Lastly, if you can find old versions of the software, consider buying it used. There's not a DRASTIC difference between the old and newer versions, and some of the later versions even use the exact same data, sound, and video files.
Rating:
Summary: not for everyone but i thought it was great
Review: This cdrom was the worst investment i have ever made. it was not organized for a beginner. there were no chapters, or any way to find out where to start. it made you repeat a bunch of phrases and sentences, so you had no idea what you were saying, unless you chose to see the translation, but it did not teach you the basics. it is rubbish!!!!!! do not buy it!
Rating:
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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