Talk Now! Learn Croatian for Beginners

Rating:
Summary: do not buy this item
Review: Everything said in the editorial review is true. This method is a lot of fun and the interactive bit really helps. The most useful feature is getting to see a picture, record the word or phrase in Croatian, and then playback your recording next to a recording of a native speaker. Obviously, your computer must have a microphone.

So why the so-so rating? I bought this same title for German and there are four CDs. It had a basic CD, a more advanced CD, a mystery game where you used your knowledge to solve the mystery, and a talking dictionary. I thought I'd be getting the same package, but apparently they haven't developed past the first CD for Croatian. And the one CD isn't much cheaper than what I paid for the whole German package.

There are nine lessons on the basic CD, each with about 15-20 words or phases. In two days, I've already aced six of the nine. Obviously, I'm still not quite ready to carry on a conversation. Contrast this to the German edition which lasted me several weeks despite my already knowing a good bit of German.

So while their method is a good one, and the presentation is very professional, I can't recommend this unless you'll be happy just knowing things like colors, food, numbers, etc.

Rating:
Summary: OK, but . . .
Review: Everything said in the editorial review is true. This method is a lot of fun and the interactive bit really helps. The most useful feature is getting to see a picture, record the word or phrase in Croatian, and then playback your recording next to a recording of a native speaker. Obviously, your computer must have a microphone.

So why the so-so rating? I bought this same title for German and there are four CDs. It had a basic CD, a more advanced CD, a mystery game where you used your knowledge to solve the mystery, and a talking dictionary. I thought I'd be getting the same package, but apparently they haven't developed past the first CD for Croatian. And the one CD isn't much cheaper than what I paid for the whole German package.

There are nine lessons on the basic CD, each with about 15-20 words or phases. In two days, I've already aced six of the nine. Obviously, I'm still not quite ready to carry on a conversation. Contrast this to the German edition which lasted me several weeks despite my already knowing a good bit of German.

So while their method is a good one, and the presentation is very professional, I can't recommend this unless you'll be happy just knowing things like colors, food, numbers, etc.

Rating:
Summary: fun and easy to learn...
Review: However, quite basic, so once you've finished the first CD, you'll need something else to get to more advanced practice. Even so, this CD worked perfectly for me and did not require me to download any additional software in order to get it to run. I'm using Mac OS X, 10.3.4-Panther on a G4 iBook. The fact that I'm running a Mac version may explain the differences in my review from the other reviewers the same software, who are likely windows based users.

The games are quite fun and the graphics are crisp. We've not yet utilized the voice comparisson option, but look forward to doing so as soon as my microphone arrives--the program allows you to have your pronounciation/voicing compared to the native speaker's voices on the CD.

For the price (I purchased on sale for under 15$), it's darned good. Not sure what the other reviewers paid, but considering most shareware costs about that much, this is a solid performer. We supplemented this starter program with Pimleseur Croatian.

Imati velik dan! (have a great day!)
Nina

Rating:
Summary: do not buy this item
Review: I have given this item 1 star because there is nothing lower. It might be a good product, I will never know. The first thing you will find is that in order to view the product you will need to download a software package costing an additional $15. The next thing you will find is that if you want a refund from Amazon, you will pay the shipping because this is not their fault (even though this is not mentioned in the description). The next thing you will find is that if you delete the program on your computer you will lose shared files.