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Rating: 
Summary: worthless
Review: "I have nothing positive to say about this software. It does a insufficient job of explaining grammar, the vocabulary section is spoken at a snail's pace, it uses overly formal speech, and worst of all, this software contains those"lies"(the act of overlly dumbing down and lying in an attempt to avoid confusion) which is common in most learning materials. For instance, the software's explanation of "atashi" meaning "I",which is used only by women. The software explains it as "When women talk, watashi may sound like atashi." But the truth is atashi is an informal form of watashi. This software is just crammed full of it." Avoid like the pox.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible Program - There has to be something better
Review: I bought this CD before my husband and I got stationed in Japan, and thought it would help me to get a little bit of a grasp on the language. It is terrible. I want to be able to learn the language step by step, starting basic and working to intermediate, like you do with any language, but this is impossible. It throws you into the language somewhere in the middle and you have to have a handle on the language before you even begin to work with this program. It advertises that it is great for the beginner, but I think I just wasted my money.
Rating: 
Summary: Needs work!
Review: I spent five years in japan and can speak about 20%, understand 50% and read hiragana/katakana. I bought this because my wife's family only speaks Japanese. I didn't like it. I thought it was incomplete and definitely not for the beginner. I do not recommend this for the beginner. I took this program back and purchased "power japanese" for my pc. That program is definitely better! I do recommend that program for learning japanese. After doing research on Japanese learning programs for the computer, Power Japanese is definitely the best one on the market for under $100.
Rating:
Summary: Good if you speak some Japanese already
Review: I think this is pretty cool software as long as you've studiedJapanese some before. Otherwise it's a bit too hard. I used it and mypartner used it--I've had some Japanese in school and he hasn't. It was hard for him to figure out, but for me it was a terrific review. On the other hand, it was fun to help him out with it, too. My only complaint is that the hiragana and katakana practice is sort of superficial.
Rating:
Summary: Good primer, but you'll need more.
Review: I work for a Japanese company, and I bought this program after a trip to Japan. (I knew I would be going back again, occasionally.) It's slow learning the language with any method. Japanese is quite different than English. But, I was able to get some basic phrases in a short time.This product probably won't stand on it's own, since the program doesn't directly teach you the grammar. You kind of have to stumble into that in the program, or figure it out on your own. Also, I haven't seen a dictionary or well indexed topics in the program to help you learn specific words quickly... that would have been nice. The good news is this program does help you get a handle on pronuciation and inflection very quickly. (When I met my Japanese colleagues again later on, they were impressed with my pronunciation - what little I could say.) Click on a word, and it pronounces the word. Click on another icon, it pronounces it slower. Click on yet a different icon, and it'll read the whole sentence. Very cool! Of course, I'm now looking for more advanced books. I've got some friends at work that help me learn at lunchtime, now. Pretty good deal... I buy them lunch, they help me learn Japanese. ;) I used this software on a Macintosh G3/350. Hope this helps!
Rating:
Summary: Good primer, but you'll need more.
Review: I work for a Japanese company, and I bought this program after a trip to Japan. (I knew I would be going back again, occasionally.) It's slow learning the language with any method. Japanese is quite different than English. But, I was able to get some basic phrases in a short time. This product probably won't stand on it's own, since the program doesn't directly teach you the grammar. You kind of have to stumble into that in the program, or figure it out on your own. Also, I haven't seen a dictionary or well indexed topics in the program to help you learn specific words quickly... that would have been nice. The good news is this program does help you get a handle on pronuciation and inflection very quickly. (When I met my Japanese colleagues again later on, they were impressed with my pronunciation - what little I could say.) Click on a word, and it pronounces the word. Click on another icon, it pronounces it slower. Click on yet a different icon, and it'll read the whole sentence. Very cool! Of course, I'm now looking for more advanced books. I've got some friends at work that help me learn at lunchtime, now. Pretty good deal... I buy them lunch, they help me learn Japanese. ;) I used this software on a Macintosh G3/350. Hope this helps!
Rating: 
Summary: Good for supplimental use only!
Review: If you are a beginning student, this program can be used as a suppliment to other learning tools. This program will not teach you Japanese by itself! The good points are the video/dialog sections and the word record/playback feature (which I use alot to practice pronunciation). A major drawback is the lack of a good lookup tool to find a specific word in context within a sentence. You are also limited to the words used in each lesson for the interactive practice sections. If you are just curious, this is an affordable way to explore the Japanese language, but if you are a serious student you might consider "Power Japanese" (which I think is changing names to "Complete Japanese"). Konnichi wa!
Rating:
Summary: Awful product.
Review: If you speak absolutely no Japanese, this product is not for you. If you speak a little bit of Japanese you would hate this program. This is a horrible way to teach yourself the language and probably wouldn't help beginners at all. DO NOT BUY!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: This program has the worst user interface I've ever seen in my life, and plenty of bugs to go with it. The video conversations are a great idea but they are poorly executed and there are too few of them anyway. The rest of the program vaguely resembles a reference guide but it's to cumbersome to be of much practical use.
Rating:
Summary: Do not buy this product!
Review: This was the first program I installed on a new computer. After 5 minutes of running the program I got an error message and the program shut down. After trying repeatedly to fix the error, I contacted the tech dept and they sent me SIX page e-mail with over 40 steps in the instructions to fix the program. DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT! As the other reviews noted, it's not really for beginners, you should have a basic knowledge of the Japanese language.
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