1 comments about Rosetta Stone V3: Italian, Level 2.

1. This product is sold as licensed software. Users will NOT be able to load it onto more than one computer. This aspect of the product is not clear from the blurbing on the Rosetta Stone website. It is a "single-user" product.
   Don't think that you can share this with friends, or that it is appropriate for a lending collection.

5 comments about KidSpeak 6-in-1.

1. KidSpeak 6-in-1 is an awesome product for kids to have fun with and learn several languages(Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Hebrew). The animation is very fun and my kids really love this. I love the fact that my child will talk to me in a different language and I'm sure other parents would agree. When it comes down to it, Transparent Language did an awesome job with this software and I couldn't be more satisfied with it.



2. I bought this software on the recommendation of some software review site, and I must say my 9 year old daughter and I were disappointed. The graphics are sometimes hard to make out on the screen. (The animation altogether isn't very appealing at all, but that's not why I bought it . . . )And my daughter kept repeating, "But I want to learn sentences!" It's just an okay introduction if you want to learn the names of fruits and vegetables.



3. The idea and format aren't bad. I would have liked it if there had been a few more words to learn. Also, instead of learning animal names, which aren't very useful if you don't live on a farm, they should have included some simple sentences. A little more material or a little lower price would have increased my rating to 4 stars.



4. We were moving to Japan and I was looking for computer software to get my kids (age 11 and 8) started with basic words. This got high marks and included other languages so I bought it. We were very disappointed and the kids gave up on it. The problem is that it is difficult to understand the pronounciation of the words. The audio is just not clear.
   
   I later ordered Power Japanese, an adult software program, and we were much happier.



5. My review makes reference to the French language section ( I have not used the other ones)
   
   I have a 7 year old, who enjoys this software a lot. I love that the sound quality is very good, and the pronuncioation is perfect. There is plenty of vocabulary to practice. I think this is a really good complement to any language program.
   
   I believe that both,beginners and more advanced students 6-10 would enjoy and benefit from it.
   
   Featured vocabulary: numbers, colors, animals, days, months, weather, means of transportations, clothing, and more.
   
   Easy to use.

No comments about Instant Immersion Italian v3.0.

No comments about Talk To Me Italian (Beginner-Intermediate-Advanced).

1 comments about Rosetta Stone V3: Italian, Level 3.

1. This product is sold as licensed software. Users will NOT be able to load it onto more than one computer. This aspect of the product is not clear from the blurbing on the Rosetta Stone website. It is a "single-user" product.
   Don't think that you can share this with friends, or that it is appropriate for a lending collection.

3 comments about TeLL me More Italian Premium - Complete Beginner, Beginner, Intermediate & Advanced.

1. Thumbs up - I tried different programs in the past and this really works. My familiy is eager to set up their own accounts.



2. I've been experimenting with trying to learn Italian for several years. A few trips to Italy had prompted me to try various quick book and audio solutions. Every thing I tried got me frustrated, so I tried the online demo, then decided to buy the 4 level version.
   
   What a great investment. The interactivity is amazing. It's almost like having 100% attention of an Italian teacher. Although I've only spend about 4 hours, I can tell that I am learning the real language, not just how to order food.
   
   The UI takes a bit to get used to, it's written in Flash, and very polished. It just doesn't look like MS Windows, so you have to get used to where the buttons are (home, back, forward, help, etc)
   
   There is a mode where you can have a conversation with the computer. You don't need to type anything, the speech synthesis and recognition walk you through a semi scripted conversation. I hope there is lots more of this through the course. It may be hard to imagine how useful this mode is until you try it, but a conversation is the true test of learning a language. All the books and CD's in the world can never provide this.
   
   Since it runs off the CD, there can be a 5 second delay between pages while the CD spins up. I sped things up by putting the contents of the CD on a virtual drive. I didn't check with their support, but they may have other options.



3. I have to admit I was disappointed in this product. I have had some training in Italian and while Tell Me More served well as a kind of refresher, causing me to think about what I had already learned in the past, I didn't find it at all helpful in moving forward - I had to pick up the text books again for that to happen. It just seemed to be all over the place, with no real focus on the language and it's working parts - just a bunch of games and exercises. Maybe it works better for other people. Expensive experiment for me.

1 comments about Instant Immersion Italian Deluxe v3.0.

1. I've been working with this program for three weeks now, and I have yet to learn anything.
   
   There are no instructions about how to proceed with the lessons, and I was for a long time under the impression that the instruction would be on the CD-ROMs, practice on the audio CDs, and learning in context on the "interactive" DVD and the game. In fact, this is all wrong. There is no instruction on the CD-ROMs, merely quizzes, word searches, etc.
   
   The heart of this program is the 5 audio CDs. But the CDs don't take up the topics in the same order as the CD-ROM exercises. For a couple of weeks, I struggled with the audio CDs, which I found difficult without a written transcript. But then I found that the company had posted a complete transcript, which helped a great deal. But the transcript is more than complete: it is for 8 CDs, and there are only 5 in the set. I really miss the material that is on discs 6, 7, & 8.
   
   Furthermore, the scoring on the evaluations is odd -- sometimes it is based on 4 exercises, but there are only two provided. So the best score you can get is 50%, even if all of your answers are correct.
   
   I had no technical trouble at all with the program CD-ROMs. The "hidden keys" are odd, but no problem (why hide them?). But my computer (a new Dell Inspiron 1720 with Vista) has had many problems with the "interactive" DVD and the game. The game freezes up at the same point every time I play it, and the arrow keys seem to go dead on the video. Amazon says this program is for Vista, but on the help instructions for the game (the only place I can find a list), Windows 2000 and XP are listed, but not Vista. I can't get the game past the police interview, and I have found the "interactive" video almost impossible to use.
   
   This are many little glitches not worth mentioning (e.g. "Stai calma" on transcript page 17 cannot mean "I remain calm"; it has to be "You (informal) are calm" or maybe "Stay calm"). But I won't go through all of them. I cannot believe that millions of people have learned Italian with this program, which seems to me a disorganized mess. I learned far more from the Danesi paperback. I wanted something with more interaction and context, but this isn't it.

5 comments about Rosetta Stone V3: Italian, Level 1, 2 & 3.

1. Innovative, informative & fun to use. Buyer should be aware, however, that this program alone (including all 3 levels) will provide only a base or supplement for learning the language and a very expensive one at that.



2. this product was easy to install and even easier to use. i was suprised at how much i learned after just 30 minutes. it was shipped right away and i had it within a week. i couldn't be happier



3. Very easy to use and intuitive product. Have tried several other products because I did not want to spend the money on Rosetta Stone. When it was all said and done, I just wasted my money on the other products and forked out the money to get a class product.



4. There are many other language programs, more effective and efficient than Rosetta Stone. We recommend books & audio CDs such as "15 Min Italian", "Instant Italian", "All-Audio Italian" by Living Language, and a BBC language education web site. I studied Italian for a month using these tools and were able to get around Italy fine by speaking Italian. Rosetta Stone is an extremely slow and boring program. We returned ours one day after we received it. What a disappointment.. If you have an average IQ, I recommend you avoid Rosetta Stone or Pimsler, and go for more challenging program.



5. rosseta stone was purchased for a friend graduating from college 3 months ago. she is going to italy in sept and can converse already

5 comments about Rosetta Stone V3: Italian, Level 1 & 2.

1. 
   I have tried several different self study courses for other languages and I believe this has to be one of the best overall self study courses available for learning a language. The Rosetta Stone program is easy to install, easy to navigate and thorough. If needed, the technical support from Rosetta Stone is excellent. I ordered a new version of the software from Amazon and found the price to be one of the most competitive.



2. Rosetta Stone is an excellent product. I recommend it. The "language immersion" technique is well-devised and it works better than most tutorial language programs. Good buy. Good results.



3. We purchased the Rosetta Stone V3 Italian Level 1 & 2 to prepare our family for an upcoming trip to Italy and France. Our kids (ages 10 and 12) absolutely love it! They look forward to practicing at night and on weekends. I am amazed at how quickly our entire family is learning to speak, write and read Italian!
   
   The software allows for multiple users and separate log-ins. Each user is able to learn at their own pace. From day one, the learner is reading, writing, speaking, listening...and UNDERSTANDING!
   
   At first, I was a little put off by the price. Now, I can fully justify the cost and plan to purchase the French and German series as well. Imagine having a live-in, native speaking language coach. How much would you pay for that?
   
   The software installs easily and the titles were accompanied by a USB headset with microphone. Rosetta Stone has exceeded my expectations. Do you want to learn a new language? What are you waiting for? Just DO IT!!!
   
   Blessings in Christ,



4. This is an amazing program. Within hours we were speaking Italian. I recommend this to anyone any age, it's amazing how easy it is to not only understand , but to retain and speak it on a regular basis. This company got it right! I have tried other programs with no success, this program is worth every penny!!
   
   Arrivederci!!



5. I have been using this product for a few weeks now. I have no illusions that I will be fluent in Italian, but I am having fun. Right now I feel I can read it better than write it. Some of the exercises take a minute to figure out what they want from you, but that's the whole point of learning this way. Total immersion. I guess the final test will be when I am in Italy this summer.

3 comments about Rosetta Stone V3: Italian, Level 1.

1. This product is sold as licensed software. Users will NOT be able to load it onto more than one computer. This aspect of the product is not clear from the blurbing on the Rosetta Stone website. It is a "single-user" product.
   Don't think that you can share this with friends, or that it is appropriate for a lending collection.



2. This was my big Christmas gift this year and I noticed that the rating of it is only 2 stars, primarily because it does not allow the user to copy it and install it in a variety of PCs or to share with friends. Fair enough... but what about the program as a way to learn the language?
   
   1) The most important element for me is that the immersion method is a fun way to learn; instead of being given translations of words or phrases, you "discover" the language, just like a baby discovers language.
   
   2) This game like approach, of looking at alternatives and guessing and slowly building up your skills, keeps me coming back for more, which I think is an important step towards making progress and learning the language.
   
   3) The actual software installed very smoothly and easily and the USB headset/microphone has been very useful and without problems (I was worried about drivers and incompatibilities, but there have been no issues). It has some fairly powerful speech recognition capabilities and it is very good at giving me feedback on my pronunciation of Italian. Again, I had fairly low expectations in this area and I was very pleasantly surprised that it all works as advertised.
   
   To supplement the software, I have also gotten a dictionary and a couple of books on grammar and I make occasional use of AltaVista's Babelfish translation. Depending on how you learn, you may or may not need additional resources such as these, but I find as an engineer, that in addition to the immersion method I like the handholding of some structure and rules provided by a bit of grammar/syntax on the side.
   
   All in all, I'm very happy with this software and I highly recommend it.



3. I am an American native speaker, was a Spanish major in college, lived in Madrid for about a year and a half and am (well, WAS) fluent in Spanish. I love Italy and have faked my way through Italian trips with my spanish for years. And then my husband ordered Rosetta Stone. It's wonderful! I'd heard about it for years, but had no idea that this system was so intuitively exciting. It's more fun than playing Freecell, or other addictive games on the computer!
   
   The system (an immersion approach, with picture recognition and hearing native speakers) is so natural, I couldn't believe it. I've done about half the first level and I find myself out on a walk and making up fun-sounding little italian phrases and sentences in my head. The teaching system is logical, gradual, progressive, challenging, exciting, quickly paces, never boring, and plain fun. I love the tapes for the car. My husband and I are both using it and we both love it.
   
   There are two negative reviews (here and on the level 1&2 software), both of which I find insubstantial. The one here complains, in essence, that you can't steal the software and give it away to your friends! That's fine with me. It's licensed for one computer, but you can have lots of users using that one machine. If you're honest and respect intellectual property rights, that won't be an issue for you.
   
   The second negative review asserts that the set-up is difficult for MAC users. I have a two iMACS (and am a 25 year PC user who just switched, so I'm completely PC oriented) and have just installed it on one of my machines. The installation was easy, flawless and the software works beautifully. The person who complained had a very sophisticated system and had trouble with some of his intricate settings. I am an Apple neophyte and trust me, for those of us with plug-and-play systems, this is a plug-and-play program. MAC users - don't worry! Get the software and start having fun.