Learning the language most South Africans speak as a first-language has always been my aim, but I have never been able to find a course that combines both conversational practice with grammatical thoroughness.Speak Zulu With Us by African Voices has, at last, filled this most important gap. Exploiting all the features of multimedia (video, sound, record-self, interactive exercises, graphics etc) this CD-ROM is so well-written and beautifully designed you just don't want to leave it alone! You can move easily from any one of the activities - conversation, grammar, exercises, dictionary, culture - within a lesson or even skip happily between lessons - for there is also a simple way to access the program map and access particular lessons or parts of lessons.
Each lesson starts with a number of videos of Zulu speakers - mostly represented by members of two families - the Hlophes who live in Johannesburg and the Mthethwas who live in rural KwaZulu-Natal. I liked the different personalities and humour as well as the cultural detail - the section on greetings has at least 4 different greetings depending on age, rank and degree of conservatism. All of this is explained in the culture section but it is really nice to see the videos which give you an idea of body-language and eye-contact etc.
After watching and listening to the videos (all with optional text and English translations) you get to practice your own pronunciation and conversational ability via the self-record function. There are also lots of listening comprehensions which are an excellent way of getting that ear to pick out the new sounds and make sense of them.
There seems to be a very clear methodology behind this course because once you finish the practical exercises you really feel that you can say something! The grammar sections are detailed, but what makes it excellent is that you get sound on all text and the many grammar exercises are all meaningful, useful sentences. I really enjoyed doing these exercises because even if you don't immediately know the answer you can click on the "sound help" button and actually hear the sentence being pronounced" and then you attempt your answer. You can repeat the exercises as much as you want, but if you are really tired and fed-up you can get the answers straight away.
The dictionary is great but only covers the words seen or heard in the course. There is also a great way to practise your vocabulary - you can switch off the English or Zulu and see if you can come up with the right word. Again, what is great is getting the correct Zulu pronunciation on every word.
I found the course-workbook that comes with the CD very helpful - it tracks all the multimedia lessons and gives you a chance to do some more exercises (as if you hadn't had enough!)
What a pity this is just a Beginners course - albeit a very thorough one!