Before You Know It Multi Pack: Spanish, French, Italian and German

by Transparent Language

Product Features

• Learn Italian, French, Spanish, or German words and phrases
• A flash card program but without 3 x 5 paper cards and no boring repetition
• Take your lists with you on your Palm or Pocket PC device
• Based on advanced learning algorithms; focuses on material you need the most work on
• Includes 1000 words and over 250 phrases per language

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000CFXA3
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 5, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,045 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #34 in Software > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > Italian
  • #54 in Software > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > German
  • #75 in Software > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > French
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great vocabulary builder., March 7, 2006

By 

Tammy McArdle (Southern California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Before You Know It Multi Pack: Spanish, French, Italian and German (CD-ROM)

Before You Know It uses the flashcard method of teaching vocabulary four ways. Words and phrases are divided into lists by category. User selects a list then goes to the activity of choice to learn the contents of that list. There are a few more activities available in the Deluxe version that the free trial version doesn't have, but both versions use virtual flashcards the following way:

Step 1 - Look at the foreign word and take a guess (out loud or in your head - it doesn't matter because the software trusts you to tell it if you answered correctly). The program will also say the word so you know the proper pronunciation.

Step 2 - Look at the foreign word and type in it in English in the space provided. Here you don't get to cheat, because it can tell if your correct or not. The ones you need work on will repeat more often.

Step 3 - Look at the English word and guess the foreign one. Again, it will trust you to be honest.

Step 4 - Look at the English word and type in the foreign one. This has been the most helpful of all the steps for me, because not only do I have to know the word by now, I have to know how to spell it correctly and include any necessary accent marks.

All of the above you can get with the basic version of Before You Know It that is available to download for free via the internet. Why not try it out before you purchase the deluxe version?

With the deluxe version, you get more four more activities which include multiple choice, pronunciation practice where you can record your voice and compare your pronunciation with a native speaker (warning: software does NOT include a microphone), and dictation (which is just a repeat of step 4 of the flashcard portion).

My favorite thing about this software, though, and what made me go ahead and spend the money for the deluxe version, is the user's ability to customize the program in several different ways:

- User can add a word to any list. You just look up more words you want to know online or in a dictionary and add it to the appropriate category.

- User can delete any word from any list.

- User can copy any word from one list to another.

- User can edit any word in any list. This is handy when studying Spanish because you might want to change the translation from European to Latin American.

- User can create entire lists and categories of their own, add their own pictures and record their own voices to demonstrate the pronunciation of each word. You can create lists for anything you want to learn - not just languages.

- User can download additional, free lists from the Before You Know It website, including state capitals, periodic table of elements (chemistry), multiplication tables, and more. And you can sign up for the free "list of the week." Each week, a new list will be sent to you via email.

This software will help you master your foreign vocabulary and learn helpful phrases, but it does not teach the rules of grammar for these languages. You won't learn conjugation unless you look up the form of each word yourself and add it to their lists or create your own lists.

In other words, the customizing possibilities for this are almost endless if you're willing and able to invest the time to do it. But what it comes with already installed is meant to simply increase your foreign vocabulary and, used alone, will not make anyone a fluent speaker.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good concept. Poor implementation. Horrible customer support, February 8, 2005

By 

Nazar Potereyko "-me." (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Before You Know It Multi Pack: Spanish, French, Italian and German (CD-ROM)

Well first of all when I got this software I absolutely loved it. Spent few days and it really worked (I learned few hundreds words or so). Nice user inteface. Very simple (sometimes to simple, it could benefit from few advanced options). But none the less I liked it. When I started to advance and type words faster I discovered few problems like: program will hung if you type to fast (or if you turn cards to fast), some minor (but very annoying problems with editor). So I mailed couple feedbacks, request, etc. explaining the problem in details, asking whether fix/update is available and stuff. Hardly get any responce. They basically told me to reinstall it.

It worked fine on Apple though. Looks like new version (3.5)fixed problems I had, and added some additional features. But customer support sux big time. (5 for idea, 3 for implementation, 1 for customer support)

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Innovative and Very Intuitive, October 21, 2003

By 

Gregory Robbins (Hartford, CT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Before You Know It Multi Pack: Spanish, French, Italian and German (CD-ROM)

This product is absolutely amazing. It is an extremely useful educational tool for language learning and much more. The Before You Know It Multipack is designed for language learning, especially vocabulary, by basically using electronic flashcards. The Multipack version includes an enormous amount of content for Spanish, French, Italian and German languages and is a good place to start learning the languages or for studying/refreshing. Now this is great for language learning but in my opinion the best feature of this program is the ability to make your own electronic flashcards for anything and you can also share them with friends through email and on Palm Pilots. To me this is a must have for studying anything that you need to memorize. It is so useful and very helpful in these aspects. It also shows you the cards you have the most trouble learning more frequently than the ones that you do not have trouble remembering which in the end means that you will have a very effective studying method. This program is very user friendly, simple to use and has plethora of uses. I believe that even if you do not want the language aspects the program, it is still more than worth having just because of the ability to create your own cards. Ideal for students, teachers, and anything else that requires memorization. Have no doubts, Before You Know It definitely earns its 5-star rating.