Complete French Language Tutor Software & Audio Learning CD-ROM for Windows ONLY

by Transparent Language, Inc.

Product Features

• With Transparent Complete Edition, you get a comprehensive language learning solution - five learning products - in one affordable package. Whether you prefer audio courses, reading, immersion, or conversational practice, Complete will lead you to proficiency in no time!
• Start by rapidly building your vocabulary base with our acclaimed Byki Deluxe 4.0. Byki's memory algorithm technology will tailor your learning based on your own strengths and weaknesses. Record your voice and compare it alongside native speaker audio. Play games, take quizzes, and track your progress; Byki's a language-learning powerhouse!
• Take your learning on the road with Everywhere audio lessons on CD. Take advantage of "lost" time in your car, at the gym, or just around the house to speed the learning process.
• Develop your written and verbal skills with the Transparent Premium Edition, a full course with lesson plans to develop your conversational skills. Native language texts, videos, and stories immerse you in the language. Premium will condition you to communicate without having to think about it - just like you do in English.
• Explore 30 virtual reality scenarios in LinguaMatch. Learn the words of common every-day objects, and click on the characters you meet to learn more conversational phrases.

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• ASIN: B002O7192K
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 1, 2009
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,700 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)

Product Description

With Transparent French Complete Edition, you get a comprehensive language learning solution - five French learning products - in one affordable package. Whether you prefer audio courses, reading, immersion, or conversational practice, Complete will lead you to French proficiency in no time! ? Start by rapidly building your vocabulary base with our acclaimed Byki Deluxe 4.0. Byki's memory algorithm technology will tailor your learning based on your own strengths and weaknesses. Record your voice and compare it alongside native speaker audio. Play games, take quizzes, and track your progress; Byki's a language-learning powerhouse! ? Take your learning on the road with Everywhere French audio lessons on CD. Take advantage of "lost" time in your car, at the gym, or just around the house to speed the learning process. ? Develop your written and verbal skills with the Transparent French Premium Edition, a full course with lesson plans to develop your conversational skills. Native language texts, videos, and stories immerse you in the French language. Premium will condition you to communicate without having to think about it - just like you do in English. ? As you practice French, you may run across an unfamiliar word here and there. Lexicon Translation Dictionary won't let that slow you down! Instantly access over 65,000 French words and their English equivalents. ? Explore 30 virtual reality scenarios in LinguaMatch French. Learn the words of common every-day objects, and click on the characters you meet to learn more conversational phrases.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars EXASPERATING, October 10, 2010

By 

DAVID BRYSON (Glossop Derbyshire England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Complete French Language Tutor Software & Audio Learning CD-ROM for Windows ONLY (CD-ROM)

There are obviously students of French who like this particular format for teaching themselves the language, but they must be people whom the Lord in His infinite wisdom has endowed with more patience than He has seen fit to bestow on me. There are no hard-copy books to accompany this way of doing things. What one gets is a stiff package holding a total of 6 discs ingeniously fitted into a folder better suited for containing 4. Thereunto is added a stiff cardboard triptych summarising (far too briefly and laconically I would say) the functionalities provided by the software carried on what I might call the `master disc'. This, they tell us, must be kept installed at all times so as to benefit from the software facilities and utilities associated with the 5 `language' discs. As it happens, my own desktop has only one single cd/dvd drive, but it may be that I could still comply with this requirement using a little ingenuity. However I have no intention of finding out, because I flatly refuse to sit in front of a computer monitor, my features aglow with radiation poisoning, for hours on end just for the purpose of brushing up my French.

So either I could get the supposed benefits of this self-tutorial course using my ordinary TV monitor, or I could not, and it looks like not quite. I loaded the master disc into my separate dvd drive and watched the load process go through via the TV monitor. I was then offered a short menu of options which in the first place bore no resemblance to the printed instructions on the disc; and secondly did not seem to do anything anyway, although probably I could have made more effort with that bit. Thus I was left with 5 long discs of plain ordinary language-primer French with (Americanised) English prompts. Presumably the master disc was still required, although I did not check. Nothing stopped or malfunctioned when I turned off the monitor screen and the dvd unit reverted to standby of its own accord.

In this way I denied myself the opportunities, whatever they might have been, of interactive revision and correction of my own French along with various ways of slowing down the tutors' spoken inputs, all involving something called `flash cards'. In fact I doubt that any of that would have excited me or `made it live' or whatever. I am not convinced that that kind of stuff adds anything important to the basic grinding kind of language tuition that I get from my Teach Yourself sets of Italian and Portuguese, where any extras are supplied in print in the accompanying book.

The actual 5 language discs are pretty humdrum, as such material is more or less bound to be, and the end is startlingly abrupt, making no attempt at gathering up the threads and concluding with the unlikely name of St Tropez. The visuals might have helped clarify for beginners the occasional unexplained words that crept in here and there, and also the distinction between, say `annee' and `an'. I also noticed that the section offering illustrations of alternative expressions denoting time-elapse using `depuis' and `il y a' in fact spoke the `il y a' version twice over. Very oddly indeed, my review copy seemed to be a little antiquated, referring to the year 2000 as being in the future and using francs as the French unit of currency. Altogether more fuss and hoopla than real benefit, I'd say. You may read more enthusiastic reviews from more motivated reviewers, but if I may say so be careful of some that read as if they might have been planted.