- Platform: Windows 7 / XP / Vista, Mac OS X
- Media: DVD-ROM
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Product Description
Discover Italian through the magic of a great teacher. The Fluenz tutor's custom-made approach guides you in English every step of the way through the challenges of the language, while immersing you in the beauty of the culture.
Fluenz Italian is based on three principles:
1) There's no substitute for a great tutor. It's often difficult to motivate yourself to learn a language on your own. Having a teacher to challenge and inspire you, while explaining exactly how the language works, makes all the difference.
2) The best way for adults to learn Italian is with explanations in English. Linguistics research shows that adults learn languages differently than children and really benefit from having clear explanations of how the language works. For example, it is extremely difficult to understand the how to correctly use masculine and feminine words in Italian without a clear explanation in English. Fluenz makes a difference because a real tutor guides you in English along a path specifically designed for Italian.
3) It's best to learn the most relevant words in Italian right away. Instead of focusing on child-like phrases such as "red apple, green apple," Fluenz has you ordering food, giving directions to a cab driver, making hotel reservations, and handling a wide range of real world situations right from the start. And, with 13 types of workouts covering verbal expression and comprehension, as well as reading and writing, you practice and internalize what you learn in the video tutorials.
Fluenz Italian is based on three principles:
1) There's no substitute for a great tutor. It's often difficult to motivate yourself to learn a language on your own. Having a teacher to challenge and inspire you, while explaining exactly how the language works, makes all the difference.
2) The best way for adults to learn Italian is with explanations in English. Linguistics research shows that adults learn languages differently than children and really benefit from having clear explanations of how the language works. For example, it is extremely difficult to understand the how to correctly use masculine and feminine words in Italian without a clear explanation in English. Fluenz makes a difference because a real tutor guides you in English along a path specifically designed for Italian.
3) It's best to learn the most relevant words in Italian right away. Instead of focusing on child-like phrases such as "red apple, green apple," Fluenz has you ordering food, giving directions to a cab driver, making hotel reservations, and handling a wide range of real world situations right from the start. And, with 13 types of workouts covering verbal expression and comprehension, as well as reading and writing, you practice and internalize what you learn in the video tutorials.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful
I thought I would add a comparison of both products as I'm sure people may be confused as to which might fit them better. I have been using Rosetta Stone for quite a while and went through the Fluenz sample session. Fluenz is very much modern academic learning where you are guided through everything with a visual teacher and you are taught as if you had to go to Italy tomorrow and be able to "get around" and function so to speak. Sentences and phrases are broken down and so on. If you want to know what to say "now" and want to be able to know the most common phrases while leaving everything else until later then Fluenz will probably be great for you. And if you like having to see a visual teacher over and over again guiding you in more of a controlled manner the whole way then you will like this. Rosetta Stone is built on the foundation of being thrown in the deep end in some ways, meaning you are forced to figure things out on your own by spoken words and phrases entirely in Italian which are to be matched to pictures. Obviously it starts off at a very basic level and in some ways you are being taught in the same method that a child learns when introduced to the world. And at first things don't seem quite relevant to being able to jump on a plane and head off to Italy. However this method, because of its emphasis on self-sufficiency, really implants a core knowledge of Italian structure inside your head. In other words things are quicker to recall because your memorization is from your own survival learning and not by learning through a teacher. Rosetta Stone teaches you the basics of how, where, when, why, above, behind, with, without and so forth. It also teaches past, present and future tenses. So with that said, Rosetta Stone is more about building a foundational knowledge of which you can add "street smarts" and man on the street conversation to that later on when you're actually in Italy. That has its advantages and disadvantages. With Fluenz you'll know what questions to ask in more of a savvy way, whereas with Rosetta you'll have to conjugate things from your formulated memory. One good thing about Rosetta Stone though is that because everything is learned visually you'll have a much easier time picking up on other people's conversations and not being entirely thrown off because you've learned the same way Italians and everyone else learned when they were children. If you're patient you'll like Rosetta Stone but if you've always learned better by having someone else do the research for you first and show you what they've learned then you'll like Fluenz.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
First I will comment on the service I received from Amazon in conjunction with this company. I live in an area where the post office is notorious for simply not delivering packages. Regular mail is fine, but instead of attempting delivery they just CLAIM to attempt delivery, often not even bothering to leave a slip stating the supposed delivery attempt. A problem that has led most people in my building to rely on more expensive but more reliable delivery services like UPS & Fed Ex.
Well, I didn't realize when I ordered this that it was going to be sent USPS...So I waited and waited and never recieved it. Scheduled a redelivery with the post office & stayed home all day again and they showed up without the package and instead with the slip stating that I missed delivery! I had been through this before with this post office & I knew I would be lucky if I ever got it at all so I contacted Amazon & told them my situation. I expected them to send me a new one AFTER I had gone through hoops to get the post office to return the package to them, but they sent me a new one right away even with the original delivery sitting somewhere in a post office limbo. This time they sent it UPS & I got it fast & w/ no problems. I was very happy with this service. The Fluenz program is packaged so beautifully that it would make a lovely gift. I was excited and very pleased with the program from the very first lesson. There are writing excersises as well as brief lectures, lovely sensual and relaxing music, and you get to hear a few italian speakers instead of just one so you can hear the differences in different people speaking the language. There is also a mic excersise where you record yourself speaking italian and then get to play it back to hear yourself and compare what you hear with the native speakers on the program. The program does not come with a computer microphone so if you don't already have one then you have to buy one. I got a headset mic from RadioShack for $15. Though installation was easy and only took a few minutes on my computer, I had trouble getting the recording part of the lesson to work. I tried figuring out the problem myself, but finally acquiesed to contacting Fluenz. Their customer service is a 10 out of 10! You can contact them by phone, email or via chat through their website. I chose to contact through Chat and immediately was picked up by Chris who patiently guided me through different scenerios as to what might be causing my problem. I also contacted them via email to ask them when the higher levels of Italian were going to be released. They immediately responded with a detailed and personal response that was obviously written by a real person and not computer generated stating honestly that 2010 is mostly devoted to bringing higher levels of French out and that levels 3 & up of italian probably won't come out until 2011. Though I was hoping for sooner I liked their not beating around the bush. Their customer service is wonderful because so many other companies stick you with a rep that appears to know nothing about the product or how to respond to your issue. I always got someone who understood me right away and answered quickly. The best part is that the product actually works! Both the DVD and the Audio CD. The only con I can think of with their program is that the font they use makes both Capilal I's and lower case L's look exactly the same. This is a bit annoying in the writing excersises, but it's a very small con in a sea of pros. I've tried other language programs and they always either seemed painfully boring, or completely illogical in their approach. After taking another italian Language program I was able to say "The ball is yellow." - But if you go up to anyone in the street and say the ball is yellow they'll look at you like you're crazy. Fluenz understands this & instead teaches you more useful phrases right from lesson 1. The first things you learn to say are include: Thank you, Good Morning, I would like this dish on the menu please. I would like a glass of water and he would like a glass of wine etc- all things that you would actually use on your first day in italy. Not "The ball is yellow". They have created a loyal customer and I will always recommend Fluenz for anyone's language needs. I can't wait for them to come out with more of the italian series.
Well, I didn't realize when I ordered this that it was going to be sent USPS...So I waited and waited and never recieved it. Scheduled a redelivery with the post office & stayed home all day again and they showed up without the package and instead with the slip stating that I missed delivery! I had been through this before with this post office & I knew I would be lucky if I ever got it at all so I contacted Amazon & told them my situation. I expected them to send me a new one AFTER I had gone through hoops to get the post office to return the package to them, but they sent me a new one right away even with the original delivery sitting somewhere in a post office limbo. This time they sent it UPS & I got it fast & w/ no problems. I was very happy with this service. The Fluenz program is packaged so beautifully that it would make a lovely gift. I was excited and very pleased with the program from the very first lesson. There are writing excersises as well as brief lectures, lovely sensual and relaxing music, and you get to hear a few italian speakers instead of just one so you can hear the differences in different people speaking the language. There is also a mic excersise where you record yourself speaking italian and then get to play it back to hear yourself and compare what you hear with the native speakers on the program. The program does not come with a computer microphone so if you don't already have one then you have to buy one. I got a headset mic from RadioShack for $15. Though installation was easy and only took a few minutes on my computer, I had trouble getting the recording part of the lesson to work. I tried figuring out the problem myself, but finally acquiesed to contacting Fluenz. Their customer service is a 10 out of 10! You can contact them by phone, email or via chat through their website. I chose to contact through Chat and immediately was picked up by Chris who patiently guided me through different scenerios as to what might be causing my problem. I also contacted them via email to ask them when the higher levels of Italian were going to be released. They immediately responded with a detailed and personal response that was obviously written by a real person and not computer generated stating honestly that 2010 is mostly devoted to bringing higher levels of French out and that levels 3 & up of italian probably won't come out until 2011. Though I was hoping for sooner I liked their not beating around the bush. Their customer service is wonderful because so many other companies stick you with a rep that appears to know nothing about the product or how to respond to your issue. I always got someone who understood me right away and answered quickly. The best part is that the product actually works! Both the DVD and the Audio CD. The only con I can think of with their program is that the font they use makes both Capilal I's and lower case L's look exactly the same. This is a bit annoying in the writing excersises, but it's a very small con in a sea of pros. I've tried other language programs and they always either seemed painfully boring, or completely illogical in their approach. After taking another italian Language program I was able to say "The ball is yellow." - But if you go up to anyone in the street and say the ball is yellow they'll look at you like you're crazy. Fluenz understands this & instead teaches you more useful phrases right from lesson 1. The first things you learn to say are include: Thank you, Good Morning, I would like this dish on the menu please. I would like a glass of water and he would like a glass of wine etc- all things that you would actually use on your first day in italy. Not "The ball is yellow". They have created a loyal customer and I will always recommend Fluenz for anyone's language needs. I can't wait for them to come out with more of the italian series.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
What a great program. I only got the level 1 version and I wish I got both level one and two. There are 30 lessons in all of Level one and within the first couple of lessons you are already learning to say full sentances in italian. Sentances of value that you would actually use! The idea is to do one lesson per day. Sometimes I would come across a lesson that seemed to have so much new stuff I didn't feel like I'd ever remember it, but I was wrong! I was always surprised by how much I was able to remember the next day when going on to the next lesson. Once I even had a language question and I contacted Fluenz not sure if they'd be able to help me. When I contacted them they had one of the italian speakers contact me a few hours later to answer my question! I'm sure it's not something they do often, but I was impressed with how far they were willing to go to give great service. After I learn Italian I'm going to move on to their French series. There's just no better software to buy for your language needs.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Good product
i love this product and the way it teaches you the italian language..it is a slow go for me cause of my work schedule and the time i give myself to learn.. Read more
Published 3 months ago by mytheresa
Molto bene!
It's not magic. You will have to work and practice to learn Italian, but Fluenz gives you all the tools you'll need. The DVDs are beautifully done. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Deb L.
Very good for the working professional
I know there are some who are skeptical of these language programs that allow you to learn on your own. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Paige Souza
Molto bene!
I have taken an Italian class before, many moons (or luna) ago....and am finding Fluenz Italian to be easy to follow, easy to learn, intuitive and with excellent instruction. Read more
Published 15 months ago by CiaoBella
Amazingly user-friendly and effective
I classify myself as foreign-language challenged. I studied French in high school and deliberately picked a college and a graduate school program that did not have foreign... Read more
Published 22 months ago by CoolBeans
awesome program
hi,
Just want to say it what a great company! I purchased italian 1 and 2 last year. I changed computer and my dvd didnt work on my new machintos. Read more
Just want to say it what a great company! I purchased italian 1 and 2 last year. I changed computer and my dvd didnt work on my new machintos. Read more
Published on April 29, 2010 by Bibi
The best in its class and a bargin
Half the price of other known programs...The women who created it are smart and great teachers..You will learn with little pain and time.... Read more
Published on March 11, 2010 by Paul J. West
Ready for my next trip
Started using Fluenz about two months ago. Am ready for my next trip to Rome! It's easy, effective...and comes in a very stylish box.
Published on December 19, 2008 by M. Bassik
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