Customer Reviews

Instant Immersion American Sign Language Win/Mac

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The first CD is good SIGNLINK, It shows people demonstrating the signs very clear and it is big enough to see. You can have it slow down and do a continuous repeat. There are alot of words, letters, numbers, pronouns that you can select and view how they are done. It is a good addition to a class and a book. The second CD the signer is in a little box, it is grainy and if you enlarge it is even worse. You can type a sentence and she will sign it in the order you typed it. That is not true ASL, that is English signing. I'd rather learn ASL because I plan to work with the deaf. However, if you are not communicating regularly with the deaf, they will understand the English sign out of patience. Most people that can hear like to learn the English sign because it is easier. But, if you take a class, ASL is what you learn. So, I wish I could find something like the first CD without the second. I borrowed this product from the library, I wanted to try it out first, I'm glad I did, because I'm going to continue to search for a better product. If you don't know the difference between ASL and English sign, get the Barrons ASL the easy way. It has pictures to demonstrate the sign along with how it is used in the sentence. (very different).

This is certainly NOT the "quickest way to learn ASL" which the box said was "guaranteed"! There are 4 CD's. I was able to make the programs work on one computer but I can't make them work on my laptop or the new computer I got (very frustrating). The "Signlink" CD has really great animated signs -- however, it is the same signs that are available on the web (for example at aslbrowser.commtechlab.msu.edu/browser.htm ). "Personal communicator" CD is interesting (you enter the words and it translates, but not in true ASL; lots of fingerspelling). I really liked the Avatar Friends (when I got it to work) which have animated characters sign to you, it is cool, but once you see all the stories it is not very good practice after that. I didn't get much out of the other two and didn't find them useful (and now I can't get them to work so I can't double check for you).

If you can easily afford the price, and are very computer savy, or don't have internet access for the video sign library, you might try this. The Avatar friends is a good way to get a start of understanding ASL -- **if** you can get it to work on your computer.

I ordered this CD thinking it was really great, but it didnt work on my mom's Vista computer. I'm excited to try it on a different computer. It really seems like a creat CD to have though.