Customer Reviews

Instant Immersion Japanese Deluxe v3.0

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Awful waste of my time and money, redeemed only somewhat by the audio CDs.

Aside from the audio CDs, there is no straightforward teaching method. There are a plethora of exercises to choose from on the computer program, but that's it: the program is basically just quizzing you on what Japanese you already know. That might be fine if it was compounded with the audio CDs so you choose your responses based on how they sound, except on the computer program and DVD, it's mostly visual, which means that if you don't already know any kanji, you're totally screwed. There is no prior explanation to what the characters mean or what they sound like. If you don't know any written Japanese, prepare to fumble and guess your way through the exercises. Even if you get the questions right, who cares? You're not learning anything since it doesn't even tell you what it is you just answered.

The program doesn't teach you how to speak Japanese so much as it tries to get you to memorize certain fixed patterns, without breaking the sentences down to tell you word-for-word what it is you're saying. And so once again, unless you already know Japanese, you're not learning anything. It's okay if you just want to reinforce what you already know, but even then there are much better programs out there that will actually go over Japanese language instead of asking the same fixed phrases over and over.

The audio CDs, as I mentioned, are actually decent, for the very reasons why the computer program and DVD are not: they don't require prior knowledge of Japanese, they go over sentence patterns and structures, they introduce beginners slowly and with a straightforward teaching plan, and they cover basic vocabulary that beginners will need to know. Whether those audio CDs are worth the $30+ of the full program is up to you. I personally think there are better options out there.

EDIT: I guess Amazon lowered their price of this program to $16, which is a better deal for the audio CDs, but not by a whole lot. I still don't think they're THAT great, and you can find much better resources for free on the Internet (Japanese Pod 101, renshuu dot org, Read the Kanji, etc).

I would not recommend this product. The CD-rom might be the only thing of real use, but even that was tedious for me, and I have been studying for 2 years (perhaps a bit leisurely:)). What I mean by tedious, is that you cannot--often--infer what things mean by practice (like with Rosetta stone, or Pimsleur, etc ...). It isn't self-contained. When I used the CD-rom, I would have to ask someone what a particular item was, or look it up each time, and this gets tedious. And the set of materials is a real mismatch in regard level of difficulty. The thing that really solidified my opinion, though, was listening to the CD. The person who demonstrates the words in the recording is an American! Besides the obvious accent, some pronunciations are just plain way off--terrible! (I live with 2 Japanese.)

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Even with a full installation, you still have to run this software off the CD. The program is hard to follow and many of the exercises are just a waste of time. Romanji (ABCs) is used to facilitate pronunciation, but it is not consistent. For instance, the first time numbers are introduced, only the digits appear - there is no pronunciation guide. There is no attempt to actually teach Kana (Japanese characters.) The only reason I gave it more than one star is the Japanese pronunciation is helpful.

This program is not for those who have never had any exposure to Japanese, but it has many useful tools. It is as effective as its competition, and the price is thus that you don't need to re-mortgage your house, sell your car, and sell several gallons of blood to own the program. It is reasonably priced, and has good supplements. (There is no Arthur Lake program with this set, because there is no version of that for this language, or at least mine did not come with any such software). It is not for absolute beginners, but with some basic experience, this will give you a passing understanding and ability to communicate.

We've been using the program for about 4 weeks now. It took a while to figure out what to do. The game disc was not included. All but one disc is for audio use only.
We put the one computer disc in and had to click around for a while to figure out how to find the lessons. From there, it was much like the Rosetta Stone program we tried through our local library. (No longer available.)
It is immersion. There are no directions in English. You see a picture and you guess from the Kanji, what it might be. You continue until you finally start remembering some. Because the words are not written in our English alphabet, they are harder to remember. (As opposed to say, learning Spanish, which still uses our familiar letters.)
We will continue using this program, but probably buy a book to help with the Kanji too.

UPDATE:
BEWARE of Immersion's 'Help' site -
I clicked on Help for their 'dictionary' which made no sense and had stopped working - and it send me to their site; while I read trying to figure out how it even worked - it was ADDING things to my computer as I was reading without letting me know it was doing so. What it added was jibberish.
Haven't been able to remove all of the files it added. Not even sure how many got added before started having problems with my computer.

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I have an Instant Immersion for Spanish - and it too has to have the CD in at ALL Times.

This is the only software to date for languages that has this problem = and it is a very Frustrating thing.

This Japanese one offers the option of installing Maximum - which I did thinking this would keep from having to have CD in the drive - NO.
Really absurd to add a lot more files, for what purpose when it STILL requires the CD AT ALL TIMES in the drive.
It will NOT come up AT ALL - just gives screen saying to put the CD back in the drive.
(another version of Immersion actually says that all there computer CDs MUST be in the drive at all times - they made it that way DELIBERATELY)

Guess I shouldn't have gotten the Japanese too when this already frustrated me with the Spanish but for some reason I had gotten the impression that this one didn't require that - and it does give option of how much to install which the Spanish did not - so it really got my hopes up.

I bought another version of this for Japanese because it has a dictionary - but the dictionary software is very poorly done and the very next day it crashed and wouldn't work at all.
IMMERSION IS CHEAP - ROTTEN CHEAP.

As for what is inside: Everything is super fast, though the speakers are fairly clear.
But one time for each Sentence - fully in Japanese (no ability to isolate word by word or slow it down - which at least the Spanish version has an option for) - and hard to find how to get the translations to even show. Much worse even than the Spanish version.

And once you hear the sentences (and you CAN'T hear all per page - you have to choose) then it just moves on.
Even on the grammar explanations - which seem pretty basic beginning stuff - but it rushes, you have to find the pause button fast or the page will quickly move on without time to read through even the first paragraph.

I like that sentences are written in Japanese and below is the Romanized.

There is a part that has speech - which seems a bit slower.

Hard to check it all out when have to keep putting the CD back in.

Would strongly recommend staying away from Immersion and also Berlitz (on their software). These companies should have stuck to audio only.

Immersion has NOTHING written to go with their audio CDS (Berlitz you can get a copy of the written on their site - not easy to find but they were willing to give me a link to the main audio page and then had to search for it).