Customer Reviews

Byki Czech Language Tutor Software & Audio Learning CD-ROM for Windows & Mac

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This is great for the Ipod users, However when I purchased this item I was under the impression I would go from Beginner to expert after completing the exercises provided with this software. This is not the case, you will have to buy more programs.

I use BYKI a lot -- at least an hour a day, sometimes much more. I have used it for years, ever since it was a much simpler program called "Vocabulary Master." I have used it to study over nine languages, and much else besides (history, literature, chemistry, historical dates, names of flowers, etc.). An educator, I occasionally give presentations on how to use this and similar software. In fact, I even helped develop it, at least in the sense that I once sent a long screed to the company, and they seem to have adopted most of my suggestions.

Anyhow, what I tell my audiences was that Version 4 wasn't an improvement over version 3.6 from the consumer's perspective. Rather, I think it was an improvement from the company's point of view, as Version 4 connects to the internet to make sure it's registered, that it's not being used on too many computers, etc. It also sends usage statistics back to the company without your being able to do anything about that (not sure if these are even anonymous). If you can find 3.6, that's all you need, as that version simply lets you get on with studying.

In fact, for many purposes, the original "Vocabulary Master" program will work just fine. (For my part, after using 4.0 for several months, I downgraded back to 3.6 -- or actually, 3.5, since 3.6 apparently won't install if you already have 4.0 installed. I find all the "improvements" added after 3.5 more annoying than useful: my chief gripe being that with 4.0 you are no longer permitted to manually reset all the cards in a list to 0.)

One thing you need to know is that though the company purports to sell various versions (e.g., French, Italian, Spanish, etc.), they're all really the same program. The only thing that differs from version to version is the pre-loaded vocabulary cards that come with each one, which are of course language specific. However, these vocabulary cards are strictly for beginners and are filled with errors anyhow. A serious student will want to begin making his own cards immediately, and for that you must pay for the program (the free version they have on their website is actually the same program, only with the vital ability to make one's own lists disabled. My point is that if you plan on studying German AND Latin, say, there is no need to buy the program twice.

The chief thing I detest about this software is that it forces you to learn the way BYKI wants you to learn, rather than the way you want to learn. Say you're dealing with a group of 25 terms. What's to decide whether you "know" them and the program should move on to other things? This, let's face it, is one of the big raisons d'etre for software-based card programs: that the program is smart enough to harass you with the stuff you don't know, rather than wasting your time forcing you to go through what you already know. But with BYKI, you can't adjust what it means to "know" something: you must take the program's definition. I would like, for example, to monkey with the program's settings so that if I get a term right three times in a row, that one is considered "known" and we move on to other terms. But BYKI forces you to go through the same term maybe 10 times, long after you feel you know it. This makes your studying time inefficient. Heck, there should have been a button right on the studying interface that you could click -- mid-study session -- to instruct the program, "I know this cold already, even without clicking on it 10 times. Graduate me on this and consider it at 100%." But no. Thus -- incredibly, given the software's potential -- an unacceptable amount of your time is spent having to go through stuff you already know rather than focusing on the terms that you do not.

I have several other crticisms:

1. Even after several improvements, one's ability to manipulate one's lists is sharply restricted. One cannot import a Russian list as a Spanish list, for example. Why not? I need this for many reasons. Once, for example, I had a list of dozens and dozens of world leaders that I had collected. I had originally categorized the "language" as "history" but ended up wanting to add the list to my "politics" list: no dice! You can't change a list's "language" or category once you set it in the beginning. Nor could you take an Italian list and duplicate it such that it also appears in your Arabic list. Why the heck not?

2. The system of accents remains retarded. This is one of the worst-coded aspects of this software. There's no way to get the oe colle that you're going to need in common French words like "sister," without having to copy and paste it from, say, Microsoft Word. And cursedly, there's no way to make a dot under a vowel, as is necessary for many students of Italian in their beginning stages (unless you resort to the same trick). And that's just common languages: getting characters for more obscure languages is even trickier. (Getting an eth for your Anglo-Saxon, for example.) Now, as I say, if Windows can render the symbol, then BYKI will be able to reproduce and remember it, though there are exceptions, such as some Tibetan ideograms. All the while BYKI claims to offer you "character support" for your language, but the system is crude. You make accents, basically, by pressing the up arrow until you have what you want. But, for example in French, they've included all the default accents that BYKI can make, even those that don't appear in French (!), such as an "a" with a macron over it. Thus you are forced to arrow through all the available accents before finding the one you need. No, the program should have started with the most common one statistically: in this case, "a" grave. Things like this really slow a body down. There are a few other accent-based problems that slip my mind for now, but I would urge Transparent to redesign the software such that the user be able to personally key-assign from a vast library of symbols, like you can with Word.

3. You should have been able to edit terms "on the fly;" in other words, as you're studying. As it is, if you discover an error when you're in "PRODUCE IT" or "RECOGNIZE IT" mode, you've got to exit that mode, enter the EDIT mode, find the card, and then head back to the studying mode. Why? Why can't you edit terms as you're actually studying! You certainly can with paper flash cards.

4. You are STILL not able to spell-check the English of your lists!

5. You are STILL not able to check through all your lists for possible duplicate cards: this can only be done within a single list, and then only when the card is first created. For serious language learners, this is a vital function that it still missing. More evidence that the program was written by garden-variety software guys, not serious students of languages.

6. Plan on having problems with the Chinese lists if you're using them on a Windows portable device, such as an i-Mate phone. Phones that run Windows seem to have problems with character recognition.

7. I have hundreds of lists on Vocabulary Master and still have to use that old program to review them. Why? Because whenever Transparent comes out with a new version, they do not include a feature to batch process one's old lists, converting them to the new standard, so you have to type in all your lists again! Unbelievable! (I suspect this is just a trick to get people to buy the new version, which otherwise wouldn't really be necessary.)

8. There's no ability to alphabetize your lists by "worst known," if you get what I mean.

9. The "print cards" function is not ready for prime time. Fatally, it doesn't allow you to print only a single page of your job -- either the entire batch or nothing. Thus if you make a mistake feeding the paper, you have to do everything all over again from scratch.

10. Rapid-fire entering your cards remains difficult because of the clunky interface. Depending on whether the language uses the Roman alphabet or not, I have used this program to swiftly memorize about 100 words every ten minutes, sometimes more. But what sticks in my craw is that my efficiency is hampered by the program itself: it takes five hits of the tab key to get from the WORD field to the DEFINITION field, for example. And I have to hit return twice to make a new card. This needs to be streamlined for serious students who are trying to power through long vocabulary lists. Or at least made customizable through the Preferences.

11. BYKI starts bugging out if your lists get too big, especially when it comes to the progress and analysis screens. I contacted the company about this and they said they don't recommend list sizes of over 1000 items. Er, are you joking? 5000 items is the length I typically need. I once had a list of Spanish words that ran to over 15,000 items. When I read a novel, I want to be able to put all the words and phrases I don't understand in one place! When stuff like this happens, you realize this software is designed for dilettantes.

12. The "AI" -- if you will -- is kinda dumb about retesting you strategically. It doesn't use so-called J-curves (forgetting curves), negative exponent algorithms, Ebbinghaus laws, and so forth that some comparable programs use to make sure you're learning efficiently. In case you don't know, the gold standard for this sort of thing is Piotr Wozniak's famous program, "SuperMemo," although that program is a little too complicated even for me: the program ITSELF has a steep learning curve; forget your subject! (I have included a link in the comments about this program for those who'd like to learn more about it anyhow). But, back to BYKI: its AI doesn't even give you the option to control its re-testing algorithms in even an elementary way. If you have a list of, say, 300 words, BYKI will harass you with only two or three at a time: you can't increase that pool. In other words, get the program to harass you in groups of, say, 10 terms at a time without having to subsection your lists.

In conclusion, this product has the potential to be not only a gold mine for serious learners of languages, but serious students of almost everything. The company, unfortunately, has thus far only seen fit to employ programmers to develop it. What they need to do is get someone in there who's actually using their product for some hard-core learning and ask him what changes are most vitally needed.