Customer Reviews

Instant Immersion Italian Deluxe

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

This software is a mess! By the third lesson you are asked to fill in missing words of a sentence but have been taught no vocabulary. Avoid this product unless you already have a basic concept of the language.

I wish I would have read the reviews on this product before purchasing it. I would have saved my money. These "instant immersion" CDs have you attempting to respond to conversations and place words in correct grammatical order without ever giving you the translation. You don't even find out where the glossary/dictionary is kept until you are well into the first hour of lessons.

Worst of all, there are glitches in the software that cause it to create nonsense words. This is especially evident in the dictionary and the crossword puzzle.

What good is language learning software that creates nonsense words, I ask you? Honestly, this program is worthless.

Stay away from this product. Besides the software setup being very confusing, the lessons themselves don't seem to be organized properly. A good language software should build the next lesson based on the previous knowledge. However, this one didn't seem like that, it would throw new grammar, vocabulary without ever introducing it before; I found this very confusing, had to click on the dictionary button constantly to figure out the exercise. Because I had some background in Italian before, I was OK for the first few lessons, then I was completely lost. I can't imagine anyone with zero background learning anything from this software. Unless you are trying brush up on what you once knew, I wouldn't recommend it.

The first 3 cds are audio only and there is no book to go with it.... The computer part (tell me more) starts off with hard vocabulary and it's terribly confusing unless you already know italien.... HORRIBLE---don't waste your money!

The only review that is not 1-star was written by someone who also wrote 5-star reviews for 5 other "Total Immersion" programs. Kinda makes you wonder if he/she works for the company that produced the program.

This software is completely useless unless you already have some background in the language! I have tried so hard on multiple occasions to use this software thinking that if I just keep going I will start learning. NOT!!! I am so confused so fast that I get frustrated and give up! Within minutes it wants you to be able to fill in blank sentences and crossword puzzles when you have no clue of any vocabulary!!
There are word associations but it does not tell you anything about the words at all, it just wants you to match them. I end up just guessing over and over until it tells me I have it right.
Now I am reading a great book on Italian and am looking for some new software. I'm hoping that once I start learning the language I can go back to this software and it will be really great.

I completely agree with the other reviewers.

Here is an example of an exercise in this software:
Here is a screen with a bunch of Italian words that we've never explained to you and you can't look up anywhere in this software, now associate them.

Um, how about if you explain those words first?

Also, in the few places that there are translations, they're not even conjugated. For example, if it shows "he is" on the screen, the tool tip translation is "to be", not "he is". How is that helpful for a beginner?

The software itself is also written very poorly and clearly has not been updated in years. If it took the developer more than a week to write it, I'd be amazed. The help doesn't even have an index or search capabilities.

Total garbage!

Listen to these reviews, because everyone is correct. DO NOT buy this product if you know no italian whatsoever. This product is only good for people who have previously studied italian for a few years and want to brush up on it. I took one semester of italian in college and although i know some basic words, this program is still difficult for me, because you are asked to complete activities, like filling in sentences, without having learned any vocab. I should have listened to these reviews in the first place and spent extra money on the Rosetta Stone program, at least people were happy with it.

I purchased this with high expectation but was disappointed from the beginning. I found this software to be extremely confusing and not at all helpful.

First of all, the set-up is not very good. The lessons are broken up into individual lessons and there are probably 15 lessons per "section" (date and time, etc.) on each cd (there are 5) The lessons are listed on a Progress Chart (grid-like chart) and its hard to keep track of what lessons were actually completed. Boxes that represent each lesson will be shaded in depending on how complete that particular lesson is. If you don't finish a lesson and click on it again, you will have to complete the whole lesson instead of just finishing where you left off.

Second is the lessons themselves. Its very hard to learn a new language when the lessons are basically various formats of lessons that throw phrases at you and expect you to figure them out. For instance, several of the lessons involve putting a mixed-up sentence (in Italian) into its correct format or matching an Italian word with its Italian synonym. Others involve crossword puzzles. These are all in Italian. If you don't know basic Italian, its very hard to figure them out. For a beginner this just doesn't work very well. I had no idea what these words meant to begin with, let alone try to figure out how to put them into correct sentence format and actually learn anything besides frustration!

Lastly, my help button feature didn't work. I couldn't ask for help if I wanted to. The software didn't include any instructions so lack of help was a definite issue.

Overall, I believe that the software is very confusing and didn't help at all with my learning the language. This software may be fine for an intermediate or advanced "student" but for a beginner very new to the language it just doesn't work.

I wish I read the reviews because they are right, this product sucks! If you don't know any Italian or even a little, this product is useless. It is more like a word activity software, but oh yeah, you have to understand the language to use it. I don't think they have any English in there, so you can't really learn what is going on. If I were you, I would not buy this software if you want to learn the language! Don't waste your money.