Customer Reviews

Tell Me More Italian Premium Version 7

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

 

 

I've been experimenting with trying to learn Italian for several years. A few trips to Italy had prompted me to try various quick book and audio solutions. Every thing I tried got me frustrated, so I tried the online demo, then decided to buy the 4 level version.

What a great investment. The interactivity is amazing. It's almost like having 100% attention of an Italian teacher. Although I've only spend about 4 hours, I can tell that I am learning the real language, not just how to order food.

The UI takes a bit to get used to, it's written in Flash, and very polished. It just doesn't look like MS Windows, so you have to get used to where the buttons are (home, back, forward, help, etc)

There is a mode where you can have a conversation with the computer. You don't need to type anything, the speech synthesis and recognition walk you through a semi scripted conversation. I hope there is lots more of this through the course. It may be hard to imagine how useful this mode is until you try it, but a conversation is the true test of learning a language. All the books and CD's in the world can never provide this.

Since it runs off the CD, there can be a 5 second delay between pages while the CD spins up. I sped things up by putting the contents of the CD on a virtual drive. I didn't check with their support, but they may have other options.

I have to admit I was disappointed in this product. I have had some training in Italian and while Tell Me More served well as a kind of refresher, causing me to think about what I had already learned in the past, I didn't find it at all helpful in moving forward - I had to pick up the text books again for that to happen. It just seemed to be all over the place, with no real focus on the language and it's working parts - just a bunch of games and exercises. Maybe it works better for other people. Expensive experiment for me.

I bought the most recent version and was disappointed. A person I know who teaches Italian recommended this program. I found it's much easier to use than the new version. My whole family is learning Italian off this program. It's great!

Thumbs up - I tried different programs in the past and this really works. My familiy is eager to set up their own accounts.