2 of 3 customers found the following review helpful:
 not too practical, 2002-04-08
i am not impressed with this cd-rom as other ones that i have tried. Subjects chosen for the instruction are not useful. The voices used in the conversation are boring, unlively, and not play-acting enough to be more exciting. Publisher should choose actors or good readers for conversationalists in CD.
I don't recommend this CD.
8 of 8 customers found the following review helpful:
 Really great software, 2002-02-22
Okay, first of all I should say that I use version 7.0 on Windows 95. I have very few problems with it, and it never crashes. A lot of people are complaining about version 8.0 crashing. I wouldn't know about that. The main thing is, I've been using this software to study Chinese for almost a year now, and I'm only halfway through the program! It is an excellent program that I highly recommend. My Chinese friends have shown surprise at how much I know, and have remarked repeatedly on how good my pronunciation is. Working with the program will get good results, but it takes discipline. I study for about 45 minutes 3 times a week. Here is the study program that I recommend: 1. Listen, read, and speak through 2 of the main sections, or about 80 segments.
2. Play each of the 5 games 3 times. For "Plug and Play", play it 5 times instead. And just play "Vocabulous" 1 time.
3. Do this 3 times per week. A lot of people doing reviews are complaining about the lack of Chinese character teaching with this software. I think this is ridiculous. Chinese characters are very complicated. Even Chinese children learn to speak Chinese before they learn to read it. To introduce characters while trying to learn basic Chinese would be overwhelming. Instead, the program uses the internationally-used Pinyin system. This system is logical and easy to use. Nowadays a lot of Chinese people learn it too. So don't think that by not memorizing a bunch of characters you are not getting "authentic" Chinese. There will be time to study that later after you learn the language. There are two things about the software that could use some improvement. First of all, the "videos" are not really videos. They are pictures that they show on the screen. They usually have very little to do with the language. Second, the program does not teach tongue position for pronunciation. This is critical, and I would not have learned it unless I had studied a college textbook from Princeton University that covers it. The difference between the q, x, ch, z, zh, t, r, and c sounds are very important and are not particularly covered in this course. In spite of its shortcomings, I do highly recommend this software. It is easy to use. It uses native speakers. The sound is clear. The Pinyin is easy to understand. And with a little self-discipline, the program can work wonders.
10 of 11 customers found the following review helpful:
 Very, very poorly designed and extremely buggy, 2001-10-27
I bought this software because I was desperate to find a any Chinese learning software, so I bought this one an also the Rosetta Chinese learning software.
Chinese now is the worst software I ever used, the user interface is very poorly designed and it crashes all the time.
The software offer you meaningless translations and the speech recognition part is completely unusable recording less than one second of speech, you never have time to finish a word before it's done recording.
My only advice is do not buy this software!, Only the package looks nice. You're much better off with a book and a tape
3 of 6 customers found the following review helpful:
 Best available for Mandarin Chinese, 2001-08-21
First of all, it DOES work under Windows 2000 and I've never experienced a single crash. Second, there is a strategy to the exercises. The repitition and tools for marking words you don't know are good. Just listen to the dialogs until you become comfortable with what is being said.I've found it extremely helpful. It's no substitute for an instructor, but is a strong supplement. Overall, it's the best Mandarin Chinese tool available. I recommend it.
5 of 6 customers found the following review helpful:
Don't Bother, 2001-08-14
Don't bother with this software. It is a really pathetic package. First of all, it crashes all the time. Obviously, this package isn't supported since there is no patch for the crash on their website. But secondly, there is no uniform strategy to their teaching methods. Basically, this is just an engine that speaks chinese along side pinyin text. And a few games are thrown in to the mix. The speech analyzer which another reviewer commented on is useless. I can say entirely different words than I am supposed to and it still indicates I am speaking correctly.Really, I'm surprised that this package is even on the market. You won't learn Mandarin with it. So it's a waste of time.
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