Reviews
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Multimedia
Beginner’s Chinese with 2 Audio CDs (Second Edition)
Mandarin, Books, Multimedia
This book by Yong Ho is for beginners, but I decided I needed to do a bunch of Pimsleur Chinese audio lessons first, before starting it, and I’m glad I did. Despite its inviting name, Beginner’s…
Pimsleur Spanish
Spanish, Audio Lessons, Multimedia
A Pimsleur audio lesson is a marvelous thing: a roughly half-hour, highly interactive experience that develops your listening and speaking skills. For Spanish, the company offers a whopping 120 lessons, so you can get a ton of speaking practice without ever…
Pimsleur French
French, Audio Lessons, Multimedia
Pimsleur is my favorite self-study language-learning product to date. It offers a series of interactive audio lessons, roughly half an hour each, in which the student is cajoled, prodded, encouraged, etc., to speak a foreign language in response to brilliantly…
Pimsleur German
German, Audio Lessons, Multimedia
Pimsleur offers highly interactive German audio lessons, roughly half an hour each, that give users way more opportunities to practice their oral skills than they would be likely to have in even the smallest of conversation classes. I love Pimsleur…
Pimsleur Italian
Italian, Audio Lessons, Multimedia
When I first studied Italian back in 2009, I did 90 Pimsleur Italian lessons in less than three weeks. You are supposed to do one a day. I guess that is an indication of how much I loved them. I would absolutely 100…
Fluenz Mandarin
Mandarin, Books, Multimedia
Fluenz Mandarin is an interactive multimedia product, with audio, writing, reading, and speaking instruction. I am as of this writing on lesson 57 out of 75 lessons. When I first started using Fluenz Mandarin, I was surprised to discover that my…
Rosetta Stone Hindi
Hindi, Multimedia
Rosetta Stone is a multimedia computer-based language-learning application. For Hindi, the publisher offers three levels. Among other things, you can get online coaching from a native speaker in what they refer to as “Studio sessions.” I used Rosetta Stone…
Teach Yourself Hindi (with CDs)
Hindi, Books, Multimedia
The book part of this Teach Yourself Hindi book-CD combo package starts out: “This course is designed to enable those with no previous knowledge of Hindi to learn to read, write and converse in the language with…
Teach Yourself Arabic (with CDs)
Arabic, Books, Multimedia
I used Teach Yourself Arabic by Jack Smart and Frances Altorfer back in 2009, and it struck me as an example of language-learning marketing trumping actual usability. This book-CD combo was a total bust for me. I confess I…