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Italian Before You Know It Deluxe
Studio : Transparent Language, Inc.
by Transparent Language, Inc.
Brand : Transparent Language, Inc.
Model : IE-BF35-8-CD
Platform : Windows XP
Release Date : 2005-01-24
Publisher : Transparent Language, Inc.
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
EAN : 0744573555276
UPC : 744573555276
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 2 reviews)
List Price : $49.99
Our Price : $69.95
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Support for Palm and PocketPC devices; for beginner to advanced learners
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Italian language software with proven, effective learning method
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Fun activities like multiple-choice matching, pronunciation, and dictation
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Customize or create lists of words and phrases; pictures for visual cues
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Advanced pronunciation practice; record voice and compare to native speakers
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Product Description |
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Italian Learning for Everyone! For beginners to advanced learners, Before You Know It is the simple and effective way to master Italian with Perfect Recall guaranteed! Whether for business, travel, school or personal enjoyment, you will quickly learn to understand and speak 1,000 common Italian words and 250 essential phrases. Easy, Fast, and Effective! With Before You Know It, you will instantly feel the difference. Advanced technology customizes the learning for you in a way never before possible. Just decide what you need to know, and Before You Know It handles the rest. Learning is fun because it happens at the perfect speed for you, with less time on what you pick up quickly and more time where you need it. Result the fastest path to perfect learning! Fun Activities Perfect Your Learning. They feel like games, but each activity targets the perfection of a vital language skill, such as pronunciation or listening comprehension. Customize & Share! Expand the power of Before You Know It Deluxe Edition by building your own flash card lists. Great for learning exactly what you need, from specialized vocabulary & phrases to weekly quiz material. Get additional FREE lists and ideas, plus share your own flash card lists with your friends. Learn on the Go! As a free bonus, this package also includes the Before You Know It system for Pocket PC and Palm PDA. If you have a PDA, you can keep learning, even on the move. |
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Carole Berkoff |
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The general format of this software using flashcards to facilitate learning is very helpful to me. I like being able to listen to the words as many times as I need to and to be able to slow them down. I do find that some of the lists are too small in the number of words offered. If you want to add a word you can but it is not easy to add sound. Some of the "native speakers" pronounciation such as buongiorno sounds as if she is not too happy & I prefer not to emulate. When I did find a way to record, then when I went to record my voice, the feedback system failed. I find this software in general more helpful than just listening to language CDs. I do think that the software developers could do a lot more with this system. |
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Great vocabulary builder. |
I have the multi-language version of this software, which includes Spanish, Italian, French and German. So I'm reviewing each single-language version as well so those shopping for language-learning software will know exactly what to expect from this.
Before You Know It uses the flashcard method of teaching vocabulary four ways. Words and phrases are divided into lists by category. User selects a list then goes to the activity of choice to learn the contents of that list. There are a few more activities available in the Deluxe version that the free trial version doesn't have, but both versions use virtual flashcards the following way:
Step 1 - Look at the foreign word and take a guess (out loud or in your head - it doesn't matter because the software trusts you to tell it if you answered correctly). The program will also say the word so you know the proper pronunciation.
Step 2 - Look at the foreign word and type in it in English in the space provided. Here you don't get to cheat, because it can tell if your correct or not. The ones you need work on will repeat more often.
Step 3 - Look at the English word and guess the foreign one. Again, it will trust you to be honest.
Step 4 - Look at the English word and type in the foreign one. This has been the most helpful of all the steps for me, because not only do I have to know the word by now, I have to know how to spell it correctly and include any necessary accent marks.
All of the above you can get with the basic version of Before You Know It that is available to download for free via the internet. Why not try it out before you purchase the deluxe version?
With the deluxe version, you get more four more activities which include multiple choice, pronunciation practice where you can record your voice and compare your pronunciation with a native speaker (warning: software does NOT include a microphone), and dictation (which is just a repeat of step 4 of the flashcard portion).
My favorite thing about this software, though, and what made me go ahead and spend the money for the deluxe version, is the user's ability to customize the program in several different ways:
- User can add a word to any list. You just look up more words you want to know online or in a dictionary and add it to the appropriate category.
- User can delete any word from any list.
- User can copy any word from one list to another.
- User can edit any word in any list. This is handy when studying Spanish because you might want to change the translation from European to Latin American.
- User can create entire lists and categories of their own, add their own pictures and record their own voices to demonstrate the pronunciation of each word. You can create lists for anything you want to learn - not just languages.
- User can download additional, free lists from the Before You Know It website, including state capitals, periodic table of elements (chemistry), multiplication tables, and more. And you can sign up for the free "list of the week." Each week, a new list will be sent to you via email.
This software will help you master your foreign vocabulary and learn helpful phrases, but it does not teach the rules of grammar for these languages. You won't learn conjugation unless you look up the form of each word yourself and add it to their lists or create your own lists.
In other words, the customizing possibilities for this are almost endless if you're willing and able to invest the time to do it. But what it comes with already installed is meant to simply increase your foreign vocabulary and, used alone, will not make anyone a fluent speaker.
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