If you’re overwhelmed and intimidated by the cacophony of a foreign language when debarking in another country, these new CD-ROM programs can help give you the language skills needed for everything from buying a newspaper to ordering a meal to asking for aspirin. Whether you’re learning a language for the first time or using the program to supplement a language course or even brushing up rusty skills, studying a language never was so easy–or so much fun.
Transparent Language’s Language Now! programs offer immersion-style lessons in seven languages: French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, English for Spanish speakers and the dead-but-not-forgotten Latin ($29.95 each). Each program give you pointers on how to study a language as well as how to use the program to best results.
Selecting “Getting Started” from the main menu gives you the choice of taking the “step-by-step approach” of 12 lessons ranging from learning the alphabet to building vocabulary to practicing grammar, or you can dive in with hear-it-and-say-it “total immersion.” Whichever approach you choose, Language Now! allows you to learn at your own pace, offers frequent tests to make sure you’re learning the language and, most important, reinforces learning by letting you have fun with word games and exercises.
If you dive right in for total immersion, you’ll read a foreign text and have the option of an English translation at the bottom of the page. Clicking on words you don’t know will make the translation appear in another window. If you’re a beginner, you’ll start by clicking on every word, but you’ll be surprised at how quickly the vocabulary builds and comprehension grows.
For the more serious student, Transparent Language has Word Ace!, which serves as a dictionary, grammar and pronunciation guide. You can work from English into the language, or vice versa. The dictionary offers definitions, synonyms and games to help memorization. When it comes to grammar, type in a verb and you’re one click away from its conjugation in any tense.
All Transparent Language programs run either on Macintosh or Windows.
For more information, visit the Transparent Language site on the World Wide Web (www.transparent.com) or call 800-752-1767.
– IMSI takes things a step further with its Easy Language program ($29.95) that provides essential vocabulary in 17 major languages: Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai. And that’s not all. What makes the program especially versatile is that you not only pick the language you want to learn, you also pick the language through which you’ll learn: English (U.S. or British), Spanish (European or South American), French, German or Italian.
The interface is mainly vocabulary, so although you may learn the difference between the subway and the streetcar, you’ll never develop any serious conversational skills (although Windows users can check their pronunciation against a native speaker). There also are tests at the end of each section as well as multimedia tours with videos and photographs of each county’s culture, history and people.
The Easy Language program also comes with a multilingual dictionary with 25,000 words and 2,250 phrases divided into categories such as “Having Fun,” “Shopping” and “Basic Phrases” that give the word in all 17 languages. Also included in the package is “Travel Smarts,” a book of tips on getting the most from your travel dollar.
If you have access to the Internet, both Mac and Windows programs come with resources enabling you to visit language and travel sites via its Easy Language World Access site on the World Wide Web. The site includes a link glossary of more than 600 sites containing useful travel and cultural information.
Easy Language runs on Macintosh or Windows.
For more information, visit the IMSI site on the World Wide Web (www.imsisoft.com) or call 800-833-8082.
Sign language
Can’t take your computer or pocket translator with you on your trip abroad? Don’t want to lug well-thumbed phrase books? Kwikpoint’s International Translator is a low-tech solution that allows Luddites to say it with pictures–literally.
The International Translator is a plastic-coated three-fold legal-size brochure that allows you to point at a picture and ask for anything from a room with a double bed to a pocket calculator to the cut of fowl you want for dinner. The natives can point back or point you in the right direction. It’s simple and amazingly effective. There also is a business card-size translator with symbols for food, lodging, transportation, medical emergencies and services such as where to change money or buy film.
Kwikpoint’s International Translator costs $6 and is available at local book and map stores, or you can purchase by sending a check or money order to Gaia Communications, P.O. Box 238, Alexandria, Va. 22313-0238. For information, call 888-594-5764.
