• You'll learn by being completely immersed in Chinese, experiencing it directly and learning more quickly
• In no time, you'll be ordering food, conducting business and asking in-depth questions
• Start out simply, with the calendar, numbers, asking directions, and other topics
• Dictation feature helps you compare your pronunciation with native-speakers
• Teaches through fun quizzes and games that help you remember your new language skills
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Average Customer Review:
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
92 of 94 found the following review helpful:
 Warning to beginnersJul 27, 2002
I know three phrases in Mandarin; I am a true beginner. These CDs are a complete waste of money and time for the beginner. The two CDs are not marked as to which is disk 1 or 2. No instuctions are given. I found the first disk and tried to begin, but there was no clear instruction on where the beginning was. Games are started and all words and sentences on the audio are in full speed Mandarin. The English Help section only told me to click certain buttons to respond, but gave no clue as to what the speaker was instructing me to do. I tried both CDs. Even tried game after game trying to understand what I was to do and how I was suppose to learn, but to no success. I spend everyday on a computer interacting with computer interfaces. The CDs are poorly designed and had no place on the CD on how to properly pronouce the language. I read the reviews on Amazon and bought these CDs. I looked up another Instant Immersion product on Amazon - Italian - and found other users had the same experience that I had. There was no warning on the Mandarin Chinese CDs. Now there is.
45 of 45 found the following review helpful:
If want to learn 5 words...Oct 15, 2003
By Jacob L Purdom
I was a complete beginner, and wanted to learn Mandarin. I said LEARN, not acquire four or five phrases or words. I mistakenly bought this cheap software (like said in other review, get what you pay for) to begin my learning process. The CD's proved to be better frisbees than tutorials and are gathering dust on my computer desk. If you really wish to learn a language DO NOT buy this software. Translations are sketchy, explanations non-existant, and pronunciations deceptive. You don't know what words of a phrase mean what, that tones are vitally important to Chinese, and they don't even bother with pinyin. I recommend other means of learning language than this piece of software...
63 of 68 found the following review helpful:
 Very Good for the BeginnerJan 05, 2002
By Mike Cunningham
This program comes in a 2 disk set. The first disk is for beginners, while the second disk is for the more advanced. I have just completed the first disk and am beginning on the second. I thought I could never learn Chinese and was very surprised that I can actually speak and understand some of it. These disks are not overloaded with vocabulary, so after you have finished them you may want to go on to a more in depth program. The only drawback I have on this is that in the first disk when they show you the words, they put up the Chinese character and not the Pinyin form ( that is how it is pronounced using English letters ). This makes it hard to understand some words. To fix that, just pick up a Chinese -English dictionary that shows the words in Pinyin. However,on the second disk they use Pinyin insead of the Chinese characters. Actually, when you are done with the numbers section on the first disk, you can go to the second disk and use the number section on that disk. It gives you good practice and counts to 100 ( the first disk just counts to 20 ).If you want to test your skills at learning Chinese, this is a fun way to do it without spending too much money....
30 of 30 found the following review helpful:
 A bargain, but you get what you pay for.Nov 13, 2002
This is an affordable language set for learning very basic Mandarin. I have not studied Mandarin before, so pronunciation is somewhat unclear on the CD. There is no pinyin which makes it difficult to know the correct pronunciation. The male voice on the first CD seems to pronounce the words too quickly and make the tones unclear for an untrained ear. Since the tones are of uttmost importance in Chinese, this is a serious drawback.
That said, there is much helpful on these CDs. The games do help the student to learn to link the concept or object with a particular Chinese word. The immersion approach is helpful in learning basic phrases and the meaning of phrases that are not immediately evident (like the "hosts" of the games telling you in Chinese whether the answer was right or wrong). It stresses listening skills (maybe to the detriment of speaking skills). If one were unfamiliar with Chinese (the importance of tones and the correct pronunciation of consonantal sounds) it would be very difficult to learn to speak Chinese well.
But the set very inexpensive. You get what you pay for.
28 of 29 found the following review helpful:
keep shoppingJan 25, 2004
re the first cd, talk now: The girl enunciates well but speaks with a tiawanese accent. In one case, (the ankle) the girl gives the wrong (tiawanese?) word for the body part rather than the mandarin word. The guy slurs his word endings a bit. The cd only has a handful of words, perhaps what you would expect to learn in the first week of a standard college class. The cd makers neglected to pay an artist to draw the pictures that correspond to the sentences so good luck there as well. I think they had a not particularly gifted first grader do the scribbles.
The second cd, world talk, does NOT pick up where the first one left you but jumps ahead by an unbridged leap. There is no real help provided. you find yourself learning which picture matches with which sentence without ever learning what they are actually saying. Futhermore, the second cd is boring and not at all engaging. surely there is better stuff out there.
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based on 20 reviews
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