For beginners, there's a reference guide that introduces characters of a language's alphabet and provides native pronunciations of each letter's name and core sound. In addition, the Learning Company and Berlitz International have collaborated on a new series of CD-ROMs. They present content in small segments, and there are hundreds of vocabulary and pronunciation activities from which to choose. Users can listen to native speakers pronouncing words from real-life dialogues and can then record their own voices to compare. The advanced speech recognition technology evaluates responses and provides feedback.
Students can check their progress, since the programs keep track of units and topics completed.
The interactive lessons have users speaking the language from the very beginning, with the goal of preparing you for common real-life situations. The speech-recognition feature understands, evaluates, and helps improve pronunciation. Each program automatically adjusts to users' skill levels, and flexible options let users work at their own pace. There are 20 movies featuring native speakers in real-life situations as well as hundreds of sound clips, photos, and illustrations. You select a word from any Windows application and display the translation in a ToolTip balloon or WordPoint window.