Language learning isn't what it used to be. Interactive DVDs that were basically glorified school textbooks have now been replaced with ‘revolutionary' new systems that stop just short of promising to trick you into learning while you sleep.

Fluenz is one such system and is available for French, Spanish, Italian and Mandarin. Where rivals like Rosetta Stone use image association and language immersion, Fluenz makes a point of claiming that adults learn languages in a totally different way to children, having already mastered a mother tongue and lacking many of the sponge-like abilities of infants in mastering something new.

The full package comes with two DVDs, two audio CDs and a phrasebook, along with a lengthy description of exactly why the company has chosen this form of learning. Instead of starting you off from scratch and teaching you a list of verbs and phrases in the same way as you might learn in school, Fluenz focuses on teaching you what it believes would be most helpful if you're visiting a country for a short holiday, for example.

This is a nice idea in practice as we'd imagine most people wanting to learn a new language would at least be starting off in this sort of situation, and the way it ties together the range of different materials appears to be effective.

To begin with you're encouraged to view the introduction on your computer and get cracking with the first lesson. Each lesson is complemented by a refresher course on the audio CD, which is presented in this way to give you an easy alternative to learning in front of your computer; such as in the car on the way to work.

A lesson begins with some introductory dialogue from an unnecessarily attractive linguist called Sonia, who thankfully is present throughout the course to guide you through the various modules. You then work your way through the chapters, each being pre-empted by an introduction from Sonia followed by a list of the phrases you'll learn, with audio accompaniment and subtitles, and then it's back to your teacher for the bulk of the lesson.

You then get an opportunity to repeat the key words used, associate phrases with their English equivalents, type specific words and phrases, speak words yourself to improve your accent and associate words with images.

Each lesson follows a similar structure and this means that the software teaches you reading, listening, speaking and writing skills to show you everything you need to know about a compartmentalised set of words or phrases.

The lessons are extremely clear and well explained, they don't progress too quickly and it's always easy to work out what's being taught and why.

In truth there aren't many drawbacks to the learning approach taken by the package, though we'd imagine that like anything of this nature it would suit certain people more than others. Word association, for example, is rarely touched upon, and this is an effective contemporary approach that we think the package may have benefited from. (The word ‘Maletta' for example, is Spanish for luggage. Paint a mental image of yourself packing your clothes into a giant comedy mallet and you'll never forget it.)

Regardless, there's far too much on offer here to criticise the software for the approach it takes but there are a few niggly issues with the package that can be frustrating. The software on the DVD runs straight from the disc using Macromedia Projector, and while this may seem useful in that it doesn't take up any hard drive space installing an application, it can be quite slow to load.

It also only runs in full screen mode so you don't have the option to view it in a window while you're doing something else. These aren't major problems, however, and in general we were very impressed by the massive amount of material available, the variety of content to help prevent any one lesson becoming boring, and the effective way in which the lessons can be absorbed.

Verdict
Fluenz is one of the most effective language learning tools on the market and while it's fair to argue that this depends on an individual's preference of learning style, there's so much varied content here that it's difficult to think of anyone that offers more. Unfortunately you're paying a Hell of a lot for all of this, upwards of £200 for a full course, so this restricts the software to those who are taking language learning seriously.

Company: Fluenz

Tags: rosetta stone dvd spanish language mandarin chinese compact disc language acquisition language social sciences