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In order to compare these programs feature by feature, I'll evaluate them according to the following three criteria:
First, our winner - Rocket French Premium!
If you're a Mac user wishing to learn French online, Rocket French is the only one of these three products you can use - the others come formatted for Windows only. But don't buy it for that reason alone. Buy it because Rocket French takes you from a position of knowing NO French to a comfortable level of fluency in a way that is simple, natural, and fun. The speakers, Marie-Claire and Paul, are upbeat and amusing, and fill you with the conviction that you really can master this. Better still, they don't just teach you static phrases - they give you the grammatical tools to use your new vocabulary in a wide variety of ways. And since Rocket French is iPod-compatible, you can take it wherever you go! I did say Rocket French was fun, didn't I? Like all Rocket Language packages, this program comes with a variety of absolutely addictive video games. MegaVocab helps you extend the vocabulary you've learned in your regular lessons. MegaVerb helps with those tricky verb conjugations. And MegaAudio helps train your ear to understand French as it's spoken on the street. You'll not only learn the language with this program - Rocket French's culture lessons will give you a real sense of what it's like to be French. Don't be surprised if you actually start thinking and dreaming in your new language! For those of you who need a more formal way of tracking your progress, Rocket French provides that through its online quizzes. And in case you're worried that you'll miss a human support system if you learn French online, think again! With your purchase, you'll get lifetime access to Rocket French's exclusive learner's forum, where a staff of native speakers and teachers are on call 24/7 to help you with any language-related problem you may have. You'd definitely expect to pay multiple hundreds of dollars for this program. It's worth it, after all! But Rocket French, originally priced at $299.95, can be purchased for only $149.00 - and if you click the link below, you may be able to get it for even less! No question - if you're ready to learn French online, this is definitely the program you want.
Now let's look at our second-ranked package, Tell Me More French. This language-learning system actually comes in five different versions, but I've decided to review the one closest in price to Rocket French and Transparent French (version 10, 2 levels) since we could reasonably expect an equivalent value. Tell Me More French has many excellent things going for it, but the best has to be its speech recognition feature -- the software analyzes your pronunciation and displays graphic representations of the sound. (If your accent is so terrible the computer can't understand what you're saying, you might feel this is Tell Me More's worst feature!) Like Rocket French, Tell Me More offers an online learner's forum and extensive self-tests. You're encouraged to continue your learning with additional new exercises provided every week. However, there's one big problem with Tell Me More French, and it falls halfway between usefulness and clarity: the most basic level is already too difficult for a typical beginner. A person with no previous exposure to French might not be able to make the conceptual leaps required by this course. If you've studied French before - perhaps in high school, or as a tourist long ago - this program might work for you. But if this is your first exposure to the language, Tell Me More might not be the best way to learn French online. At $229.00, these shortcomings bring down its value score as well. For these reasons, I've ranked Tell Me More French at number two.
Now we arrive at our third-ranked product, Transparent French. This program's price seemed tempting, at a very reasonable $179.95 for an electronic download (add an additional $9.95 for a backup CD). But when I examined its features, it became apparent that this course will not really help you learn French online. It's not a total waste of money; it's just a very lightweight introduction to French. There is no interactive learner's forum; there's a "total immersion DVD" which allows you to listen to people speaking French. There are no customizable lessons; there's an "interactive conversation practice with playback." This seems a great deal like the way you probably learned foreign languages in school; the manufacturers have just taken your school and made it downloadable. Transparent French would serve your needs if you needed to learn a few French phrases in order to travel. But a basic English/French phrase book would do the same. If you really want to learn French, you're probably not going to be satisfied with this product.
So I hope I've shown you why Rocket French is your best buy in language instruction software, and I hope I've encouraged you to learn French online! To order Rocket French today, and check out its great sale price, click here!
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