Linguaphone

[Andy008]

How effective/useful are these programs?

[charliebaps]

Depends how serious you are. With no real interaction you can be surprised at how little it helps in the country of your choice. however, it can help you recognise the basics. A lot of peole give up but if you are seroius and put the studying in then it can definately helps with a basic ground knowledge

[oakleydoaky]

i must reccommend the michel thomas system. (you can pick up used sets on ebay) french, spanish, german and italian are available.

this is the guy that teaches politicians and filmstars languages (in a simple way) in a week. there is a starter (2 cds) but dont bother with that. there is an 8 cd set and a 2 cd extra vocabulary set available.

you write nothing down, just listen. and answer. you are in an imaginary classroom with 2 other people. they are actually there, in the room with him answering and getting things wrong (just like you!)

this is his web site. http://www.michelthomas.com/

i learned french and it really did work well. it gives you confidence to try. within an hour you WILL know about 1500 french words. how? because he talks about the similarity of language, not the difference.

he also talks about how few actual words are used in a daily newspaper. it's all confidence builing stuff. you won't regret it (i sould be on commission!)

[oakleydoaky]

didn't check my spelling above, sorry!