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 - A DisappointmentI've been working with this program for three weeks now, and I have yet to learn anything. There are no instructions about how to proceed with the lessons, and I was for a long time under the impression that the instruction would be on the CD-ROMs, practice on the audio CDs, and learning in context on the "interactive" DVD and the game. In fact, this is all wrong. There is no instruction on the CD-ROMs, merely quizzes, word searches, etc. The heart of this program is the 5 audio CDs. But the CDs don't take up the topics in the same order as the CD-ROM exercises. For a couple of weeks, I struggled with the audio CDs, which I found difficult without a written transcript. But then I found that the company had posted a complete transcript, which helped a great deal. But the transcript is more than complete: it is for 8 CDs, and there are only 5 in the set. I really miss the material that is on discs 6, 7, & 8. Furthermore, the scoring on the evaluations is odd -- sometimes it is based on 4 exercises, but there are only two provided. So the best score you can get is 50%, even if all of your answers are correct. I had no technical trouble at all with the program CD-ROMs. The "hidden keys" are odd, but no problem (why hide them?). But my computer (a new Dell Inspiron 1720 with Vista) has had many problems with the "interactive" DVD and the game. The game freezes up at the same point every time I play it, and the arrow keys seem to go dead on the video. Amazon says this program is for Vista, but on the help instructions for the game (the only place I can find a list), Windows 2000 and XP are listed, but not Vista. I can't get the game past the police interview, and I have found the "interactive" video almost impossible to use. This are many little glitches not worth mentioning (e.g. "Stai calma" on transcript page 17 cannot mean "I remain calm"; it has to be "You (informal) are calm" or maybe "Stay calm"). But I won't go through all of them. I cannot believe that millions of people have learned Italian with this program, which seems to me a disorganized mess. I learned far more from the Danesi paperback. I wanted something with more interaction and context, but this isn't it.
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