51 Languages of the World is the follow‐up product to 31 Languages of the World, rated the No. 1 selling multilingual product by PC Data in February/March 1999, and recently named by PC Magazine as one of the Top 100 CDs of 1998. This product is a comprehensive language‐learning software solution that allows users to build critical language skills and to learn to communicate in 51 different world languages. These languages are:Albanian, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Basque,Bengali, Bulgarian, Brazilian, Canadian French, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Greek,Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian,Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian,Serbian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Yiddish, and Zulu.
New features in this product are a Segment Unscramble section, enhanced conversation practice, a personal progress tracking mechanism, and a simplified navigational interface. The product can be loaded on both Windows and Macintosh computers. In addition, the product includes as a special bonus a Unitype GlobalWriter 98 100 Language Word Processor and a special 12 City Video Travel Title.
A three‐stage approach to successful language learning is employed in this product: (1) listen and understand; (2) advanced speech analysis; and (3) conversation practice with real, native dialogs. The four CDs that make up this product are packaged in a box about five times bigger than the CDs. No written manual is included with the product, although the box contains quite a bit of information on the product itself.
I was provided with a 16‐page reviewer’s guide compiled by the publisher, which compares and contrasts this product with its other competitor’s, namely Berlitz’s Passport to 31 Languages and Easy Language’s 25 World Languages. All in all, it is an interesting product and certainly appears to be building on the success of its previous version. It is an extremely useful and easy‐to‐use multilingual product for learning and sounding the beginning vocabularies of the 51 languages cited. This product would be useful at all grade levels.
