With all the hype and commercials about Rosetta Stone, many people may not have heard about Transparent.   Transparent has been around since the early 90′s.  I believe these guys are “Language people”.   I am still not sure about the Rosetta Stone folks yet.

When I first started running my school in Japan, I started looking for software that we could use with and sell to our students.    I emailed Transparent  and was sent a couple of their products.   (101 Languages of the World & Kidspeak).  Transparent has since broken their products down to individual languages. At first I couldn’t believe that they  actually had individual lessons for 100 different languages.    I really liked the layout and the interface was easy to follow.  Their software gives you the  audio and the visual material to go along with it.

Next, I put Kidspeak into the computer and gave it a shot.  I thought it was great.  It is aimed at kids and topics that are easy for childen to follow.   This, however, is a total immersion program.  There were no subtitles or place you could click to get a translation.  But remember, the animated layout is made for children (hence: Kidspeak) and what better way to start off learning a language.  Start off simple and fun.  My kids love it.  I remember my oldest son used to play around with it all the time.  Then one day out of the blue he just blurted out things in Korean.  To say the least we were astounded.

Remember language is a living thing.  Software and Books will only get you so far, you gotta get out there and use it.  However, if you don’t have someone to speak with or money to got take lessons, then I would definitely recommend one of the products from Transparent.com!

P.S.  I do have a copy of Rosetta Stone and for now, I still say go with  Transparent software.