Fluenz Mandarin 1+2+3 for Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad & Android Phones, Version 3

I'm about halfway through Fluenz Mandarin 3, and so while I am not quite finished, I feel comfortable evaluating the product. I will say that it is not a bad product. The lessons are well done and well organized, with clear explanations of the topics being learned. As the Fluenz folks say frequently, they err on the side of learning less, but learning it well. The lessons are upbeat and designed to encourage one along, and perhaps because the emphasis is on learning a small set of things well, one is rarely frustrated or confused throughout the process. Moreover, although the learning medium is technologically advanced, the general format is very traditional: dialogue, explanation of dialogue, drills. For a language learner of just about any age or background, this will be pretty familiar. No virtual immersion, no games, no gimmicks.That said, there are some notable drawbacks. First, and perhaps foremost, while I admire the "learn less, but learn better" philosophy, at the end of the day, the amount of Mandarin actually learned (in terms of vocab, grammar, etc.) is pretty limited. Especially for the serious language learner, it can be frustrating to go through a 10 minute explanation of a dialogue that only has one or two new words or ideas. Very fundamental issues are not introduced until late in the game (if I remember correctly, one learns the words for gold, silver, and bronze medal before one even learns how to say "My name is _________"!). I felt like the 3rd disc picked up the pace, but again it shouldn't take that long to really challenge the learner. I also was perplexed as to why a non-native speaker would do much of the "teaching" in the first two discs. Ms. Gil seems nice and personable, but there is little doubt that she is not a native speaker, as even to the language learner is it clear that she mixes up tones and pronunciation not infrequently. I've learned languages in a number of contexts, and I understand the benefit of having a native speaker of a language learner's mother tongue teach one a foreign language (as they, in many cases, can more readily answer questions and "understand where you're coming from" as a language learner, especially in the early stages). But, for a scripted, one-way teaching format it makes no sense not to have a native speaker of Mandarin, especially given the number of truly bilingual Chinese/English speakers out there. The lack of instruction in hanzi is also to the language learner's detriment. I am a non-native but fluent speaker of Japanese, a language which shares many characters with Mandarin--having hanzi (or at least the option for hanzi) seems like an easy technological fix, and would have been useful. I recognize that my position is a little bit unique, but even for someone unfamiliar with Asian languages, having at least some familiarity with characters would be very useful. Heck, even knowing "man" and "woman" would avoid embarrassing mishaps at the restroom!I also feel like the elephant in the room must be addressed: the price. At the moment, Mandarin 1 through 3 is retailing at over $500, with an Amazon "sale price" of about $350. For those kinds of prices, one should expect results. Yet, to be honest, I learned more from an old Living Language Mandarin set of CDs + book that cost under $50. Even more damning for this business model is the emergence of *free* language applications that very closely mimic paid versions such as Fluenz and Rosetta Stone. For example, I've been brushing up on my French through Duolingo, which has its flaws but not only is its price right, I'd honestly put it head to head with a product such as Fluenz. Duolingo doesn't have a Chinese app, but once it does, I'd be hard pressed to recommend spending $350~$500 for Fluenz when there's a free product that's just about equivalent.Look, learning a language isn't easy, and for a native English speaker, Mandarin's about as hard as it gets. There's something to be said for a product that gives you a crash course in a difficult language in a non-threatening manner. But, *especially at this price*, it's difficult to really give it much more of an endorsement than that. This is a product I really want to "like"; there is real thought behind its production, and it doesn't feel as corporate and slick as Rosetta Stone. You CAN and WILL learn some Mandarin from it. However, I'm just not sure it's the best use of $350~$500 for someone who's serious about learning Mandarin.

I finished all the chapters in Fluenz Mandarin 1+2+3, so I'm well acquainted with the software. However, I have only cursory knowledge of competing products. In this review I'll focus on what seemed good and bad to me as a user.Overall I had a positive experience, so I'll start with the negatives. Many of these seem minor, but I thought they all degraded my experience significantly.1. The software seemed to be fixed at a low resolution, and often used a small font. On my laptop, even in full screen mode, most of the screen would be blank, and the window would only use the center of the screen. I found myself squinting to see accents sometimes.2. You do a lot of writing (pinyin) in the software, and the software is picky about accents. This is a good decision, but the software never explains to you which letter you should put the accents over. I found a simple rule for this online, but they would have saved me time during Fluenz 1 if they had explained this.3. As I mentioned, you do a lot of writing. When you get a sentence wrong, the software just beeps at you. It doesn't tell you whether you are using the wrong word order, or if you have the wrong accent, the accent over the wrong vowel in a diphthong, etc. Occasionally I would ask a native speaker and she would confirm that my translation was fine, but just one not anticipated by Fluenz. When this happened repeatedly I lost trust in the computer---when I was marked wrong I wouldn't know if I really got it wrong or not. A feature that would highlight the differences between the user's results and the closest correct answer would be helpful.4. The dialogues, especially in later lessons, are sometimes incomplete. I could tell based on the discussion and questions later that sections of the dialog were just missing. This only happened a few times but was confusing when it did happen.5. Finally, I think the product could have put in more listening exercises and fewer writing exercises. There's a great listening exercise (that I'll talk about under "positives" below) that I would like to have done more of.On the other hand, here are some positive features of the software:1. Well organized and structured. Fluenz really thought about how they were going to teach Mandarin from the ground up, and they designed step-by-step lessons that build on each other and present the material logically.2. Many individual lessons I thought were very well done. For instance, they had good lessons on the uses of the "de" particle, as well as on measure words. Just as I had been wondering about these topics, a lesson showed up to explain it.3. Comprehensive explanations of all new topics and words. Some people (who are more intuitive with languages than I) may think the software goes too slowly, but I was glad that Fluenz presented in-depth discussion after every dialogue. It doesn't just assume that you'll naturally understand new aspects of the dialog.4. Lots of drills---in each chapter there are multiple different exercises that really drill the material into your head. My favorite exercise would have you listen to a question in Mandarin, and then select the correct Mandarin answer. It seemed this tested multiple skills simultaneously: vocabulary, grammar, tones, listening speed, etc. Many of the other exercises involved a lot of typing (in pinyin). These I thought were helpful, but their listening exercises were the best, and I wish there were more of them.Overall, I'm satisfied that I started my Mandarin education with Fluenz 1,2,3. It's definitely not a complete solution. I'm not sure I would have gotten through all the lessons without a flashcard program (I use Mnemosyne). And to actually be able to understand and speak Mandarin, I'll have to do a lot more work, starting with learning much more vocabulary. (Fluenz probably only teaches you a couple hundred words, but even an intermediate speaker needs thousands.) But I think Fluenz gave me a solid background to build on.

I bought Fluenz Mandarin 1+2+3 about a year ago and have gone through all the lessons in preparation for a 10 month stay in China. I am currently in China, so unlike many of the other reviews, these are not "first impressions" but rather an assessment of its usefulness. Overall, I've found that Fluenz simply doesn't cover enough to be of too much use in learning Chinese. The philosphy behind the program is to cover few items but to cover them well, reinforcing what you've learned through repetition. That's fine, but after completing all three programs I still have a very limited vocabulary, not enough to really function well. For example, Fluenz spends multiple lessons on ordering food in a restaurant--which is good. But even after completing all of their lessons I still do not know enough vocabulary to effectively order food or to undertstand common questions that waiters ask you.The podcasts for mandarin 3 are repetitive of the audio CDs, and in general Mandarin 3 doesn't cover much. I would have liked to see them speed up the learning process once you get to Mandarin 3.In general, the program is good as far as it goes, but for the price one would expect to get a more comprehensive program that goes deeper into the language. They could have, for example, at least introduced some basic characters (the whole program uses pinyin, which is not used in China). Perhaps Mandarin 3 could have worked in a few basic characters, as you need to know some characters to survive in China. If you are planning an extended stay in China and would like to know some basic phrases and vocabulary, you probably will need more than Fluenz to accomplish the task.

I always like to hear bad news before good news ;-)Cons?The only reason I didn't give this program 5 stars is that if you install it to your hard drive you still have to put the 'original' disk (not a back-up) in your drive every fifth time you use the program. Not a massive inconvenience but if you take your laptop to work etc you need to take the disk along. Not sure what happens if the disk gets damaged/lost?? Also there is no way of registering different users i.e my wife, daughter and me. You need to keep a track/record of your own progress because if someone else uses the program after you it shows where they were last.Pros?If you have viewed the video demo you'll see just why this program is so good. The on-screen teacher Sonia adds a nice touch and the lessons are very engaging. Quickly learning to type/spell pinyin is a great idea and this program uses it from the start. Because each lesson is split into several segments you can move backwards to refresh anything that was unclear but the teaching is very clear as is the audio.After the intial sample conversation on each lesson you need to match up pinyin phrases with english and many of these were not heard in the lesson but use words from previous lessons etc and are a great way to increase your use of words in different sentences. We are all quickly learning which tone mark is used with each pinyin word due to the immersive repetition.I'm combining this program with transparent premium chinese http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transparent-Language-Chinese-Premium, it has printable flashcards and a great style of teaching at an incredible price.The same company BYKI have an excellent Mandarin app for the iphone/android and I have Pimsleur Mandarin (1,2,3) which is just audio which I listen to mainly in the car.My wife and daughter like this program better than others. I highly recommend it.