Excellent for Fluency but I wouldnt recommend for a beginner
935940
I bought the cassette version and found it to be the best investment in Spanish that I've made.  As stated in some of the other reviews, there isn't a lot of English spoken (one of the features I was looking for).  I've had 4 years of Spanish prior to this (but it's been about 7 years since my last class).  I bought the tapes for a trip to Spain and found them to be incredibly helpful.  If you do have a grasp of the spanish language, I would recommend about a year (just the fundimentals of verb tenses), I think that you'll find these tapes the best on the market (yes better than Pimsluer).  If you don't have a grasp and are looking for a basic tourist phrases etc, I would recommend ultimate spanish basic intermediate or Pimsleur 1.  Some other great additions to this set are 501 Spanish verbs.
391875
This is great for beginners because it has clear achievable goals to get to which is the entire song, which I think psychologically develops confidence if you can play an entire song even if it is relatively easy, and the pacing is great.
However, this is not for intermediates, I'd think intermediate would involve tapping, legato and some more techniques and levels of challenge not covered here.
Also, I got the VOD version so it does not come with separate tabs which is a big bummer.

But definitely recommended for that metal enthusiast who is just picking up the guitar.
1444572
If you've got the time and needed dexterity this book can deliver. To fully make use of what is provided can take years. This publication is best suited for an advanced intermediate and beyond player. I applaud the author for his thorough approach to fretboard fluency but admit to being overwhelmed by the material presented. ( I am a middle of the road intermediate player for what it's  worth). Chances are I will return to Fretboard Fluency later down the road when I've more time to devote to the myriad of exercises presented by the author.
4180202
This book is a great way to start, but it certainly won't get you to where you want to go if you only use this book.  I have a strong musical background (majored in piano, also played woodwind instruments and dabbled in the guitar), so I picked up the ukulele pretty quickly.  The first few chapters start out perfectly with 1-finger chords, 2-finger chords, then 3-finger chords.  That makes sense.  He does makes some "substitutions" like doing a 1 finger F chord that is really an F chord with an added G.  It doesn't quite make sense to me to teach it that way since the "normal" F chord isn't that hard in the first place.  Might as well learn it correctly.  He also teaches an A7b9, A9, and D13, but never gets around to teaching the basic D chord.

He then goes on to teach some basic chord progressions.  I have two issues with these.  One is that some of them required jumping from the 2nd fret to the 7th fret.  That's a really big jump for a beginner.  Secondly, he plays them very quickly for beginners.  He could have played a slow version and a fast version.  He doesn't give any tips for making those big jumps at that high speed.  If you were already a seasoned guitar player, then maybe it would seem easy to you, but then again, you would have been bored by the first half of the book.

In chapter 10, he started with very basic picking.  Turn the page, and suddenly you've got a highly advanced version of Ave Maria!  Of course he plays it absolutely beautifully on the video, but there's no way that a beginner could possibly master it.  It's a bit discouraging because there's no steps for getting from that beginner stage to the advanced stage.  Just one giant leap.  He finishes with chapters on strumming techniques and tremolo picking, but never goes over muted strumming or hammer on/pull offs.  I would have loved a few songs that a beginner or intermediate could play.

The book ends with the music for some of his great songs, like the Celtic Tune and Dragon, but you would have to be highly advanced to play them.

Overall, I still like the book and the accompanying videos because Jake is just a cool guy.  He's humble and funny.  He's much more fun to watch on a video than the vast majority of amateurs that you see on YouTube.  I just think that this book needs to be supplemented with a lot of other material and perhaps he needs a series for beginners, intermediates, and advanced players.  On its own, it falls short for beginners and it falls short for advanced players.  Other reviewers compliment it for having something for everyone, but really what you get is only a few chapters which can apply to you, whatever stage you're at.
55253
I have never met anyone who has completed "Remembering the Kanji I" before learning any other aspect of Japanese, but perhaps you can be the first. Let me explain why you most definitely should.
Much has already been said about this extraordinary volume, but there is one very important point which has not been raised, even by Heisig himself. Beginners in Japanese - please take careful note.
Put simply, mastery of "Remembering the Kanji I" (along with the simple hiragana and katakana scripts) is analogous to mastery of the 26 letters of our own English alphabet. These 2000 or so characters - compulsory learning for every child in Japan - are the building blocks for almost any Japanese word you would care to imagine.
Why is this so important? Well, it suggests by far the most efficient way for a beginner to learn Japanese. If the beginner can complete this volume before learning a single word or attending a single class (completion, quite remarkably, takes no more than 3 months full-time), then he or she is at a huge advantage over any other student of Japanese. Why? Because every single time that student learns a new word, he or she can learn it in conjunction with its kanji form if it has one.
This is a vital point. Most people when asked how they became proficient in Japanese will say that hobbled along for several years using mainly hiragana and katakana, and, worst of all, the romanized form - romaji (personally, I spent a whole year learning Japanese using romaji). However, to do that is really shooting yourself in the foot. It is a gross inefficiency for three reasons. Firstly, you will have to learn words twice, or even three times (if you used romaji, then 'upgraded' to hiragana and then kanji). Secondly, your memory won't be able to benefit from being able recognize ALL of the kanji you see around you on a daily basis in Japan. Thirdly (and perhaps most importantly) you will never have any insight into WHY a word sounds like it does. For example, learning the word for post office clerk - "yuubinkyokuin" - in romaji is very difficult because you have no idea whatsoever of the kanji building blocks. However, those sounds are there for a reason, and break down into four kanji which, using Heisig's method, you would have learned as 'mail', 'convenience', 'bureau' and 'employee'. Needless to say, these four sound-units appear in hundreds of other words, and this gives an internal logical to vocabulary learning which simply does not exist otherwise.
I am slowly recovering from post-romaji stress syndrome. Believe me, it is the worst habit you could ever get into. Once I realised the importance of the above, I resolved not to learn a single new piece of Japanese vocabulary until I could write it in kanji too. You should do the same. If you know your 'ABC', you can be confident about learning any Japanese vocabulary you want to with considerable ease.
p.s. I would recommend two more aids in addition. Firstly, as other reviewers have noted, Heisig's 2042 "Kanji study cards" are very handy for learning the 'yomikata' (the pronunciation). And secondly, something that hasn't been mentioned is "Kanjican" by Kanjisoft systems (available on the web). While by no means a perfect program, it is designed to accompany Heisig's series, and allows you to enter both Heisig's and your own stories (to replace the author's quite frankly abominable ones), and then be tested randomly on each kanji. Very useful indeed, since you need a place to record your own stories.
1617030
I quite like how this displays all the correct pronunciation and ways to say the words, however I think this list does get bland after a while of repeating the same things, not to mention it's ordered in a slightly confusing way. The list is organized so I can't quite find a word I want to with out some struggle, however after a bit you get the memorization down and you can find them with a glance. I would say this is a very useful tool for people just starting to learn this language.
4721310
I've been self-studying Japanese off-and-on for a number of years now.
As compared to other products, "podcasts", etc., this one has an exceedingly high signal-to-noise ratio.
In some of the other introductory courses, you barely hear any Japanese, in my opinion.
Once you have mastered all 30 lessons here (plus, preferably, the 30 of Part 2 and 30 of Part 3), you WILL be quite well understood by native speakers regarding the topics the taught phrases cover.
In fact, in my experience, when using these phrases in Japan, it is quite likely you will hear a response in rapid Japanese, which, regrettably, this series is often unable to help you decode, let alone respond to.  That next level of skill requires substantial additional study beyond the scope of this course.  As I have found this method to be superior to the other Japanese self-study products, I find it unfortunate only 90 lessons total appear to exist.

-1 star for some of the exceedingly formal phrases that are taught in this course, which, while not inaccurate, when spoken, can result in a slightly puzzled look from a native-speaking listener, who typically may be expecting more casual speech from a visitor.
1463916
I found it easy to follow and very easy to understand. The book went right along with the CD...but like anything else, you have to practice, practice, practice and my accent sucks!!!But it is a great product to use for a beginer and my husband has gotten many hours of laughter out of my practicing!!!
2889223
I have been delighted with Fluenz Spanish. It is a well crafted product with lots of repetition, excellent teaching, interactive aspects and a very well thought out curriculum. I have no experience with Rosetta Stone, which is more of a complete immersion product, but I can't believe that it does a better job than Fluenz.
I am now on level 4, and still very enthusiastic about proceeding. For any such course, the major disadvantage would be that true interaction with another Spanish speaker is lacking. Fluenz tries to overcome this with exercises which record your voice and plays it back, but it is just not the same as living in Spain for a month!
The company has been very responsive to email or telephone questions about technical aspects of the product. They seem to be a fine group at home base.
Strongly recommend for the new Spanish student who wishes to learn at home.
3470588
This magnetic poetry kit is nice for what it is, but let me explain why I didn't give it a high rating. Firstly, be aware that this kit is not very good for beginners. I'm by no means a beginner, I have several years of Spanish language learning under my belt, but I still like to find ways to practice and incorporate the Spanish language into my daily life so I retain what I've learned. If you already know some Spanish, or if you're already fluent, this poetry kit is perfect for you! However, if you are just starting out with the language and are hoping this kit will help you, I advise against it. You really need at least SOME knowledge of Spanish verbs and conjugating in order to utilize this kit. Conjugated verbs are not given to you (except for about 3 of the verbs) so the rest you will have to conjugate yourself. If you don't know how to do this, you may find yourself lost with this kit. Secondly, this is a POETRY kit, therefore, the nouns included are not comprehensive and are more poetry specific. You will find nouns mostly relating to the body (eyes, belly, skin, etc.) or to nature/natural items (fire, hot, cold, earth, sun, river, rose, etc.) as well as various other nouns that you would most often find in poems (queen, evil, bed, soul, fruit, etc.) Only three colors are included and three animals. Again, this may help somewhat with vocabulary, but there is very little here to work with. This is by no means a way to practice vocabulary if you are a beginner. Lastly, the "mini dictionary" included in this kit has obviously not been proofread. I went through every magnet in this kit and matched it to the paper as I was sorting through them. A couple of the words are not on the dictionary at all ("tom" and "venc"), and some of the words are labeled with an abbreviation that does not apply to that word. For example, the magnet "amarg" (amargo/amarga = bitter) is clearly an adjective, but it is labeled as a verb in the mini dictionary. This is exactly why background knowledge in Spanish is a must if you hope to understand this kit.
3781275
great book but for a beginner the words won't make sense cause the sentence structure is backwards compared to english. I would just buy the regular book and use google translate for each word if i was to do it over.
4202851
I really enjoyed the demo that was provided on the Fluenz website for French. I was pretty much sold and decided to purchase this very expensive program in hopes that I would fully learn the language & be immersed in everything French. For the hefty price tag, I expected a bit more.

Let me start off by saying, I love the French language. I think it's a beautiful language and in my opinion - the only romance language. I don't count Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese. I also think French people are very classy & sophisticated etc. Not animalistic barbarians like people in the US.

I'm a college student taking intro to French and needed way more help learning the language, aside from the time spent in class. Since my professor doesn't offer tutoring sessions, I needed to find alternatives. It was either this or Rosetta Stone & RS doesn't offer a free demo on their site that satisfied my hunger for knowledge on a product before purchase. Plus, the price tag on RS French one thru three was way over my budget. Another thing I disliked about Rosetta Stone is the fact you can not use it on multiple PC and laptops. I have one of each in separate rooms, so I need the flexibility. Fluenz seemed like the way to go. I was very much lost in class and couldn't remember definite, indefinite, conjugation of verbs etc. There are so many rules to the French Language. So, I needed a learning tool that was actually going to work.

I couldn't wait to get into the first lesson because I loved lesson three (That was being offered as a free demo). To my surprise Sonia Gill (Interactive Tutor) did not start off the lesson one with the alphabet. I am passed the alphabet at this stage, but a refresher lesson wouldn't hurt and I could only wonder why the first lesson wasn't the alphabet. What would beginners do? Each video lesson can range from six minutes to ten minutes. I wouldn't mind if the lesson went on for an hour, as long as I'm learning. I have only gotten through lesson 6 and don't want to give a biased review for something I have not fully completed. So far, I am pleased. Hopefully, when I progress further, she will get more in-depth with the verbs, conjugations, inversion, pass compose etc, because that is crucial in French grammar. The Fluenz navigator seemed like a waste. And the iPod Audio seemed like a rip off to me. There was only two audio CDs as promised, but each track ranges from six to ten minutes, with each CD carrying eight to ten tracks. So, I'm not exactly thrilled about that. I felt really ripped off. I thought the audio CDs were the actual lessons transitioned over to a CD for the iPod.

It seems like Fluenz is trying their best to recreate the actual experience of being in a class room, but they haven't fully seen it through the eyes of the student yet. I do think recreating that experience is an excellent approach. Overall, I am pleased so far. But for the price I expected a bit more. I would sacrifice the pretty packaging, so the actual DVD-Rom program had more content. I would have loved my purchase even more if the price tag was split in half.
297510
The format of this audio learning cd is very good.  Good repetitive used of a verb in different tenses with different nouns.  Good repetition in a well thought out way.  That is to say a saying is repeated at different times so as not to be to monotonous.

A word / saying / sentence is said in English and the Portuguese speaker repeats it in Portuguese two times.

Unfortunately when the Portuguese speaker says the translation the first time, there is no pause when she repeats it again.  Furthermore after the Portuguese speaker finishes repeating the sentence for the second time, the English speaker starts with the next sentence to be translated almost immediately.  If you are trying to repeat what the Portuguese speaker has just said you are talked over by the English speaker.  Every time you try to repeat a saying in Portuguese weather it is after the first time the Portuguese speaker says something of the second time you do not have enough time to repeat the saying.

I can not understand how a seemingly intelligent person cannot understand that a learner is trying to repeat what was just spoken.  I have listened to In Flight Portuguese and Portuguese for Dummies and these are professionally done.  There is ample time to repeat a saying.  Because there in not time allotted to repeat a saying I would not recommend this to anyone
3360057
I bought  3+4+5 as I already had some basic knowledge after reading Myrna Bell's book (Easy French Step by Step) as a crash course. I had earlier tried Rosetta Stone and some other apps but was not impressed with the teaching method so I felt I needed to try out something else. A friend strongly recommended fluenz and convinced me to fork out the dough.

I can testify that the tutorials and the exercises in the fluenz course are a lot more effective in helping learners like me (I'm Nigerian, Late 30's) retain new words, verb conjugation and grammar rules. After going through level 3 in just 7 days of intense learning, I found myself comprehending written French and being able to express myself in simple sentences. I just read an entire library of the Asterix and Obelix comics in French. I'm currently on level 4 but I strongly recommend this to anyone looking for a fast and effective way to learn a new language.
4010489
I have been trying to learn Italian for many years now - self training, mostly from books. So my experience with Pimsleur I is not from the point of view of someone who's never been exposed to the Italian language before. Having said that, my level of comprehension before starting this product was not much above "beginner".

Having read various "Teach Yourself Italian" books prior, I can confidently say I have not felt as pleased with my learning progress as I have now I've been through this course.

The pace starts off slow but steadily progresses at a comfortable pace. Hearing and speaking Italian is 1000% better than reading it in your mind, and so the result is a smile on your face! No need to guess which syllable of a word is the one to stress when you are constantly hearing it (compared to reading).

Because I had a mild exposure to the Italian language through my books, it was natural for me to picture the word being spoken in my mind. I'm sure that's not what the intention of the course is, but that's what worked for me - even to the point of hearing a new word and having to look it up so I could know with confidence I was pronouncing it correctly.

The speed of which the native speakers talk is very fast and somewhat annoying at first. However, I'm currently up to Italian III and am now accustomed to this pace of speech (which is entirely the point).

Lastly, Italian has a formal style of speaking and an informal way. As well as this, pronouns are normally only used when requiring emphasis. Level I uses only the formal style of speaking throughout and expresses all sentences using pronouns. For a complete beginner, this is probably a good thing, but for someone starting at my level, or someone repeating the course, it was a little frustrating. This disappears in Italian II.
1975143
Personaly, I think this is one of the best books for learning Japanese out there. The different texts are translated both into English and Romanji (at the end of the book)and the grammar sections are understandable and well  done in general. I'd recommend this book to anybody who has used Volume I  of this series as it perfectly connects to anything you have learned  before. HOWEVER: The vocabulary lists within the book are terribly complex  and I always had the problem that new words were simply left out, making  this book perfect for language classes or courses, but a pain for anybody  who buys this book to "polish up" or learn Japanese on one's own  (Then again, who wants to do that :P)
4387567
Some of the letters are rather similar due to the font chosen, as opposed to when people actually write them or the use of a different font (ex. Vao and Daal).
Also the Listening exercices are read pretty quickly for a beginner at least. That means if you acteally want to repeat the sound while looking at the text (while practicing your reading) you have to stop and start the audio. Even just the repeating after hearing has to be done quickly.

Not huge problems though, it's mostly constructive comments to better the next edition hopefully. Other than that I've only begun but it's well organized and presented. I think they're very thorough.