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Power Chinese (DVD Case) | 
 enlarge | From: Transparent Language
Category: Software
List Price: $49.99
Buy New: $47.77
You Save: $2.22 (4%)
New (2) Used (2) from $37.77
Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 2714
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows Xp
Media: CD-ROM
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
UPC: 744573239053
EAN: 0744573239053
ASIN: B0001Z95HI
Release Date: March 29, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | Fully animated stroke-by-stroke writing of the 600 most-common simplified Chinese characters. | | • | More than 800 phrases and 1,200 sentences chosen for their high frequency in everyday speech. See these words and phrases over and over in sentences, in dialogs, and in video clips. | | • | Over 2,500 audio clips of words, phrases, and sentences all spoken by native speakers. | | • | Extensive interactive drills to help you retain what you have learned. | | • | Humorous dialogs to further promote retention of key phrases and concepts. Video clips of impromptu interviews with real people speaking Chinese in real-life situations. |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Power Chinese was designed to meet the specific learning needs of native English speakers. You can spend as little as 30 minutes a day and in just eight weeks you will have covered the equivalent of one year of college-level Chinese.Using an innovative learning strategy which breaks down and then reconstructs the Chinese language, Power Chinese will have you reading, writing, and using essential Chinese in no time.Power Chinese begins by tackling the most difficult aspects of Chinese for the typical English learner, including pronunciation, tones, and key aspects of syntax and grammar. But don't worry!Challenging Concepts Made EasyThese and all other concepts introduced in Power Chinese are presented as comparisons to how things are done in English--allowing you to focus on those areas that are most different from English and making learning Chinese easier and more enjoyable.Power Chinese is based on the same award-winning method that earned Power Japanese dozens of stellar reviews and awards. The Power Method--uniquely suited to meet the needs of busy learners--includes: * Memory techniques that make information more digestible and more retainable to adult learners * A less intimidating approach that leaves out information that is not absolutely relevant to understanding the language * Extensive use of graphics to heighten right-brain participatory learning
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 So so product that veers wildly from simple to incomprehensible. Avoid it. December 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I got this product based mainly on the positive reviews that I see for it here. I guess that I am just the dissenting voice...I think that overall, I would not buy this product again. I definitely would not recommend it to others. Why?
1. Compatibility:
Others have mentioned that it has a hard time with modern machines. Others have indignantly replied that the manufacturer specifies which screen resolution must be used. You are both correct--to use the program properly, you will likely have to change your screen resolution. There are some ways around this--I got mine to work in a high res mode, but it took some jiggering to do it. And lets face it--for about 50 bucks, I expect my programs to figure out what my machine's default resolution is, and to adjust themselves to it. This was not the case when the program was written, true, but it is definitely time to upgrade/support this software a little if it is to remain a viable, marketable product. This issue alone shouPoold not dissuade you from getting this software, but definitely added to my dissatisfaction.
2. Poor production values:
This is once more related to the fact that this program is (by software standards) quite old. It was made in 2004, and the resolution of the drawings, the style of animations, the overall look and feel of the product is dated. It looks almost as if it were designed for a DOS type environment, although I am sure that it was not.
3. Lessons that are too simple:
There is a lot of reading in the program. That is not a bad thing...but instead of including the text in a simple manner, you have to hit all these little jiggly "more" or "note" or "explain" buttons to get all the text. This wouldn't be so bad, but the text boxes that pop up all require using their clunky scroll bars. All of this is inconvenient. But the kicker is that you frequently spend a lot of time doing this to get one salient fact out of the program--very very simple concepts that didn't need a ton of bizarre explication to try to get you to remember it.
4. Lessons that are way too hard:
There are a number of drills here that are just right--the tone drill is very useful to beginners, and the drill for the verb "to be" is pretty good. However, on a number of occasions, you are suddenly asked to translate complete english sentences into Chinese. That is a great task, one that I would love to complete--but they didn't get you to the point that you would be able to complete this task before you were expected to do it. A **lot** of chinese characters are thrown around within dialogues--but are not taught to you in any gradual fashion. I suppose that you could learn them all by right clicking them (to get their translation), making your own flash cards, learning them, and then return to the program to participatein the translation exercises. However, once more, for 50 bucks, I expect the program to lead me by the hand down the garden path--using matching games or something similar to help us to remember the characters and their corresponding meanings. They spend screens and screens explaining to you hte history of about 10 characters (which I actually then learned!) but then expect you to somehow pick up the other approximately 590 words they use in the program. This is an odd and inconvenient distribution of difficulty.
5. No way to practice writing the characters themselves within the program: the program does not allow you to learn stroke order, and does not allow you to practice your chinese characters yourself within the program. Boo.
6. Pinyin support somewhat spotty:
Pinyin is often, but somewhat randomly available. You don't get a chance to write/type in pinyin either.
There are some things I liked:
1. Translation of every word: you can right click on almost any chinese character in the program, and a pronunciation and an english translation are usually available to you. This is a very nice feature.
Ok, I guess there was just one thing I liked.
I did go through this entire program, and I feel that I walked away with some very good information. It was somewhat ocmplementary to Pimsleur in that some of the vocabulary overlaps, but that will be the case with just about every beginning Chinese program.
I have also tried Rosetta stone (3.5 stars from me), and fluenz (3.5-4 stars from me), and this one is definitely not as good as either of those programs. Of course, you spend more on those programs---but in this case, the 50 dollars or so you spend on this program should have been about $10-15 to make it worthwhile. If you can pick up a copy of htis used for the 10 dollar price range...well, it is probably worth your while. Otherwise, save your money for a better program. Or better yet, try Chinesepod, which is pretty much what this program should have been, but was unable to accomplish.
Good Course But You Need to Know This ..... March 20, 2008
Power Chinese is good, but you need to know that with it you will not be able to create your own original sentence in Mandarin. For this reason I suggest you take Amazon's recommendation of 'Better Together' and order this along with Behind the Wheel Chinese (Mandarin), Level 1: Learn to Speak Mandarin Chinese Quickly and Easily! (8 One Hour CDs). If you can only order one at a time then begin with Behind the Wheel Chinese (Mandarin), Level 1: Learn to Speak Mandarin Chinese Quickly and Easily! (8 One Hour CDs) and then move on to Power Chinese.
 A DVD introduction to basic manderin chinese. November 3, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Power Chinese is relatively inexpensive introduction to the chinese language.If you devote enough time to study you will learn the same language skills that more expensive DVDs may teach you.
An Enjoyable Companion to Pimsleur June 14, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
First off, with respect to the compatibility issues, a quick stop at www.transparent.com shows that the program must run at 1024x768 or at 800x600. This is unfortunate, and it is annoying to have to change my monitor's resolution, but it seems a small price for an interesting and useful program.
Pimsleur is a great tool for learning the spoken language and the pronunciation. Where it falls down is the lack of additional resources if you're not sure what you're hearing. This program provides those resources in spades. You get to see the actual Chinese characters, as well as their pinyin equivalents. This makes it much easier to validate your ears. The ability to see the stroke order for characters adds to the value of the program.
The examples and exercises are excellent. The discussion of the progression of the Chinese characters for king, jade, and country (whether true or not) truly helps to "cement" those characters in your mind. The exercise where you see the character, play its sound, then position it under the correct table heading--depending on which of the four tones you hear--is extremely valuable. The same can be said for the exercises in which you must select which consonant you are hearing. This ear training, combined with the visual link to the characters and the pinyin, adds a great deal of clarity to the learning process.
Since I'm already using the Pimsleur CD's, I cannot say whether or not Power Chinese is adequate to stand on its own as a Chinese language learning tool. I can definitely say that it augments Pimsleur quite nicely.
 Great software to help learn Mandarin for Westerners March 4, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
If you're will to put in the time and effort to learn a completely new and unique language, then this software can help a lot. After only getting through the first 6 screens of lessons, I learned simple words which I actually used when visiting Shanghai, and I impressed those I spoke them to - and I only knew a few words.
The structure of this program seems to be well thought out and it teachs words and phrases, as well as providing nice facts about the language and culture of China. This software does a great job for the price.
If you can borrow this from a library which might hold this type of software, try it out before buying, but I'd recommend it as long as you seriously want to put the time and effort to learn. As other reviews noted, no one method works the best for all people though.
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