the narrator is so annoying that he makes learning this beautiful language a chore.

The easy going interactive style of these tapes combined with the pleasant voices of the native Italian speaker and Mark the instructor make this course a joy to use.
Very effective at teaching the 'practical basics' of Italian quickly and without undue strain or anxiety.
I was able to communicate quite well on my last trip to Italy after using this course for only two weeks.

It felt like I was back learning my first language. It all seemed so natural, it sounded wonderful to hear my voice actually prononce italian, it seemed so easy.
Anna and Mark make a great team. I loved the easy interactive style they bring to this course.
No book is required. This team explains it all in English and Italian.
I learned to speak a lot of Italian fast and I am understood by natives.

I bought the cassettes which were fair, but there are frequent recorded references to a textbook such as "You are now on page six". The book was not included in the package. I e-mailed Language Dynamics about the book clearly stating that I was willing to pay extra for the textbook if neccesary. They never replied. Some people may say that you don't need the book. I would like to look at the words so I would recognize them in print. Besides, saying "you are on page six" without giving any information on how to get the book is bad service.

5001 French Sentences was a gift for my niece who was travelling to France to study for a semester. According to her, she learned to speak more French in one week from this course than from two semesters of college French. What is even more impressive is that the French on these tapes is 'real' not just academic.
I have seen the learning guide which accompanies the tapes. It has a complete tapescript and lots of useful exercises with answer keys.
My niece said it really helped her learn the language.

Upon the recommedation of a friend I purchased Language Dynamic's
5001 French Sentences. I am extremely pleased with how quickly and easily I have learned to speak French from it.
The course is so intelligently organized that even a small amount of vocabulary and grammar can be imediately applied in speaking and writing French sentences.

I am a beginning French student. This product comes with audio tapes and a short pamphlet. The audio tape is of a non-native male speaker (I'll refer to him as the "teacher") and a native French female. The teacher begins the course by discussing pronunciation and having the native French lady pronounce the alphabet and different sounds. This lasts about five minutes. After that, the teacher then begins to introduce narratives and vocabulary, again using the French lady to pronounce words.

There is nothing particularly novel about the way vocabulary or conversations are introduced. You start with self-introduction, move to days of the week, months, time, etc. You can get this with almost any course--Berlitz's French on the go is one, and it is a lot cheaper. The reason NOT to buy these tapes are:
1) The non-native speaker includes HIMSELF in the conversations with the native speaker. (Couldn't they have hired another French person to do this?)
2) Vocabulary is repeated twice, as with most other audio courses. However, amazingly, the English translation is also read twice, and even more uselessly, sometimes the second part of the English is read slowly to match its slowly read French counterpart! A quote from the teacher's narration: "OK, so how would you say 'the days of the week'(pause)How(pause)would(pause)you(pause)say(pause)'the(pause)days(pause)of(pause)the week? (French)" This is a waste of time! If you want to learn French you must hear French!! not English!
3) The teacher is clearly recording the entire tape in one recording and for some reason did not go back and fix errors. So sometimes there are pauses while he finds his spot in the script, or says, "Ok, uh, lets move on."

Why spend your money ... on a product that is poorly edited and does not give you the most French for your time? If you want to spend your money to learn French, I suggest the Pimsleur programs, which are very well thought out, planned, and edited, although much more expensive ... If you want more bang-for-your-buck, try Berlitz or Barron's programs, both of which offer only native speakers, are edited well, and progress along similar lines as "All the French you Need." The Barrons is of similar price, the Berlitz much cheaper.

I don't understand why so many "diplomats" recommend this product. I am a beginning French student that has reached near native fluency in Japanese and professional fluency in Chinese. I know how to learn languages. I wasted my money on this product and strongly recommend you not do the same.

The great thing about this course is if you listen to the tapes every day you learn 20 more french sentences than the day before. It takes a simple step-by-step process and even though you haven't learned every dynamic of the language you can easily take what you've learned, learn new French words (I recommend the Oxford French Dictionary) and put them together. It starts at basic and ends with advanced intermediate and if you need a great start at learning French, this course is well beyond 5 years of high school French combined. Even if you only want to learn enough to travel, you learn every phrase necessary for a visit to France or Quebec. Bienvenue!

Get this. I know this may seem too good to be true, but I, the high school French dummy who couldn't even open her mouth in French class much less say something understandable or coherent, actually began speaking French within approximately ten minutes of receiving All the French You'll Need.
I owe nothing to my own brillance (obviously) and everything to this wonderful easy to learn from course.
Even I learned to speak French from this course.

I have a guinea pig, and I love her and take care of her. But I recently checked out this book, and I thought some parts could be a little more realistic. The sections on food and guinea pig history and breeds were terrific. But I think it expects you to go a little overboard on your guinea pig. For example, when it gives you the list of cleaning supplies you need to clean your guinea pig's cage, it says, "Do not take any items that you use to clean your house," when it has things like sponges and dustpans and towels on the list. Do they mean that you're supposed to buy a new towel and dustpan just for your guinea pig? Also, the checklist at the very end was EXTREMELY unrealistic. Not very many people check their guinea pig's teeth every day. This book is OK, but I just think that some sections are unrealistic and set too high expectations for little kids.

What I love about this book are the pictures. They are very clear and colourful. This is a very good guide book for any kid because if the kid does not know what a word refers to, there is actually a picture that shows what the author is trying to convey. This book also includes step-by-step instructions (with pictures) for cleaning the cage, grooming of the cavy...

An easy-to-understand book...

After checking this book out at the library, I ordered a copy for my 9-year old granddaughter to keep for her own. It answers every question we had about breeds, equipment, care and feeding of guinea pigs. It is offered in a clear, concise format with lots of pictures, making it attractive to the young reader.

For the money I spent, I felt this set of tapes was not worth it. The product description advertises 6 hours of tape, however, each of the six tapes played for less than one hour. In addition, the tapes are repeated - For example, side 1 on tape 1 plays again as a side on tape 3 or 4. Why? If I didn't get it the first time around, why wouldn't I just go back and listen to tape 1 again? In all, there might actually be 3 hours of lessons. Also, the lessons cover only an extreme minimum of vocabulary and key phrases. This product was definately not worth it.

Having spent well over $300.00 on other German courses, including but not limited to Living Language, Barrons and Berlitz, I felt the few bucks I spent on Speaking High Frequency German to be a bargain. Right away I began learning to speak simple yet effective sentences in German.
The course allows adequate repetition which is a necessity for any language course. The part I like most about the course is the simplicity of it. German is a very tough language to learn and if you don't have the right method and lots of explanation then you're easily lost or discouraged like I was with my other courses. What I learned from this course I was able to use immediately and I was understood. Thrilling experience for the money.

Great course. Try it. I got wonderful results with no hassle.

I found this book while on vacation in a beach house and I was looking forward to a good book to escape with. Too bad this wasn't the book. The plot was weak -- too cliched and too convenient. ...And Styles?? Jiri must not be that good of a terrorist if his two attempts on Styles still haven't finished the job. Maybe I missed something since most reviewers enjoyed the book. But as a German and History teacher, this novel really left something to be desired.

I was expecting big things from this thriller, set amidst the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent uprisings in Eastern Europe--and found it all rather disappointing in the end. One problem is that there were way too many characters bouncing around all over the place, and while some felt real, far too many others were simply too cardboard for me (especially the main villain Styles, and the spunky young reporter Jodie). Marks does manage to introduce the reader to the major events of those months, and captures the aura fairly well--but at the expense of any kind of plausibility in many of the characters' actions, and certainly at the expense of the weak plot. Although strong on atmosphere, overall comparisons to Greene and LeCarré are way off-track.

Rewarding reading for those interested in Eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany. Terrific characters and authentic atmosphere. A great start by a talented writer.

I just spent my last 2 weekends taking Level I and II of the Touch for Health series of classes. We spent a lot of our time correcting things in the book that have changed since it was last revised. If you do not have the opportunity to take the class and find out about all the changes, I would recommend Eden's book Energy Medecine as an alternative. In fact, I would recommend it as a complement even if you do the TFH class.

I am currently enrolled in massage school, and because I love books so much I am thrilled when a new required book is added to the list. As we are learning accupressure in our school, this book is a major reference point, as it is for most schools, I believe. Yet the instructions and explanations are precise enough that anyone could use this book if they are interested in this work. With a back ground in energy work or cranialsacral this will expand your knowledge immensely.

My one and only hang up; I don't really care for the pictures. While they are fine pictures of procedure, they seem to be taken from an original idea that happened in the 70's or something, and I feel it detracts from the modern, educational feel of the book, but in no way does it compromise the information- which is vast!

Also included are great protocol tips, an extensive bibliography and suggested reading list and good anatomy diagrams. Information is presented in a nice sized text, in easy column format with room for highlighting and notes, if needed. As far as information and diagrams go, this book has everything you need for accupressure!

We learnt the Touch For Health system several years ago and have been impressed with its effectiveness. We also teach Reiki, chi kung and other forms of energy work. Understanding the way energy flows through the body and where the blockages are is key to Touch for Health. We have yet to find anyone it did not help. As for the placebo effect, well, ask my dog....

I think that book is fairly too expensive when I compare it to its contance. So many schemes for buying food, soap, matches or cards. Oh common! If it wasn't an Amercian author, I would not believe it. Hello? Aren't we just a bit too pessimistic. 'We had fun in doing our survival weekends...' Hahaha....

I was just browsing through the libary and saw this book. At first I wasn't going to touch it, but I was reminded of the phrase "Don't judge a book by it's cover" (which in this case is soooooooo true!) and pick it up. From the second I started reading it, I was in awe!! This book is absolutly perfect for anyone who, like the book says, thinks there is even a 5% chance of something happening! It does not discuss what the Millenium Bug is, and I'm fine with that, I've heard enough of that! However, it does go over what you should do and have if anything should happen.(Be it the Millenium Bug or any disaster!) It's full of charts and lists other sources as well as internet sites.ABSOLUTLY A MUST FOR ANYONE WORRIED ABOUT ANY DISASTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU WILL LOVE THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally!!! A no-nonsense, practical preparation book. "Whatcha Gonna Do.." is a must for any household that wants to be prepared for natural disasters, long periods of un-employment, or disruptive and extreme weather conditions. Even if I were not concerned about the Y2K issue, I would recommend this book/manual to anyone. I could not put it down!

Living on the Gulf Coast, I spend much time, money and effort preparing my annual "hurricane pantry". Nevertheless, I have never had a plan as comprehensive as the one set forth in this book. Thanks to this publication I now have a workable plan of action that will carry my family through the next hurricane season as well as the Y2k crisis.

This book is craip! a waste of money.

Don't get this as a beginner's book - you'll be lost in the first example! Instead, think of this as fodder for your next work of art AFTER you have a handle on the basics. I got several great tips that created ideas that I was able to implement on my own. Great complement to the Trish & Chris Meyers AE books.

I have been using After Effects since before Adobe bought it. I thought I knew alot, until I read this book. New ideas and concepts on animation itself and even the new stuff with expressions and 3D. Great book if you are new or old to the program. Some parts are hard to read and I saw a few typing errors in the expressions chapters, but all in all, well worth the money. I highly recommend this book.

Based on the earlier reviews, I though this is a good book to read. But I was wrong. I think all earlier reviewers (other than one review that rated it one star) probably do not know how to use help in Visual Basic. If you want to use PCs for monitoring project, just read VB help for comm port control. This book is full of examples and not much explaination about understanding of serial communication. I totally agree with review of December 9, 1999 that any one who has any knowledge of VB should not buy this. Reading this book was a total waste of time and money.

I am surprised at some of the negative reviews of this book. This book contains some very useful material especially the TCP/IP and Parser Class topics. The only reason that I didn't give it five stars is because of the space wasted on a review of the Visual Basic Language. I used some of the ideas in this book in a VB Human Machine Interface (HMI) application that I developed. The source code is available at ....

If you want to study Visual Basic with this book, it may not be a right choice. However, if you want to do automation with VB, this is a right book. Several topics in this book are very useful to me. 1)Communication methods with VB. One of the foundamental thing in automatic control of devices/instrument is to establish the communication between computer and devices/instrument. Several useful methods are covered. They are Dynamic Data Exchange(DDE), RS232(computer serial communication), and TCP/IP. This book will not enable you to understand in deep details what's really going on in RS232 or TCP/IP communications, but this book will definitely enable you to implement these methods. Actually, in most cases if not all, we do not need to know what's really going on in RS232 or TCP/IP communications at all. 2)Device control and data handling. This part covers how to handle the data transferred in communication--parsing, and control multiple devices/instrument. 3)Graphic interfaces, which will enable developers to build a friendly interface between the control system and end users. Please do not overlook this, it is most probably that the users' commends on your system depend a lot on this interface, because this is what they can see and handle with.

This book is one of the valuable books on my shelf, and I would like to recomment to other people. Anyway, all depends on what you need and what you expect. This is just my 2 cents.

Good luck in finding a book valuable for your use.