Instant Immersion Japanese Introductory Review

Instant Immersion Japanese--Talk Now! by EuroTalk

My first Japanese learning software; Instant Immersion Japanese

Instant Immersion Japanese was my first Japanese language learning software, and it was a gift for my birthday not even a year ago (wow...when I think about it that way I have made a lot of progress). The version that I got was version 4.0 (? I think?) and it was basically just an introductory version with the first CD (of five, if I've read correctly about their program). The program was fun to use with an easily navigated interface, but it wasn't enough on it's own to reach fluency (hence I purchased Tell Me More Japanese, which I discussed here http://japanwithpatience.blogspot.com/2011/02/tell-me-more-japanese-review.html ). It was a fun little program, but I wasn't sure if the whole program, which I could have purchased instead of Tell Me More Japanese, was good enough on it's own to be worth purchasing in it's entirety.

What I liked about the Instant Immersion Japanese trial

Instant Immersion Japanese was just plain fun. It didn't feel like work, the little programs and quizzes I did on there, they felt like little mini-games that just happened to involve learning Japanese. Of course the level of learning that I actually did get from these "games" did feel more like "just happened to pick up Japanese" rather than actually learning it, but I had a good time. Also it's kind of cool the way they have it set up because you can learn a lot of very basic words very quickly (parts of the body, telling time, colors, food, numbers, etc.). And the program made me feel like I could master knowledge of these basic words fairly quickly.

What I questioned about the Instant Immersion Japanese trial

There was no explanation of basic sentence structure in Japanese or how to use in context all the cute little words and phrases they were teaching me. While I already had some idea of how to do that at the time, had I not known how to do that the best I could have done with the Japanese I learned from them would have been to go around inanely namely objects (which doesn't really give off the impression that one has command of or even a basic understanding of a language). And some of their lists and charts of words for basic things (like the one listing parts of the body) were just plain overwhelming. I felt like in those places they introduced too many new words all at once.

Conclusion; is Instant Immersion Japanese worth it?

Well, considering I think what was paid for the version I have was about $15 or $20, I probably have and will get my money's worth out of it, just from having fun with the games and quizzes. It's a very light-hearted program and could be a fun way to introduce yourself (or perhaps an elementary-aged child) to the Japanese language. Don't rely on it to give you a full command of the language though. I would say that Instant Immersion Japanese (at least the single-CD version) makes a good introduction or supplement to learning Japanese. So if you can find it cheap like mine was, why not go for it?