I went to Italy last year and the first thing I noticed was how stunning the language is. I fell in love with Italian, and I decided that one day, I will speak this beautiful language. I tried to learn it on my own, using free online resources. After about three month of doing this, I constantly found myself lost and didn't learn much. Still I had promised myself that I would learn it and I was determined.
I decide to try an Italian learning software. As you may know there are a lot of them on the market today. I tried a few of the trial versions and I decided to go with Ouino Italian. I was so glad I did! After 6 months of using the program for about thirty minutes a day, I am finally making consistent progress in the language I fell in love with last year. Here is my review of Ouino Italian.
Why I love Ouino Italian
Lots of content, Effective teaching method and practice
The program is extremely effective and offers a very large number of lessons and resources. The full program contains over 300 lessons, but the thing that left me speechless was how effective the exercises were. Each lesson is followed by exercises of different levels that gradually get harder. By the time I finished the last level, I had seen the words many times and I never forgot them. I could go on and on about how much I love the exercises. If you are serious about learning Italian, you can try these before making a purchase to see if you like them as much as I do.
Non-linear approach
The program uses a non-linear approach, it does not start at lesson one and finish at lesson 316. You can choose which lesson you want to learn, which for me was very important. I had already learned a little bit of Italian and I did not need to learn everything that I had already learned again. If today I want to learn about farm animals, I can do that. However, if I'm not going to a farm anytime soon, I can skip the farm animals and learn something that is more relevant to me right now. I love this approach and it is the only program I have found that lets me do that. For everyone who prefers to be guided with a linear approach, they do include a recommended learning path that you can follow lesson by lesson if you wish to do so.
Customizable
The program can be customized with different options for your learning type and speed. Everyone learns differently, but most programs I have seen teach with one method that tries to fit everyone. Ouino is different, you can change the settings so that the lessons feel comfortable for you. Personally, I am a slow learner and I like taking my time with the lessons. So I set a lot of repetition and a lot of time between words so I have time to repeat. This is absolutely great for me. However, someone else might hate the amount of time I take with a lesson. Well if you're a fast learner you could do the lessons in a fraction of the time that I take. It's crazy to think everyone will learn at the same speed. Ouino solves that problem.
Motivating and progress tracking
The program is very motivating and I can't wait to use it every day. In the menu you can visually see your progress. You can rate your own level for each lessons and you also get a medal after you complete the exercises. These medals add up in the menu as you take more lessons and it becomes colorful with your different medals. This motivates me to keep going because I know that the more medals I have in my Ouino Italian menu, the closer I get to fluency in this beautiful language.
Works all areas of the language
The program is split up in 5 sections that look at every part of the languages. They include, Building Block (Grammar), Vocabulary, Verbs, Pronunciation, and Conversation practice. Not only that but each section practices your reading, listening, visual association, interaction, speaking and writing skills. It's a very complete program.
Supported on Computer, Tablets and Smart Phones
I can learn from pretty much anywhere with Ouino. I often have some free time when I am not at home and I can play around with Ouino in that spare time wherever I am. When I get home the progress I made on my phone will be updated on my computer.
What I disliked about it
They don't have any audio only lessons
Sometimes I would like to learn in the car, unfortunately I can't do that with Ouino. What I like to do is put some Italian radio or the audio from a movie that I know. I keep hearing the words that I learned in Ouino and it adds a little emphasis on them. However I wish the program offered some audio only lessons so that I could learn in my car or whenever I can't pay attention to my screen.
They don't offer any tutoring with real people
I occasionally wish I could practice with real people to see how well I do in a real conversation. Since the program doesn't offer this, I found some external websites that offer this like Italki and Wespeke. Speaking with real people is great because you can see how well the program is helping your progress.
Final Verdict
Ouino Italian is an excellent program I recommend to anyone who is serious about learning Italian. I learned a lot more than I even hoped I would from a computer program. It offers many features that are very powerful to boost your learning and I wish some had recommended it to me before I lost all those months trying to learn this language online. I am getting closer and closer to my goal to speak the beautiful language I fell in love with in Italy last year. They main reason for my success is Ouino Italian.
Source : articlesbase.com
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