I recently purchased the "Magnum Language Systems: Irish Lab, Easy Immersion Language Program." I believe it is also known by the name of "TeachMe! Irish Gaelic."

As I am always wanting to try new language products on the market, I am not sure how I would rate this program, and I was wondering if anyone here has it, tried it, or knows a little about it that might be willing to give their review of it?

The install was very simple.

The program is broken down into 6 sections (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, dictionary, stories, and progress)

While the grammar section is really basic (not a bad thing)...I don't think the format is extremely helpful. For instance, it will tell you that "Tá sé fuar = He is cold." Then to give you practice it will say translate the following sentences into Irish. And eventually you will see "He is cold." But you really don't get a lot of spelling practice, because all you have to do is type the first letter of the word and it automatically pops up. If you keep typing the word you will get it wrong because the next word doesn't start with that letter...

As for the vocabulary section...it is pretty straight forward also. It will give a word in English and you have to type the first letter in Irish.

The biggest asset seems to be the pronunciation section. You have to have a microphone to use it. Basically, a word is read out loud and then you have to say it right after. You can hear the native speaker very nicely, which can cause a little trouble at first because the two men don't always follow the gerneral rules of pronunciation that most people may be familiar with.

They say random words (nouns both singular and plural, adjectives, and different verb tenses). But you have to be careful because you will hear him say things like "cuir baiste" as (cee-ur wahsh-tee) and you have to say it like he does to get it correct. Also, he likes to give the "mh and bh" at the end of a word a very distinct "f" sound. For instance, he says "monabhar" (muhn-uh-far) when my first guess would have been something like (muhn-uh-war).

What I really like about this section is that on the top of the screen you see their actual voice pattern on the left and then a bar representation on the right. When you speak into the mic you see your voice pattern and then a bar representation right below theirs so you can compare them. But the funny thing is that even though your voice pattern may look pretty close to theirs, you have to really go by the bar graph on the right. On the bottom of the screen there is a rating from unacceptable to good. If you want to score a good when you say the word, you have to get the bar graph to look like theirs.

The story section is nice, but I wasn't too impressed by it. Basically it is a fill in the blank format that again only requires you type the first letter...

I would love to hear from others who have tried this program and see their review for it?

I had a French program like that once -since it seemed to be a random event if you got the thing to recognise your voice, I recorded a word, and proceeded to play back the sample.

Sometimes it passed, and sometimes not...for the same sample

How is your program now?