I-Technology November 16 1999 issue
Laura Grant

African Voices has followed up its impressive Speak Xhosa With Us CD-ROM with an equally awe-inspiring Zulu multimedia course. And, what's more, it's both PC and Mac compatible, so people with iMacs aren't left out in the cold.

Speak Zulu With Us offers a beginner's course in South Africa's most widely spoken African language. It's divided into five lessons that start with basic greetings and cover a range of other handy scenarios, including an amorous advance at a party that will set you on your way to a basic understanding of Zulu.

With a catchy soundtrack of indigenous tunes, each lesson is divided into five sections. The "conversation" sections contain video clips of real Zulu-speakers in action. A handy feature lets you record yourself emulating these Zulu speakers, so you can hear just how bad your pronunciation really is. The "culture" sections provide useful cultural insights, such as it's rude not to greet people in traditional society, even if they are complete strangers.

The "grammar" sections get down to the nitty-gritty, but even the difficult bits are presented in an unfrightening way. A very useful feature is the way Zulu words can be heard when you click on them. The "exercises" sections are great fun: a lot of imagination has gone into designing them and making them interactive, with liberal use of graphics and audio. For example, you can drag-and-drop words to complete sentences. There is also instant feedback: no paging to the back of a book to see if you've got the right answers. If you're correct, positive reinforcement appears in the form of a green box at the bottom of the page containing congratulations. There are also "vocabularies" in each lesson, which are searchable words lists where you can look up the English equivalent of a Zulu word or vice-versa.

If you haven't got the time to attend conventional language classes or if, like me, you have already attended one, but have completely forgotten everything you learned, there are definite advantages to doing a CD-ROM course. You can learn at your own pace, without embarrassing yourself in front of others.

At R349, the CD-ROM course is also cheaper than conventional language classes.

Speak Zulu With Us is beautifully designed and is crammed full of video clips, graphics, audio feedback and various other interactive devices that make it a pleasure to use.

The package also includes an illustrated course-book.