Triple Play Plus! Hebrew
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On the left hand side of the main menu screen are several additional options which can be easily overlooked. The most important of these are "Letters & Sounds," which provides an introduction to the Hebrew aleph-bet (alphabet) and the vowel system, and "SoundStart," part of the acclaimed speech recognition component of the package. We recommend starting with "Letters & Sounds" for a review of the aleph-bet, but skipping "SoundStart," which we couldn't get to work correctly for any of four native speakers. The company told us about a "leaking sound card" problem and requested that we try TPP-Hebrew on another machine. It worked better on another machine and we believe Syracuse Language Systems' claim that the problem lies with our sound card; however, we have our doubts about a technology that is so sensitive, since the sound card functions adequately for every other application.

Syracuse Language Systems investigated this problem with speech recognition at our request. Their response was that because of user variability "in pacing and inflection, a 100% recognition match is never achieved." Also, "repeated difficulty with speech recognition might be a result of hardware problems such as noisy sound cards or sound cards not having sufficient gain. Therefore, it might be advisable to try the product on another computer for comparison." With Syracuse Language Systems offer of a "100% satisfaction guarantee," there's no risk in trying it out.

That aside, the one major drawback is that TPP-Hebrew doesn't relate to Israeli culture--or to Jewish culture, for that matter--except for the opening screen with its traditional Jewish melody. Part of the fun of language learning is learning about different cultural aspects of the country where the language is used, something that is quite lacking here.

The games:

For exercising vocabulary and familiarization with typical structures of the language, the design, illustrations, choice of lexical items and variety of games all contribute to a positive language learning experience. However, as nicely as the games are designed, there was clearly no special effort to try to adjust them to the particular characteristics of the Hebrew language or to Israeli culture. The Hebrew language is written from right to left, a point which is highlighted in a prominent box in the User's Manual. Whereas in some sections of the software, the games are conducted from right to left, as they would be in a typical Hebrew classroom, some glaring exceptions exist. For example, in the "When is it?" game, the calendar is arranged incorrectly from left to right and with the week starting on Monday (represented on the calendar by the Hebrew letter "Bet"), and with the weekend as Saturday and Sunday ("Shin" and "Aleph"). In Israel the workweek and calendar week start on Sunday ("Aleph") and the weekend is Friday and Saturday ("Shin" for "Shishi" and "Shin" for "Shabbat").

Other examples abound throughout the product and while they shouldn't cause a problem for Americans trying to learn Hebrew, Sabras (native Israelis) may be puzzled by the use of a piggy-bank in one section and a dollar sign in another to illustrate the word "bank." No background information is provided about the structure of Hebrew, and it would be useful for learners to have access to a brief explanation about the distinction between masculine and feminine in the Hebrew language. This could be included in a box in the User's Manual, like the right-to-left rule is. In order for learners to better cope with letters that have similar sounds, we would also recommend building into the "Letters-Sounds" practice section some sort of indication so that when one letter is clicked for a given sound, another letter that has the same sound (e.g., sin-samech, vet-vav, koof-kaf) flashes..

Israel is the only place where Hebrew is the official language and we were pleased to find at least minimal references to places and institutions that exist only in Israel, although these are found only in Level III games (the conversations). In the People section, one vocabulary item is "madim" (uniform). The picture, however, is of an English Beefeater or American marching band uniform. Substituting a picture of a typical Israel Defense Forces ("Tzahal") uniform would be much more appropriate. A variety of characters are visually represented in terms of ages, colors, gender, etc. We particularly liked the fact that men are shown feeding babies, washing dishes, preparing food, etc. (In one reviewer's experience, this is not standard in most Hebrew textbooks.)

Variety of games As mentioned above, the variety of games is good. The breakdown is:

• Level I (vocabulary): 11 games
• Level 2 (phrases): 5 games
• Level 3 (conversations): 6 "games" (cartoons)

Level 1 (Vocabulary). The games "Concentration," "Bingo," and "Memory Mania" are common to most of the skill and semantic area sections. These games utilize the advantages that a multimedia computer can provide. A button allows users to toggle between words with vowels and without for the reading skills. The speech recognition feature did work decently for us here, unlike in the "SoundStart" section mentioned above, and it can be quite powerful for a learner to say a word and have the computer "understand" him or her. Each of the semantic sections provides approximately 25 discrete vocabulary items; the games exercise the learner's reading or listening comprehension, or ability to pronounce the words. Other games are specific to a semantic area. For example, "Activities" tries to present a number of common verbs in the present and in the past, and has four games which seem expressly designed for these lexical and grammatical items. The "People" semantic area has a body puzzle, a "sketch artist" game for facial features, and a very nice family tree game. Although we were satisfied in general with the lexical items chosen for this level, a few puzzling exceptions include rare words such as "sahnter meshusa" (a cleft chin). Also puzzling was the lack, at this level, of adjectives. In this level, adjectives are presented in the "Sketch Artist" game as far as we could tell. Nouns are the main focus of this section, and adjectives (and prepositions) are included in more profusion in the phrases in Level 2 games. However, we feel that basic adjectives such as colors deserves more attention at this level.

Level 2 (Phrases). We liked these games very much, but in general found a huge leap between the expectations and difficulty of Level 1 games, with their discrete vocabulary items, and the grammatical structures and lexical items used in Level 2 games. Some examples include: "halon" (a window) described as "ze shakuf ve-zeh m'al ha-kior" (It is transparent and above the sink); books described as "hem malbenim" (they are rectangular...); and a kitchen chair described as "zeh asoi me-etz" (it is made of wood). These games do not provide any opportunity for practicing the phrases before playing the games, but the visual glossary is a nice touch. An "eye" icon in this section allows the user to get a "clue" window. The basic idea is that an environment (a room, for example, or a group of people) is presented and then the learner has to click on the object or person being described. The games are "Who is it?", "What is it?" etc. In this level, there are no reading games at all, and only two speaking games. The only truly problematic game is "When is it?" In addition to the problems described above, the program does not exercise comprehension of days or dates but rather activities in the past and future tenses.

Level 3 (Conversations). These dialogues, occurring in eight or nine cartoon panels (moving from right to left, by the way) provide models of typical conversations. Topics include visiting the market, moving into a new apartment, going to a restaurant, using the train, making plans, packing for a vacation. Many learning options are available to the user, depending on the skill section selected. Again, studying the User's Manual is recommended in order to avoid frustration with the many buttons. One "turtle" icon slows down the entire conversation, while another slows down just a particular balloon. One can listen, record and compare to the original. One can read and hear the dialogue at the same time. A transcript is provided in the User's Manual, and thoughtfully includes the dialogue written in Hebrew, a transliteration, and a translation.

Problematic issues

• Navigation within a game: While we liked the overall graphic and instructional design, we were frustrated by a curious feature which to us seems elemental. Some games in both Levels 1 and 2 provided, say, six items, or one large picture. It wasn't at all apparent that there were additional practice screens. A "back" and "forward" button would give an indication of this. These buttons could also serve to allow learners to go back to an item in order to hear or otherwise practice it again.

• Language errors: Is it inevitable that in any language learning software program there are problems? In our experience this is true, and while the overall quality of this software was high, there were several language errors. The language errors were few and far between and should not affect the learning process in a great manner. Syracuse Language Systems were receptive and interested in finding out what these were when we contacted them about this. Some examples of these errors include: the sound of the tzadik with the vowel sound "ee" sounded like "cee" not "tzee"; "eleh" (these) instead of "elef" (1,000) is said in the SoundStart section; "rahit" (furniture-singular) should be "rahitim" (furniture-plural); and in one of the glossary items in a Level 2 game, the voice accompanying the picture says "sayar halak / lo sayar halak" (straight hair, not straight hair), where the word order of the second phrase should be "sayar lo halak".

Other features:

Feedback In general, the feedback is natural and effective. There are a variety of answers as well as a variety of voices saying phrases such as "ze lo nachon" (it's not correct), "b'seder" (OK), etc. The vocabulary item is often repeated after this phrase is said--"Haval, ze tapuz" (Too bad, this is an orange) or "Metzuyan, eleh beitzim" (Excellent, these are eggs). However, we were puzzled by a certain lack of consistency since this occurred most but not all of the time. Opportunities for reinforcement are lost by not saying the words or phrases consistently in all the games after the correct or incorrect answer is chosen.

Help Figuring out what to do with these games is not always so easy. First of all, not all the screens are intuitive. Secondly, on-line help is minimal -- from the main screen, it just repeats that you need to pick something from each of the 3 things. Within the games, there is an admirable attempt to give pictorial help, it is not always useful and it is always minimal. Luckily, the User's Manual is detailed and easy to follow. We recommend reading the User's Manual before starting to use the CD. Also, Syracuse Language Systems plans to include the manual on-line in future editions.

Speech recognition Based on our experience, we would recommend skipping the "Sound Start" section. However, within the main sections of TPP-Hebrew, the speech recognition activities are very well done and most effective at the word-only level (not for phrases or continuous speech). There is also a speak-and-compare component which is nice, especially for the phrase and conversation level.

Internet connection "Language Connect" is one of the options on the left side of the main menu. Clicking on this option prompts the user to set it up to work with their browser (and existing ISP) or sign up with Earthlink as an Internet Service Provider. This was disappointing, and seems like a gratuitous promotion for Syracuse Language Systems (SLS); after setting it to work with our browser we were simply taken to the SLS home page, not directly to the Hebrew part of the site. The Hebrew links up as of the date of this review, mid-January, were sparse. Users can do better by going to the Israeli Foreign Ministry's "Hotlist of Israeli Internet Sites", or Yahoo-Countries-Israel.

For the teacher:

Conclusions & recommendations: