HS Comments on the Fly

Maybe this is old news, but here is Google in Latin for the classical among us.

K12 Inc. has “acquired” Power-Glide. Well, that’s interesting. (source)

Do you remember back when Power-Glide first hit the homeschool market. What was it? Around 1995? Maybe it was before that, but I remember it around ‘95. In fact, we bought the French version.

Do you know what I learned with that purchase? Not French, sadly enough.

I learned: Don’t buy anything just because a reviewer in a catalog LOVES the program before she’s even used it.

I bet you can see all the warning signs, huh?

Warning sign #1: Reviewer in a catalog. Who’s the reviewer working for? So the reviewer is actually a salesperson, huh?

Warning sign #2: The product is new. Results so far = none.

Warning sign #3: The reviewer hasn’t used it beyond a couple of lessons. Again, results = none.

Anyway, I tried and tired to get Power-Glide to work for me — yeah, just me — but I never could. I worked on it alone after the kids had gone to bed, but I finally had to give up. I don’t think it included enough practice … at least not enough for me. I’m glad I tried it on me before trying it on the kids.

CBD sells Power-Glide, but I don’t recommend it.

Okay, I’ll admit it … I wrote a scathing commentary on learning the Latin language.

Yeah, it’s not really all that scathing; it’s just seems that way because sometimes a few people get emotional about their choices and think that because Latin is good for them, then it must be good for everyone else and anyone who isn’t learning Latin is, therefore, offensive, incompetent, and ignorant. Those folks don’t like my little composition.

So in that little essay I mention that Latin is good for those entering the clergy or going into linguistics or something like that. And now, I’ve found another job that sometimes employs the use of the Latin language!

Here’s a quote from The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece:

Wait, I have to set up the story first. Two art history students in Rome are part of a team working on finding out which of two paintings is the original Caravaggio (a painter) painting of John. These two ladies are researching the old inventories of a certain family to see if they can find mention of an old painting because they are trying to find out when it was acquired by the family. They are reading inventories all the way back into the 1600s. Now I’ll try again with the quote:

It took them hours to check the pages of a single inventory. Some of the old volumes had held up well over the years, but in others the ink had turned feathery brown on the brittle pages. They bent over the documents, trying to decipher the handwriting of notaries and bookkeepers, which was, it seemed, invariably small and difficult ot puzzle out, with some entries in Latin and others in old Italian, full of abbreviations and curious spellings.

Cool, huh? So, there’s an additional practical use of the Latin language.

Okay, so maybe Rosetta Stone seems cheap to you at $200+. But there is another program out there in case you just think that Rosetta Stone is couldn’t possibly be worth what they’re charging.

We were using Triple Play Plus years ago when Rosetta Stone first came out … or when we first heard of it anyway. Around 2000 we got the free disk to try out Rosetta Stone — before we bought it. But it was so similar to Triple Play Plus, that I wasn’t ever sure that Triple Play Plus wouldn’t serve our needs just fine. The result was that we never bought Rosetta Stone.

Even now, I’m not convinced that Rosetta Stone is better. Oh, I know it could be and probably is. But Triple Play Plus gives us enough practice that I figure we’ll be fine without Rosetta Stone. We still haven’t gotten to the end of Triple Play Plus in French, Italian, or Spanish.

But if you’re wanting something to supplement Rosetta Stone, you know, something for review, Triple Play Plus (TPP) would be handy. Also, if you’re saving up for Rosetta Stone, you can get Triple Play Plus right now and use it until you can afford Rosetta Stone.

Triple Play Plus can be used by students aged 8 to adult. There aren’t as many languages choices as Rosetta Stone, so that can be a drawback. There’s Italian, French, Spanish, German, Hebrew, Japanese, and possibly others. That’s all I saw listed online. Info on Triple Play Plus is severely limited because the company got bought out and then soon afterward went out of business. So even the software is a little old and, depending on when it was published, wonky.

You can still buy it sometimes on www.ebay.com really, really cheap — for like about $5 - $8 plus shipping. I think I bought our copies of French and Spanish for $50 or so each at Costco. TPP auctions are infrequent, but you just have to go to eBay and use “My eBay” to have notices of when Triple Play Plus goes up for auction sent to your email. I think you do this through “All Favorites” and then “Searches” — at least that how I do it.

Oh, and don’t tell your friends. There aren’t that many copies of TPP out there. Not too many people read this blog, so there are no worries there.

We got the Spanish and the Italian programs to work with Vista by fiddling with the compatability features of Vista. We also have the programs currently running with a little tweaking on XP, but use at your own risk. No guarantees.

And yes, we really like it. No English is used; it’s pictures and a native speaker. 3 levels: Aural, Text, and Voice Recognition. And there are also different levels of progression in those sections, though I’ve not used the Voice Recognition too much.

Funny story: Back in the mid-late 90s, when I had little kids, I was friends with another mom who had lived in France. She had little ones also. So she came over to my house, and my husband and kids went over to hers. I don’t think that’s clear, so I’ll try again. Our husbands took care of the little people at her house, and we ladies got a night off … to goof around with the French Triple Play Plus. Oh, yes, what a wild life I lead.

Actually, though, we were trying to put TPP through its paces. She thought the speaker/announcer was quite good. So we blended ourselves some margaritas and sat down to play one of the games for two people. Fine. It was fun. We heard many, “Félicitations!” and other French words of delight when we clicked on the correct pictures, etc. We were so proud of ourselves.

Then we started the voice recognition stuff with our frozen tongues. We did fairly well, but there was one phrase that we must have tried 30 - 50 times. I am not kidding. We’d say it in French, but the program just kept responding with the French words for “Not quite right. Try again.” It felt like the announcer was only mocking us, though. Being mocked by the French … could that be a little irritating?

We kept repeating something like, “La souris est sous la chaise” over and over again. (The mouse is under the chair.) We knew we could get it correct. We were stubborn persistent, but we did finally give up with some words of disgust like, “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. And I hate it.” And as the microphone was tossed to the side, the program cheerfully said, “Formidable!” Roughly translated that means, “Finally you got it right, you idiot Americans.” Anyway, we laughed so hard we about fell over.