We conducted ad hoc surveys at PC shows and the results tend to be as reported -- women see computers as a tool, men are more interested in playing.

Multimedia is touted as the ideal teaching tool, by engaging a variety of senses it is supposed to improve attention and retention.

Upgrading your human is an occasional series where we look at products and services designed to upgrade the so-called warmware: the user.

EA, in his book Teaching Yourself a Foreign Language makes a number of recommendations for selecting learning resources and approaching a new language. He learnt three languages in four years, sitting for final year high school exams in the languages to test himself.

He aims his system at fast learners, but he gives excellent tips on how to learn a language at home. His recommendation, which predated CALL was to get some idea of pronunciation at the beginning, then to concentrate on written comprehension first, learning enough grammar to get the gist. Getting someone to help with oral comprehension and speaking the language came later. He recommended texts that had reading exercises of a couple of hundred words, and more than one textbook at a time. If the student begins to find the going difficult, he suggested that they change the book, alternating between text books and getting the advantage of different approaches and explanations. He didn't recommend the tape/CD systems often aimed at travellers.

Whether you are learning another language for school, travel or self-improvement, it is worth getting more than one title. You may choose from a wide range of online or CD-based software, and between retail, freeware or shareware. EA estimated that a fast learner using his techniques could become reasonable comfortable in a language (that is, able to read and write non-technical materials) in between nine and fifteen months with fifteen hours a week effort. Can CALL software make learning another language faster and easier?

CALL Software Contemporary speech recognition software like IBM's ViaVoice and Dragon's Naturally Speaking enable the PC to evaluate a user's pronunciation. Sound files, video files and text-to-speech enable the PC to demonstrate the correct pronunciation. Some CALL systems used runtime versions of existing speech recognition software, for example, Knowledge Adventure use ViaVoice in the Learn Your Way titles. Other developers built their own speech recognition modules.

TIPS: voice recognition will not understand if you speak too soon.