Learn in Your Car and Vocabulearn Series These series were put out by the apparently now defunct company Penton Overseas. As you can see from this article, apparently the company also put out a series (its last) called "Your Baby Can Read," the advertising for which the Federal Trade Commission labeled a scam and as part of a settlement imposed a judgment of $185 million, which was equal to their 2008 sales. I assume they went belly up after that judgment, but am not sure. They do have a publisher page on Amazon, but it seems from years ago, and with no new physical products being sold. After that, until recently, the products seemed to disappear from sale except used copies. I say until recently, because while as far as physical copies only used (or at least new remainders from years ago) versions are available, MP3 downloads have recently surfaced on Amazon (might previously have been available on itunes). I am not sure who ended up with the rights to the two series, though for LIYC they say "by Harry Raymond", so perhaps the rights either reverted to him or he bought them back. Used copies of old cassette versions tend to be reasonable, but CD versions, especially for the full 3 part series for LIYC and the combo packages where both LIYC and Vocabulearn were combined, tend to go for insane amounts used. Learn in Your Car Available in 3 levels each for French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Spanish, and Russian. The format is a stereo one where the English is heard in the left ear and the L2 in the right. First the English word, phrase or sentence is given, then the L2 one is given twice, with pauses for repetition. Personally I greatly like the fact the L2 is repeated twice. You can look on Amazon and see the titles of each of the parts for each level, and they cover the usual tourist and every day type of situations, but also parts of speech and general phrases. The series is a reasonable alternative to Pimsleur although it does not use the reverse build up of sentences nor recycle the vocabulary as much. However although I am not sure how much vocabulary is actually covered, it has to be more (maybe much more) than covered by Pimsleur, simply because LIYC does not repeat the vocabulary as much. The Amazon price for each level as a MP3 download (the only purchase option) is US$8.99, which in my opinion is a bargain. Also, if you have an Amazon Prime membership (US only), at least part of each language course, and maybe the whole course, is available for free streaming (but not download and I am not sure if you can stream to a desktop or only a mobile device). Though an older course which is bound to contain some dated material, LIYC still is very worthwhile. I personally bought the full German and Spanish series years ago and the first part of the Russian. The Russian did not seem as "meaty" as the other languages. Also available, but which I have not seen or used, is a LIYC [language] Verbs 101 series. Not sure whether it represents new material or is repackaged from the main series. Again, available on Amazon as an MP3 download for about US$40. Vocabulearn Vocabulearn was put out for the "main" languages in 3 levels each, some languages (like Swedish) in 2 levels, and others in only 1. I own the German, Spanish and Mandarin ones in all levels from years ago. Again the format is stereo, with alternating male/female voices, but each word is said only once in the L2. Also the order of the languages switches from track to track, which I find annoying. In later versions in the series they added background music which is highly annoying, and for the ones I have with it, I wish I had found the earlier ones (I purchased only one series from Penton directly years ago and got the rest of them in second hand book stores). As with LIYC, you can find the older cassette versions reasonably priced, while the CD versions go for much more used. But they are also available on Amazon for MP3 downloads, though at a less friendly price of US$29.99 per level. Each language with 3 levels is supposed to contain around 4500 words if I remember rightly. However the English definitions are one or two words only, and not always the most commonly used English translation (if you know enough to be aware of same). Each level is broken down into tracks by parts of speech or expressions. I have listened to the Spanish one through all 3 levels a couple years ago, and about half the German one recently. Also years ago I listened to part of the Mandarin, and thought it contained some mistakes. I can't say how effective the course is de novo, since I already knew a lot of each language before using Vocabulearn. However it must be good for cementing already known or partially known vocabulary. I really wish each L2 word/expression was said twice though. 4500 is a lot of words, as much or more than covered by an Assimil base course plus advanced course. Of course Vocabulearn contains no explicit grammar, and not much implicit either, except for some phrases of a grammatical nature. I think Vocabulearn a worthwhile course to use in drive or other times, though I'm not sure I would pay $30 per level. For those I don't already own, I would be tempted to just buy the used cassette versions and transfer same to digital, no matter the degradation of quality. And as with all such things, I would imagine one could "find" this course somewhere "out there." Amazon Digital Music Link Just put in either "learn in your car" or "vocabulearn" plus the language(s) of interest to see what they have, and see a table of contents for each level.
Surely the stereo thing would be a bit rubbish in a car, where one speaker is right next to you, and the other is quite far away? Not to mention the difference between cars in left-hand-drive and right-hand-drive countries...?
One is often able to control speaker volume separately, but yes a potential problem. Perhaps it is overcome by simply switching to a mono output if available. Personally I used earphones off my phone for language stuff while in the car (and while also trying to be aware of my potentially dangerous surroundings). Edit to add: re the left/right hand side of the road and which vehicles have which speaker on which side, it seems to me the underlying theory of using stereo is specious enough without worrying about precisely which language is heard in which ear.
That can turn into an expensive fine if stopped in many US states. Plus (as you noted), it's probably more difficult to discern dangerous situations. That said, my car has independently adjustable left/right/forward/rear speaker outputs, so I would probably just bluetooth-connect my phone to the car and flatten output to all speakers. R. ==
