Instant Immersion Japanese (Instant Immersion) (ISBN 1591507596)

informative but lackluster:
Obviously with 8 disks there is a lot of information. This course gives you everything you'd expect in a beginner's audio course: asking for directions, discussing the weather and your family, etc. However I was disappointed for two reasons. First, the word "immersion" in the title made me think it would be an innovative course with little or no English used, but this is actually just an ordinary audio language course with alternating English and Japanese phrases and a little grammar explanation thrown in here and there. The second disappointment is the dialogues -- they are acted out by two women with similar sounding voices. This edition is called new and improved, but there is room for even more improvement, in my opinion.

Pretty good...:
I just got this, it works pretty good. pretty thorough. I'm only on the 3rd cd, but its ok so far. If you get frustrated on the first cd, thats ok because you aren't really supposed to remember any of those words. After that it becomes easier, even though there are a few areas you feel like skipping. Don't try to listen to it all in one sitting. It might take a while. this is a VERY thorough product.

very detailed but format is somewhat confusing:
This set is an excellent value: over 8 hours of Nihongo for less than $14. Many of the Japanese words are repeated 2X (unlike other sets) and the audio quality is pretty good though you can hear breathing (?) at times. I wish the quizzes and dialogues were better structured. Seemed a bit haphazard and thus hard to follow. This isn't too bad but it could be a lot more engaging. Well worth your money.