Picword

Editors' ReviewDownload.com staffFebruary 25, 2005Jack-of-all-trades, master of none. This program, though it exposes you to many foreign words and pronunciations, doesn't offer the best method for mastering a foreign language. Picword covers more than 1,000 words in six languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, and, surprisingly, Uzbek), connecting each word to a picture and pronouncing each for you to repeat. The pictures are childish and poorly compressed, and as such are difficult to identify. Though it's often tough to understand standard Microsoft speaking software for English, just try to imagine the voice pronouncing Uzbek words. The whole program centers around flash-card practice, and tests build on the same theme with multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank options. At best a decent tool for learning how to spell foreign words, Picword isn't the best software for mastering foreign vocabularies.