Technological Features

The software was reviewed on an IBM-compatible Pentium 3 machine with 128 MB RAM and 40X CD-ROM.The installation of the TMM-C was easy and quick.The installation CD-ROM has both French and English instructions.As with the Choice of Lesson，the User's Manual provides directions for"Running Tell me More."These directions point out where to find the TMM-C icon.As indicated above，the main menu screen uses 10 icons.The design of the icons is superb，and the menu layout is excellent.The quality of the audio files is very good；learners can hear clearly the recorded utterances and conversations.The speed of the conversation is also adequate for the two levels of learners.

Technologically，the main problem of TMM-C is its speech recognition algorithm.The wave form display in the Dialogue section is really of little help inasmuch as it is extremely difficult for users to modify their pronunciation to match the sample wave form.Slower or faster rate of speech will cause the program to reject the utterance even if it is made by a native Mandarin speaker.Although the rejection of an utterance obliges users to repeat the utterance and makes them work harder，learners nonetheless face the problem of not knowing why their attempt was rejected.If the imitation speed of the utterance is the main reason for the rejection，the program needs to be revised in order to tolerate different speeds of pronunciation because varying rates of speech of the utterance are acceptable in a real-time communication.