Great review and practice!, March 8, 2006
　

In my Chinese studies so far, I've used Pimsleur, New Practical Chinese Reader, Learn in Your Car Chinese, Instant Immersion Chinese, and a live tutor. The most direct comparison is Instant Immersion as it is also a low cost listen-and-repeat course.

At this point, since Penton Overseas has not yet released Level 2 and 3 of Learn in Your Car Chinese, Instant Immersion covers more. The materials seem to be logically organized in both sets. However, Learn in Your Car is much better in my opinion. It comes with a beautiful transcript, including different colors for new words to make it easy to follow. The script includes the English, the Pinyin pronunciation, and the Chinese characters. Instant Immersion does not come with a transcript. Further, Learn in Your Car's speakers seem to have a more authentic accent and pleasant voices (I've found the female Chinese speaker's voice in Instant Immersion to be grating).

Overall, it has been very effective in reinforcing words and sentence patterns covered elsewhere and in introducing a few new words as well. Can't wait for levels 2 and 3!