The Berlitz Chinese and Japanese Premier program is an amalgam of the Learn Chinese Now and Learn Japanese Now products from Transparent Languages, the company that produced the Japanese Learning Suite that currently sits at #3 in this review. Since it is essentially a pared-down version of the Japanese Learning Suite, it follows that it can never be as good as the parent program, even if Chinese has been bundled into the mix.

On the positive side, Berlitz is more mobile than most other programs in this review. It comes with a special version that can be installed on Palm or Pocket PCs. When coupled with audio CDs which can be transferred to an MP3 player, Berlitz has the capacity to go anywhere you do. If you need to learn Japanese while traveling, Berlitz is one of the best choices.

Berlitz has many of the same tools that you’ll find in the Japanese Learning Suite, but the learning curve at the start is still a little too steep for a beginner. The video lessons, vocabulary tools and word recognition activities are numerous and thorough. Berlitz does not have any resources for teaching the Japanese alphabets effectively, though. All instruction is done in romaji, which means you’ll be able to speak Japanese well, but probably not be able to read it well.

Overall, Berlitz has much of the functionality that made the Japanese Learning Suite useful, but not enough to make it rank higher. While adding Chinese into the mix allows you to get more for your money, it really doesn’t add any value as a Japanese teaching tool. Berlitz is good as a basic Japanese curriculum, and it’s great for learning away from your computer. But if you want a complete Japanese learning experience that can take you all the way to Japanese fluency, try the Japanese Learning Suite or one of the other top 3 products in our review.