NEC has also announced the development of an English Hearing Study system based on multimedia technology on a personal computer. The system is based on research performed by Professor Yukio Takefuta at the Language Research Institute of Chiba University, and his Three Round Study Method. The system is based on NEC PC-9801 hardware, an optical disk, a speaker and a video processor for synthesis of moving video. Tests indicate that the NEC system improved Japanese students’ English listening ability – always a weak point in Japan, just as English people with some familiarity with both languages find spoken French much harder to follow than spoken German improved by an average of 100 points.
