<p>Has anyone here used Rosetta Stone? Is it effective at all in learning a language? I have doubts about whether or not it could be and think that the only real way to learn a language is total immersion and being cut off from your native tongue, based on the fact I have unsuccessfully learned Spanish through college courses.</p>
<p>Here is a link to a recent discussion:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/613321-rosetta-stone-pros-cons-pricing.html?highlight=rosetta+stone[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/613321-rosetta-stone-pros-cons-pricing.html?highlight=rosetta+stone</a></p>
<p>LOL–Just yesterday I finished 5 levels of Rosetta Stone Latin American Spanish in a 10-week on-line course thru a community college. Whew! It was pretty crazy to do this in one term, but I worked on it 2-3 hours a day. I had 7 semesters of college French, so that helped a lot–and also hurt a little with pronunciation.) </p>
<p>I found it a fun and painless way to study a language. Do I actually “know” Spanish now?
Hard to say. (Last night I was trying to remember a phrase I’d just learned and 1/3 of it came out in French. Then my son said, “She didn’t learn ANYTHING!”) Seriously, though, I did go from nothing to quite a bit in 10 weeks.</p>
<p>The weakness with Rosetta Stone (and also part of what makes it fun and painless) is that it doesn’t “teach” grammar. You have to pick it up in context. It was “different” not really drilling the common verbs/tenses and getting them down like you usually do in a class.</p>
<p>Also, I didn’t like the scoring on the writing section. If you get one letter/accent/punctuation mark wrong–even in a long sentence, you get 0% on it. (No credit for the 97% you DID get right?) You can do it over as many times as you want, of course, but it says it takes “5 minutes” for the writing section. In reality, it took me 30 minutes to get a passing score on some of the level 4 and 5 writing sections. </p>
<p>But other than those two things, I was greatly impressed with the quality of the program and highly recommend it. (I wouldn’t pay $500+ for it–but I will probably sign up for other Rosetta Stone language courses through the cc. See if this is available in your area.) I can’t think of any better, more enjoyable, language-learning programs. (I’m an ESL teacher and homeschooled kids for 13 years–so I’ve seen a few.) Immersion is best, of course, but if you can’t travel, this is pretty good.</p>
<p>BTW–I just read the old discussion–mostly negative! It was good for me to have the deadline pressure from the college to get through the course.</p>
<p>I haven’t used Rosetta Stone. However, I have taken Japanese lessons with Berlitz for about a year (1 hour class/week and 2 hours home study on my own/week). With my conversational Japanese, I can get around in Japan when I visit there for business. Nevertheless, I do find myself saying to native speakers “Yukkuri itte kudasai” meaning ‘please speak slowly’ since native speakers tend to speak very fast.</p>
<p>With the training I rec’d, I am a Level 3 beginner I think. Got ways to go yet. Although I can get by in daily life in Japan, I am not yet able to read the script (which is very tough and will take me a year more to learn), and I am not yet able to understand humor, history, politics, or Science in Japanese. My ultimate goal is to be able to understand Japanese literature as well but may take 4-5 more years of study.
In Japanese, I could say “Mada mada benkyo shinakareba narimasen”; ie I have got to study more and more… which is tough to do with a day that has me waking up at 5:20 am and leaving work at 5:30 pm daily.</p>
<p>My Berlitz sensei doesn’t like Rosetta Stone at all… but she could be biased.</p>
<p>After 3 classes of Spanish back in high school and 4 in college, I now have just realized that I can no longer pronounce the word “gracias,” so I am going to go to youtube and see if I can find a video with a native speaker saying the word.</p>
<p>Seriously, how do people learn and remember languages?</p>
<p>I’d love to attain fluency or near fluency in Spanish, German and Italian someday.</p>
<p>By the way, I have to admit that those who speak other languages find it much easier to pick another one.</p>
<p>When I first started my Japanese classes, there were 5 other students with me. By 3 months, the rest had dropped off but I continued through. The difference between me and the others was simply that I had learnt 5 Indian languages during my childhood in India (some passively and some actively in school) and I just seem to soak up languages very easily… </p>
<p>My motto is - practice every week for at least an hour if not more. Seize every opportunity to speak the language as well. That’s pretty much how I learnt English as well given that it was a 2nd language for me at the time I graduated HS.</p>
<p>Blue,</p>
<p>Since you have already learnt some Spanish in school before, all you need is 1) to adhere to a strict schedule of review/lessons etc and 2) practice, practice, practice!</p>
<p>How long does it take to become fluent? (And, by fluent I mean according to the ILR scale.)</p>
<p>I bought both the Swedish and the French version. I was NOT dedicated so I cut some corners on the lessons. (The voice playback did not like my attempts at speaking so I got frustrated and skipped that part) I will say that I have learned hundreds of new words. If I purchase another one, I think I will go for a used version on Ebay and save some money.</p>
<p>It is almost impossible to become “fluent” unless you’ve lived in a country and worked on the language for years. It is very difficult for adults, even if fluent, to get rid of their accents. </p>
<p>I really liked the voice recognition feature on Rosetta Stone. However, there were a few times that my microphone wasn’t set up properly, and it kept giving me the “red light”–even when it seemed right. (Yes, I said “Gracias” 87 times in a row–with increasing frustration until I was yelling into the microphone-- and I kept getting “bleeped” and not hearing what I was doing wrong. My teenage sons overheard this and started mocking me!–It even became a joke in our house–if they wanted to thank me for something, they’d say “Gracias, gracias, gracias, gracias”) After I reset the microphone, there was no problem. I also noticed that you can make the pronunciation grading harder–but I didn’t do that. I never checked if it automatically becomes harder as you move up to higher levels. </p>
<p>IMO RS would not be nearly as useful without the speaking sections (at the higher levels, there is speaking even in the grammar and vocabulary sections). I got so much more speaking practice than I did in years of French classes–you just don’t get called on that often in a class of 20-30 students. With this program YOU have to answer every single question.</p>
<p>Unfortunately although they have several languages to choose from they did not carry any of the languages my D needed to learn.
( she was interested in Tamil, Malayalam,Akan/Twi) </p>
<p>I don’t think I could learn that way- my phone doesn’t even understand me when I try and give it voice prompts :(</p>
<p>Are those Asian/Pacific Island languages?</p>
<p>I STRONGLY recommend Fluenz! Small company, maybe not known to many but I have LOVED LOVED LOVED their french programs! And their service has been amazing too. It actually makes me want to practice my language. You should check them out here: </p>
<p>[…::</a> Fluenz ::… Learn Languages with Fluenz](<a href=“http://www.fluenz.com/languages/spanish/learn-spanish/index.html]…::”>http://www.fluenz.com/languages/spanish/learn-spanish/index.html)</p>
<p>Does anyone know of any good textbooks with the listening software activities to start learning German or Italian? I’m looking on Amazon for used ones now, and will certainly read the ratings, but didn’t know if anyone knew of any off hand.</p>
<p>Tamil & Malayalam are spoken in South India and Twi is a dialect of Akan which is spoken by the tribes who compromise the Akan people in Ghana.
( English is an " official" language in Ghana, but she soon found out, that isn’t really what they speak!)</p>
<p>I am finding several programs on itune both audio and applications for ipod touch in various languages, some have free versions- it might be worth checking out- also many libraries have tapes/dvds or can borrow them.</p>
<p>My kids really liked the Muzzy videos when they were younger.</p>
<p>Blue,</p>
<p>Both of my middle school children have Rosetta Stone provided as a supplement to their textbook work for Spanish. I agree with the others in this post that it is not the most technical instruction per se, however it has been fun and greatly added to their enjoyment of learning a language. They both get a kick out of it and it has moved their skill level along nicely as well. Hope this helps!</p>
<p>Emerald,
Why was your D interested in Tamil and Malayalam? These regional languages are spoken only in Tamilnadu and Kerala, respectively. They are very much circumscribed to these states and in Malaysia (due high immigrant population there). Tamil is also spoken in Sri Lanka.
Was she planning on working in one these places?</p>