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Why don’t people here like Rosetta Stone? | ||
Tags: Rosetta Stone | Usefulness | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5355 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 9 of 93 21 June 2010 at 5:15am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Because it sucks and it makes people think that it's the only pathway to fluency
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| dec_lan Newbie United States Joined 5299 days ago 18 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 10 of 93 21 June 2010 at 5:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well, I'm not totally against it yet. Something I can say for it is that it is making me think in the language. As in, when it shows me a picture of a cat, I think of the word for cat in Mandarin, rather than think "cat", then translate it. The way I have learned bits of other languages has given me the bad habit of translating from English to the language. But I haven't tried much else, so maybe my mind will change.
Something I can definitely say against it, though, is the fact that I have seen people view it as something that basically just automatically makes you learn the language. I hear people say things like "I'd to get Rosetta Stone so I can learn language XYZ." They don't seem to get that even if they get it, it's still a lot of hard work. It's the analog of some new fancy piece of exercise equipment. Even if the equipment isn't bad, you still have to do a lot of work. If it was somehow easy, nothing is going to happen. Edited by dec_lan on 21 June 2010 at 5:42am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5355 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 11 of 93 21 June 2010 at 5:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You're right, it is the analog of some fancy new piece of exercise equipment. It's overly expensive and there's normally an older, better, more proven way to get the same or better results for a cheaper price (think barbell vs. new nautilus systems). Sorry, but I had to go there :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| dec_lan Newbie United States Joined 5299 days ago 18 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 12 of 93 21 June 2010 at 5:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
But...but they're so shiny. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5355 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 13 of 93 21 June 2010 at 5:58am | IP Logged | ||||||||
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6039 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 14 of 93 21 June 2010 at 8:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It's all smoke and mirrors: the advertising and the product itself.
A well-designed good product gives you a feeling of progress by teaching you the language. A well-designed bad product can't teach you the language, but it will still give you a feeling of progress so that you will recommend it to your friends.
Words are easy. Even in our own languages, we learn new words every day. Only a couple of years ago, a cloud was a fluffy thing in the sky. Now it's a new and revolutionary type of computing (that is practically no different to computing that's been going on since the 70s, but hey-ho). I'd never "logged in" to anything before I was 18. We have a natural capacity to learn new words. Vocabulary is easy. What is difficult is learning grammar. But while Rosetta Stone incorporates some variety in grammar into the course, this is actually incidental to the tasks, which can be completed on vocabulary alone. The student progresses through the course, the course tells the student that they're doing well, the student believes they're learning the language. But by the end of it, the best they can hope for is a reasonably good accent and a list of words. "Thinking in Mandarin" isn't about vocabulary -- it's about grammar. It's about being able to take that cat and ask whose it is, tell it to go away because it's not getting any of your tuna or say to your neighbour that it's ruined your carpet with its claws. 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| dec_lan Newbie United States Joined 5299 days ago 18 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 15 of 93 21 June 2010 at 9:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Haha. I like the thing about the cat. I also didn't phrase that right-- it's not just teaching me to think of words, it is teaching me to actually learn the concept in Mandarin, some actual simple grammar. For example, though they have never said the actual phrase "Their cat", I know how to say "their <something>" and the word cat, so I can say that it's my/your/his/etc cat, without having to really translate it. But this is super simple, so we'll see if it works for the bigger stuff. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6039 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 16 of 93 21 June 2010 at 9:51am | IP Logged | ||||||||
It doesn't. That's why people here don't like Rosetta Stone. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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