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Rosetta Stone revisited | ||
Tags: Rosetta Stone | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 17 of 51 26 April 2013 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | ||
You can do it for much cheaper. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 18 of 51 27 April 2013 at 6:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I think I may have solved the Rosetta Stone paradox. The question isn't really whether RS sucks. The question is really whether it is the right fit for the user. Let me explain. We can take as a given that self-teaching programs are just learning tools. To really learn a language, you have to do much more than just use one of these tools. This probably explains why somewhere between 90% and 99% of people who buy self-teaching products never finish them.
My understanding is that a lot of research went into the development of RS. The marketing may be overwhelming, but there is some science behind RS. Plus there is the online lessons with a native speaker. Some people like RS because it fits their learning style. Most people give up, not because the program is that bad, but because they give up trying to learn a language, period. Edited by s_allard on 27 April 2013 at 6:20am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 19 of 51 27 April 2013 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think RS is the best "main resource" for anyone. Khatzumoto needs 10,000 sentences to learn without grammar books and dictionaries (not 100% without them either, he just uses L2 ones). How can RS teach you anything useful in less than 500 sentences?
People who consider it a good resource would do better with using their own flashcards (or even a shared deck), with pictures instead of translations if they really want. And those who like the online lessons feature would do better with a more flexible teacher who can adapt to their needs and preferences. If I had 10k to spare I'd buy booksbooksbooks and travel! Edited by Serpent on 27 April 2013 at 1:54pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 20 of 51 27 April 2013 at 2:16pm | IP Logged | ||
Success story Assimil- emk, granted, Assimil was what gave emk the foundation to "take his French to the next level" but that's all any self-teaching course will do- give you a foundation. Some foundations are stronger than others. To really learn a language, one must go beyond courses and start using the language interacting with native-speakers and native materials. That is a tried and true method that has worked for me and a heck of a lot of others. I think this applies to both self-learners as well as formal class participants. A course gives you a foundation. You must build on that foundation yourself. That's where both self-learners and formal course students often fall down. That's why I find the lack of success stories with RS disturbing. They are so ubiquitous in their presence that there should be plenty of people saying "I used RS to get me to where I could read French on my own and have basic conversations and then worked with Buffy dvds to get me to the next level". People give up on the courses they've bought because the dedication required to learn a language is just a little too much for most to bear. That dedication is what will get someone through even the most "boring" material. Dedication, motivation, persistence is worth 100 times the cost of RS, Assimil, Teach Yourself or Pimsleur. Edited by iguanamon on 27 April 2013 at 2:16pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5344 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 21 of 51 27 April 2013 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Like I've said before, I've used Rosetta Stone and like it. It can indeed be a very useful resource. However it isn't worth a tenth of the asking price, and anyone considering it should be aware it is at best a complement to your main study textbooks -never a replacement for them- and that by itself you'll achieve only very modest progress.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 22 of 51 27 April 2013 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||
I didn't know about Assimil when I started learning German about nine months ago. I had done a series of Goethe Institute courses (A1, A2, and B1) here in Berlin a few years before. It was a night course, designed for working professionals, and so it was even more compressed timewise than other courses. I am pretty confident at the end of the course perhaps one person out of the fifteen felt that they were actually learning German. I kept the books and when I came back to German a few years later I used the same textbooks, and inputed every sentence and every word into Anki, taking about a week per lesson. I stopped by the time I was halfway through the A2 lessons as I could already start interacting with more complex materials. The big differences between my first attempt and the second: motivation; time; a real effort to learn vocabulary; using sentences in Anki to learn grammar. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 23 of 51 28 April 2013 at 12:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree wholeheartedly with @iguamon. but I would like to add that the lack of true success stories with RS is no different from that of most self-teaching products. Now, Assimil has a series of promotional videos that feature testimonials by users, but not in the target language, mind you.
Although not on the scale of RS, Pimsleur has been waging a major marketing campaign lately that promises to have you speaking a language in 10 days. Most people at HTLAL don't believe this hype, of course, but this sort of outlandish claim is typical of the self-teaching language industry. RS may be the most egregious but is not very different from the other products. I have yet to see a video of somebody saying: "This is what I can do after completing course XYZ." Again, without wanting to defend RS, I would say that in its latest incarnation, it probably satisfies enough people to explain its continued existence and success. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Eternica Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5071 days ago 24 posts - 74 votes Speaks: Cantonese, English*, French Studies: Hungarian, Spanish | Message 24 of 51 29 April 2013 at 4:16am | IP Logged | ||
A "significant" amount of money on marketing is a HUGE understatement. If you look at the 10-K reports of Rosetta Stone (ticker symbol RST), you will find this (it's in thousands of dollars) Year 2012: Sales and marketing: $151,646 Research and development: $23,453 Year 2011: Sales and marketing: $161,491 Research and development: $24,218 Year 2010: Sales and marketing: $130,879 Research and development: $23,437 This Rosetta Stone regularly spends over 600% more on sales and marketing than on improving their product. Now, don't get me wrong: I recognize the tremendous importance in marketing and I am a student of marketing myself. However, when you have such a poor product as Rosetta Stone, I am very unhappy to see them not spending significantly more effort on improving the many gaps present in their product. 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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