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Rosetta Stone any good? | ||
Tags: Rosetta Stone | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 17 of 22 12 April 2012 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm like Solfrid Cristin on this. I've never really understood the massive negative sentiment towards Rosetta Stone. Never having tried the product myself, I really don't have an opinion. But I do note that where I live (Quebec, Canada) it is widely used in English-language schools for the teaching of French.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5128 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 18 of 22 12 April 2012 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | ||
Except walk into a Barnes & Noble and you'll see rows and rows of language-learning books - most major languages and quite a few smaller, some that you wouldn't expect (I found a Nauhuatl/English dictionary at a local B&N, town population approx. 20,000). The desire to learn another language is there. It comes down to marketing, and Rosetta Stone has that one wrapped up. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 12 April 2012 at 6:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Khendon Newbie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4607 days ago 13 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 19 of 22 13 April 2012 at 2:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I purchased Rosetta stone Japanese around 2 months ago as it was on sale. I also have Assimil, and purchased the first few lessons of Pimsleur.
I have to say, even as a complete beginner, I do not like it at all. For Japanese, where context, social situation and the relationships of the particles are so important, it is woefully inadequate. The pictures can be ambiguous, leading you to misunderstand the dontext of the phrase, and some of the phrases they do teach you do not seem to match with any of the other reputable programs around. The audio is horrible, the accent does not sound particularly Japanese and is extremely stilted sounding. The voice recognition is not great. I was gaining some confidence using the software because I was getting the full green light on most phrases. As an experiment I started recording myself and playing it back, comparing it to pronunciation in Assimil and Pimsluer, and frankly I sounded awful. Not at all impressed. I have just started to focus almost entirely on Assimil, currently at lesson 7, and I have to say I feel I have learned more, and speak better than I did doing 3 whole units in Rosetta Stone (a significant time investment). Please bear in mind these are just the observations of a beginner who has several programs to hand. I am by no means a language expert. Regards Khendon 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hypersport Senior Member United States Joined 5879 days ago 216 posts - 307 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 20 of 22 16 April 2012 at 4:11am | IP Logged | ||
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I did Rosetta Stone Spanish 1 and 2 Latin America version when I first started learning Spanish over 6 years ago.
The course was very good and I got a lot out of it. You have to understand something though, I was hungry. This meant that whatever I didn't understand, I found a way to find the answer and then I wrote it down. I was eager to learn. I wasn't looking for something to get it done in 6 weeks. When I got done I moved on to LSLC and then to FSI. More than enough courses there and I was already into native materials. The point is, no course is perfect. All of them can give you enough though along with other references so that you can get into native materials in a short time and start speaking with people. I'm not saying it's the best course out there. But it's got several benefits and I consider it just one of many tools that I've used to achieve fluency in Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 21 of 22 16 April 2012 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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I see how you benefited from the course, hypersport. In your case, RS served as a source
of examples you worked further with. But the trouble is that the official RS instructions or advertisement tell people to NOT do exactly what you did. You probably succeeded thanks to "disobeying the rules". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4699 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 22 of 22 17 April 2012 at 3:47am | IP Logged | ||
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I tried using rosetta stone for my Japanese studies. All I can say is I am glad I never bought the full course.
My problem is the cost. It is just huge for what it is and a similar amount of money could have bought a larger quantity of very good materials. It also have a very small of audio content compared to others that have a much lower price and it is no help in the intial stages of learning one of the more complex non latin scripts. The learning system to me appeared to be just a flashcard type system with audio that you could acutally make yourself with the likes of google image search, rhinospike and an SRS program. While it would take some time to make it yourself you would have the benifit of lower cost, a variety of non studio recorded native speaker voices, and the benifit that comes from focusing and taking the time to make it yourself. You could also tailor it to what you need. If I had the full Rosessta stone I do not think I would be able to finish it on account that I found it quite boring and simply watching TV in the TL was more entertaining even if less efficent at an early stage. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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