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Can you become Fluent with Rosetta Stone? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6895 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes  Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 9 of 24 18 October 2006 at 8:45am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think either Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone will get you anywhere near fluency, especially if those are your sole methods of learning a language.
First of all, they're fairly limited in scope and subject. You're certainly not going to learn how to deal with complaints from the tax office or the like from them. Second, the vocabulary covered may be quite good for basic conversation, it is not enough to live on. Yes, you will learn a good many of the high frequency words used in everyday life but nothing specific or related to your personal interests. This sort of vocabulary would be best learnt from reading books, magazines or even from a dictionary or friend. Third, I think Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone don't focus much on the skeleton of the language (ie. grammar) and involves too much repetition of set phrases. It doesn't really prepare you for unscripted questions or how to reply in a different manner to that in the programs. Memorisation is OK in the beginning or if you're just learning the basics of a language for travel purposes but eventually you will have to learn how to make your own original sentences. This is best learnt by attending classes, using grammar books and/or finding a native speaker to help you out. So you certainly will need to supplement Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur with other forms of study and other material if you want to become fluent. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7126 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 10 of 24 21 February 2011 at 5:29am | IP Logged | ||
I wouldn't even trust it with vocabulary. There are some very odd things - even errors - in the language used in the courses, it seems. You also have to try and work out what the picture is trying to tell you or goodness knows what you might be learning! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hardheim Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5204 days ago 34 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, French | Message 11 of 24 22 February 2011 at 2:43am | IP Logged | ||
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The thing about Rosetta Stone is that when you try out the first few lessons on their introductory CD, it seems like the best thing since sliced bread. It's really good at showing very, very, very basic concepts like 'red car' or 'blue fish'. And these are the types of things you are shown in the first few lessons. As soon as you get into ANY concepts with any amount of abstraction to it, the system FAILS miserably. You will be scratching your head with frustration very quickly. I jammed through the German one at the request of my daughter to see if it would be effective. I'm fluent in German, and had no idea how someone would be able to correctly identify the phrase based on the pictures shown. If you are going with Rosetta Stone, absolutely don't get anything past Level 1. And if you use it, do so only as a secondary supplement to a foundational course like a Living Language Ultimate/Pimsleur combo. Edited by Hardheim on 22 February 2011 at 2:44am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Slacker Diglot Pro Member United States Joined 5458 days ago 62 posts - 99 votes Speaks: Spanish, English Studies: German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic (classical) Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 24 12 March 2011 at 4:08am | IP Logged | ||
Hardheim, I read your above post earlier today, and I'm currently working my way through Rosetta Stone German Level one, and I just hit on a 'red fish' and so I wanted to ask a couple follow-up questions and make a comment: Q1: Are you using version 3 or above? I agree that version 2 and below were pretty much garbage, but right now I'm using (the now outdated) v. 3, particularly Level 1, Unit 1, Lesson 3, and the exercise I'm on has the following- Frame 1- a picture of a red fish, and the German sentence "Der Fisch ist rot." [The fish is red.] Frame 2- a picture of a school of red fish, and the sentence "Die Fische _____ rot.", and it gives me the option to select either "ist" or "sind" to fill in the blank and complete the sentence. The grammar point being that the correct answer is "sind" meaning "are". Also, passively I'm able to note the difference between the given "Der Fisch" (singular) and "Die Fische" (plural) Frame 3- a picture of a yellow bicycle, and the German sentence "Das Fahrrad ist gelb" [The bicycle is yellow] Frame 4 - a picture of three yellow bicycles, and the sentence "Die Fahrräder ______ gelb.", and it again gives me the option to select either "ist or "sind" to fill in the blank... which I do successfully, and get the happy-lil'-harp sound and move on to the next screen... total effort, about a 20 second drill, but I think it is a mischaracterization to say that this is "very, very, very, basic concepts." Linguistically, there is a big difference between saying 'red car' and 'blue fish' and saying "The fish is red. The fish are red. The bicycle is yellow. The bicycles are yellow." Especially, when there are different forms of "the" and different forms of the plural. Again, keeping in mind that this is only Level 1, Unit 1, Lesson 3. You also say that "As soon as you get into ANY concepts with any amount of abstraction to it, the system FAILS miserably." Granted, the most I have ever done so far was two levels of Italian, but as I progressed through them, at no point was I ever confused as to what was being asked, or which of the answers they were asking for. I'm not saying I didn't make mistakes -- I made plenty of them -- but it would be because I didn't know/remember/recall what the right answer should be. I have read this criticism before though, so I'm just honestly not sure where its coming from -- so even in one of the very early lessons there is a picture of four women walking down the sidewalk. Now, just looking at this picture there are a thousand things that you could say about it/them... you could say "That chick on the end looks like Samantha from Sex And The City, and the one next to her? Wow, who dressed her this morning!"; however, the only one of the three choices that you're presented with that makes any sense is "Three women are wearing pants, one woman is wearing a skirt." Click- >happy-harp. In all seriousness though, please let me know which specific lesson is ambiguous and could have multiple correct answers and I'll make sure to skip past it as I (eventually) work through some German. -Slacker 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sanghee Groupie United States Joined 5073 days ago 60 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 13 of 24 12 March 2011 at 7:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Slacker, though I haven't used RS German, I do have RS Korean V3 levels 1-3 (not V4, I couldn't upgrade if I wanted because I have the homeschool version) and I agree with what Hardheim said. I was able to get through level 1 without looking up too much in the dictionary. Usually when I did, it was because I thought something might mean something but I needed some clarity. Level 2 is where hell started (I stopped after the 2nd.. unit? for a while but I'm almost through the first lesson of level 2 now, just to see if it got better).
One phrase that I remember the best, since I looked up the translation and added to my Anki deck, that I had no clue what it meant was "기차가 지연됐어요?" or "Was the train delayed?". It had a picture of, if I recall correctly, two people chatting at a train station. How does that give me any clue as to what the verb meant? Though, most of the travel lesson was a pain for me because I've rarely traveled, so the pictures of train stations and airports and airplanes did hardly anything for me. If I recall correctly, it teaches things like "The plane arrives at 4 o clock" but I had no idea whether or not it was arriving at 4 or departing at 4. I felt, many times, that I was only learning which phrase matched the picture, not what the phrase actually meant. At the end of Level 1 I could hardly form a sentence on my own besides what I had learned from other sources. I think RS would be a decent product if they offered translations (starting out hidden, but you can show them if you choose) because being uncertain of meanings and wasting time staring at a picture trying to understand what's going on isn't conductive to learning. But of course, offering a translation means they don't get to pretend you're learning like a baby (and imply that it's easy, when really RS is one of the most difficult products I've tried in terms of being able to learn from it, though it's easy to cheat the system). And also offering translations means they cant sell the product in as many countries without translating everything to a bunch of languages. But I've basically given up on it and hope to be able to use it for a review or something later on.. but even at that, it's so boring and repetitive that I don't know if I could stand it. Also you said, "please let me know which specific lesson is ambiguous and could have multiple correct answers". It's often easy to tell which sentence belongs to which picture, so rarely do I think more than one answer could be correct. The problem lies in not understanding what the sentence means and not understanding what's going on in the picture. Yeah I can match "기차가 지연됐어요?" with a picture of people chatting in a train station (assuming it's a train station anyway, I don't know much about train stations considering I've never been in one), but what the heck does it mean? I know it goes with that picture because that's what the program told me, but I don't think people are going to be walking around with pictures of Rosetta Stone slides and asking me "Which Korean phrase goes with this picture?" so knowing which phrase matches the picture isn't really learning anything useful. Edited by Sanghee on 12 March 2011 at 7:43am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Shenandoah Newbie United States Joined 5032 days ago 30 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 14 of 24 12 March 2011 at 2:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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I still like Rosetta Stone (V3), being almost done with Level 3 now. Sometimes I've
had problems understanding what a phrase was trying to get at by a single picture, but usually after it's been used over several varying pictures I get the idea (e.g. if one says "the fish is red" I might not pick up on the word red. But if there are 4 pictures, and one says "the fish is red" and another says "the apple is red" and another says "the bicycle is red" and so on, I can figure it out). That's the way the program is designed to work. On level 3 I started occasionally having to look up words in the dictionary while going through it. I never looked anything up on the first two levels; however, RS is not my sole source of study material. It's just one of many, which might be why I find it acceptable. I do like it. I've learned a lot from it. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't pay for it (too expensive for what you get) - but since I already have it I do find it helpful and will complete through level 5. Now, all that said, I hate hate hate the "Milestones" with a passion. Those are the one place where I can't figure out what it's trying to get me to say. Usually I just mumble something and as my sounds get close to the correct answer it displays the words in grey. Then I can see what it's getting at, and the second time give the correct response. I should just skip them altogether, but I keep trying thinking maybe, just maybe, this next one will be different. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5565 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 15 of 24 12 March 2011 at 6:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Can anyone tell me how RS teaches stuff like the modal verbs (want, can, must, would, could, should etc) or different tenses? I guess you could use a clock to indicate the past, but how on earth can you distinguish between imperfect and perfect? And I've absolutely no idea how I would represent the conditional or subjunctive as a picture.
Just curious. Edited by schoenewaelder on 12 March 2011 at 6:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sanghee Groupie United States Joined 5073 days ago 60 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 16 of 24 12 March 2011 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | ||
I have "experienced" so far only want and a little bit of future with RS. Want basically had people who looked like they longed for something (like a woman looking at a coat in a store window, or a dog looking at a sandwich). Need was paired with want (it'd show the woman wanting a coat but then it'd show a woman who's cold and needs a coat). For future, it'd show a little calendar and be like "Today I'm swimming. Tomorrow I'm going to ride a bike." (I'm pretty sure anyway, I haven't learned any future tense from any other source so I can't confirm that that's what I barely touched on last time I used RS). I can't say what it does for anything else you said, either because I haven't reached it or because I hardly know what everything you said means in English and definitely don't know if they even exist in Korean :P 1 person has voted this message useful |
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