irishmaggot Newbie Ireland Joined 3550 days ago 5 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German
| Message 1 of 9 12 March 2015 at 2:26pm | IP Logged |
Wondering if anyone has used the new version of Rosetta Stone - Rosetta Stone® Advanced?
It looks like it has some useful features such as telling you what CEFR level you are at
and giving you activities to help you reach the next level. It also has grammar
explanations which the previous Rosetta Stone versions do not. It's £175 so I am looking for reviews / feedback before I purchase.
Edited by irishmaggot on 12 March 2015 at 2:30pm
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Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 2 of 9 12 March 2015 at 3:57pm | IP Logged |
I'd never trust RS to tell me what CEFR level I'm at (unless it involves human assessment and detailed feedback).
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Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5345 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish*
| Message 3 of 9 12 March 2015 at 4:38pm | IP Logged |
I couldn't find reference to an "advanced" course on their website, but from what we know of their product line, I can guarantee it is not worth £175, not even a fraction of that.
It will probably be useful nonetheless, but I would only use it if a) money is no object at all, and b) I'm using it as a complement to much more substantive materials, i.e., actual books.
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irishmaggot Newbie Ireland Joined 3550 days ago 5 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German
| Message 4 of 9 12 March 2015 at 6:16pm | IP Logged |
Serpent wrote:
I'd never trust RS to tell me what CEFR level I'm at (unless it involves
human assessment and detailed feedback). |
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I would definitely take it only as a guideline and not as a definite.
Juаn wrote:
I couldn't find reference to an "advanced" course on their website |
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Hope it's okay to post a link. This is the course I'm talking about -
http://www.rosettastone.co.uk/learn-german/advanced/dvd-cour se
Edited by irishmaggot on 12 March 2015 at 6:17pm
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Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5009 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 5 of 9 12 March 2015 at 7:37pm | IP Logged |
I'd leave it like this.
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iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5262 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)
| Message 6 of 9 12 March 2015 at 7:40pm | IP Logged |
Ahhh, that's it! Technology plus money equals success! Wooo! They'll even tell you your CEFR level! I wonder, do you get fries with that too? There are far better ways to spend 175 quid than this to learn German.
If you are willing to put in some effort, you'll be surprised to see what you can accomplish. There is so much out there freely available for German learning. Check out the Deutsche Welle German Learning Resources.
175 GBP = about 250 USD- that would probably buy you 5 box sets of a German TV series on DVD, or 25 German e-books, or even a round trip ticket to Berlin. Actual success stories with the RS program are like hen's teeth around here.
Edited by iguanamon on 12 March 2015 at 8:02pm
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Lusan Diglot Newbie United States Joined 3942 days ago 35 posts - 53 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Polish
| Message 7 of 9 14 March 2015 at 2:16pm | IP Logged |
Gosh...I began my Polish studies with RS because I did not know about other's experiences. I
already paid for it. I felt stupid not using it. I would not pay a thing for the program.
Actually, I would ask them to pay ME for using it. I did not consider the investment of time
that use to actually learning. No... not even that.. It could really hurt learning a language.
What a waste of time! There are good methods in the market: TY, Colloquial, Assimil, Pimsleur,
Supermemo, etc.
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robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5059 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew
| Message 8 of 9 15 March 2015 at 5:29am | IP Logged |
Do you guys think there is any hope for RS or an RS-style product in the future?
First, they could include high-quality grammar explanations. Then as a baseline it would be equivalent to a small
book.
Then suppose the exercises were improved to avoid the problems with a one-size-fits-all course that handles
cultural differences among languages poorly. They would need to emphasize the natural points of distinction
within the language.
Perhaps some of the prompts could be made longer and more naturalistic as the learner advances, such as a 4-
sentence speech and then a comprehension question, rather than simply matching a picture to what was said.
Now imagine the program, instead of implying that it alone will lead to mastery, tells the user to supplement it
with appropriate input or even directs the user to texts and naturalistic audios from within the program.
On top of that, they could improve the interface and exercise scheduling to allow the user better control and
promote efficient memorization.
Now if all that were priced competitively at under 100 USD, wouldn't it be a useful component of a balanced
study program? Or do people think that the idea of learning by matching utterances and pictures is just
fundamentally broken and useless?
Might an actually useful computerized language tutor software in the future look completely different from RS?
Edited by robarb on 15 March 2015 at 5:30am
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