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How far can Rosetta Stone v3 take you? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| chelovek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5897 days ago 413 posts - 461 votes  5 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 17 of 88 02 May 2008 at 8:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's not what was said. General consensus (and my opinion as well) seems to be that you need a solid foundation of Russian grammar, and once you have that, it's an effective tool for improving vocabulary (which is the biggest challenge in getting to fluency, in terms of how much you need to learn). Honestly, it's quite apparent that those of you who are bashing the program haven't given it a fair chance. It's got its faults, and it certainly isn't a one-stop shop, but then again, what language program is? It's a good, albeit overpriced learning tool, with which you can learn thousands of words in an effective manner. Edited by chelovek on 02 May 2008 at 8:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| digitlhand Triglot Groupie United States ryanslrblog.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6031 days ago 77 posts - 108 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Swedish Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Japanese, Greek, French | Message 18 of 88 02 May 2008 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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chevolek I'm not bashing and I had used it for several languages as stated earlier in the post.
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| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6894 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 19 of 88 02 May 2008 at 10:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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By what do you mean "not far"? It'll get you further than Pimsleur, further than most beginner's courses and some intermediate ones. I'd say that at the end of the third level of Spanish in v3 you'd be about 2.5 years into a standard high school course. And because the course was designed to fit Spanish more than Russian or some other Eastern languages, you could even start from scratch and get through the program pretty well. It does teach you vocabulary, but more advanced grammar is taught as well, including preterite/imperfect, ser/estar, future and conditional, imperative form, polite/familiar forms of address, pronouns (personal, possessive, interrogative, relative, etc.), and a bit of the subjunctive, too. Edited by AlexL on 02 May 2008 at 10:52pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lugubert Heptaglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6677 days ago 186 posts - 235 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Danish, Norwegian, EnglishC2, German, Dutch, French Studies: Mandarin, Hindi | Message 21 of 88 03 May 2008 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
Vocabulary is no big deal. You can act and point. To be fluent means understanding grammar. RS ignores grammar. I learn much more dissecting grammatically explained texts than from any amount of more or less isolated words without grammar hints. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| chelovek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5897 days ago 413 posts - 461 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 22 of 88 03 May 2008 at 6:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
Are you kidding? It's an established fact that you need several thousand words (I believe the figure is around 5000) to reach a level of basic fluency. To reach native fluency you need around 10000 words. Are you really trying to argue that grammar rules are more significant than learning that quantity of words? The most significant aspect of fluency is building a large vocabulary. Period. With a small vocabulary, you can typically still convey some information, but you won't be able to comprehend much of the language, and definitely not in a fluent environment. Case in point: I had an amazing command of grammar in French (top 5% on a national French exam), but I still couldn't comprehend or communicate on a fluent level due to the fact that my vocabulary wasn't strong enough. Not understanding random verbs here and there or thematic vocabulary left me crippled in communication. Now, I'm not saying that grammar isn't important (in fact, my previous replies have mentioned just how important it is with RS Russian), but after you've learned basic grammar to a certain extent, vocabulary takes precedent. For Russian, I've found that you'll make your life much easier if you learn most of the case declensions very well, and get a feel for Russian syntax. After that, you can fill in most of the blanks from experience. (Hence why I find that RS Russian is more effective now than it was before) Grammar is basically like mortar, while vocabulary is bricks. You need both to build a strong wall, but the bricks are surely the more significant feature. If you don't have the mortar, then you can probably still build a wall, albeit it a shoddy one. With mortar and too few bricks, you don't have anything. That translates almost directly to the relation between vocabulary and grammar. Oh, and lastly: RS does teach grammar. It doesn't have lessons that say "The accusative case is necessary when you have a direct object.", but rather it shows you the accusative case in context. Does it make things easier if you understand the concept behind case declensions? Without a doubt. But if you've learned phrases like "Мяч в её правой руке." and "Это рука", then you'll become accustomed to using grammar naturally, without thought. This is the entire concept behind the program, and it is how people learn as infants. I think it is vital to formally learn grammar EVENTUALLY, but functional grammar knowledge most certainly is attainable from exposure, and RS provides plenty of it. Edited by chelovek on 03 May 2008 at 7:03pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6894 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 23 of 88 04 May 2008 at 9:31am | IP Logged | |||||
I agree completely. Many people claim that Michel Thomas is great because he can teach you a million verb tenses in ten hours. While this is important, people who finish his method generally can't converse all too well because their vocabulary is terrible. Even if they can "act and point," chances are the people they are talking to will not act and point. Also, if you're going to "act and point" for every word, you might as well not learn the grammar at all and invent some sort of sign language. RS certainly has its limitations, but I found it teaches vocabulary extremely well and that it teaches the grammar of romance and Germanic languages quite well, too. The first grammar you'll learn in Rosetta Stone for Spanish/Italian/German/etc. is gender. You'll see "el niño," "la niña," "el hombre," "la mujer," etc. No further explanation is needed; the program, by way of example, shows you pretty well how the definite article works with nouns of different genders. Then you learn plural nouns: "las niñas," "los niños," "los hombres," "las mujeres." Again, there are more examples: apple, apples, dog, dogs, cat, cats, car, cars, etc. Then you see a picture of a girl running and you hear, "La niña corre." You see a boy running and hear, "El niño corre." A man running. A woman running. A dog running. And then you see a few girls running. "Las niñas corren." Boys. "Los niños corren." Men. "Los hombres corren." etc. They do this for a few verbs and soon enough you've caught on. You add an "n" to the end to make a verb plural (in the present tense, anyways). In the new version, you'll even see a grammar exercise where you have to choose the correct word to fill in the blank: El niño _____ (corre or corren?) This insures that you have the concept down, but even if you're still a little iffy the grammar is reinforced throughout the program. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lugubert Heptaglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6677 days ago 186 posts - 235 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Danish, Norwegian, EnglishC2, German, Dutch, French Studies: Mandarin, Hindi | Message 24 of 88 04 May 2008 at 11:38am | IP Logged | |||||
I've already hinted at problems like understanding if a person is a girl or a woman, or a boy or a girl, or if an animal is an animal or specified as a dog, and if they're walking or running or jumping or just having fun. I don't want to understand words "soon enough", but when I encounter them. I still see the RS method a waste of time for learning vocabulary, and its method for grammar acquisition as not working very well for adults. A young (26) friend of mine, already mentioned in some threads, and a hexaglot covering three language families, tried adding Spanish by RS. Her experience was a blueprint of mine. She repeatedly asked me things like if a word on a picture of a boy plus an aircraft referred to his being "by", "at", "in front of", or "near", or whatever, the aircraft. Not efficient learning, but just confusing. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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