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How useful is Rosetta Stone? | ||
Tags: Rosetta Stone | Usefulness | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5824 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 9 of 20 08 January 2010 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | ||
The normal form is to say that something is "as much use as a chocolate teapot" or "as useful as a chocolate teapot". (You can also say something is "about as..." A variant of this is to talk about a "chocolate fireguard" instead. (A fireguard is a barrier you put in front of a fire in a house to stop children getting too close and burning themselves.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Marijke Rose Newbie Germany Joined 5253 days ago 33 posts - 35 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Czech | Message 10 of 20 09 January 2010 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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Checked out the Rosetta Stone and found it, well, ridiculous. It has the advantage that you can see the phrases written, hear them spoke whilst looking at a picture, but, as someone said, the phrases are ridiculous.
"The boy is under the table"... 'kay...? "The boy is under an airplane" ..YIKES!! (How often are you even going to USE this phrase?? I sure hope not often... I haven't come upon this situation even ONCE since I've been here.) I get the point of these excercises ("unter dem Tisch"), but from a beginning standpoint, they won't be very useful. Really, it's not worth the cost. Check out LiveMocha, instead, it's similar, but better... and free. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hypersport Senior Member United States Joined 5694 days ago 216 posts - 307 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 20 09 January 2010 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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The idea isn't to learn the phrases so that you can parrot them. The idea is to get a grasp of the structure so that you can apply it during real world conversations.
So many people like to say that Rosetta Stone is crap. I saw OldAccount posted in the other Rosetta Stone thread something on the lines that the only people who like it are those that haven't tried something better. I would be the exception I guess. I've used and still use a wide variety of materials for Spanish. Rosetta Stone was the first thing I bought 4 years ago when I started. Granted, the price was and still is a bit high, but I'm glad I did it. I was using the stuff that I was learning from the very beginning with native speakers and immediately recognized how to modify what I was learning into real world stuff that we were discussing. As has been said countless times, no one course will get anyone to fluency. There are some great courses and I think doing a few of them will give you a great base, but ultimately you have to get in the water, you have to start using native materials and speaking with native speakers about anything and everything if you ever want to gain a level of conversational fluency. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Marijke Rose Newbie Germany Joined 5253 days ago 33 posts - 35 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Czech | Message 12 of 20 09 January 2010 at 10:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Said I got the point of the phrases, didn't I? The problem with the program was, the person who was using it was a total beginner and had no idea how to make it work for her (she was an American, girlfriend of a friend of mine here, and she was visiting).
She had it because her father got an awesome copy of full courses (not just levels one or two in one language, but a complete set with multiple languages) while he was in the military and was allowed to keep it, so his children have been using it to learn various languages.. just my friend didn't really get it, even with my explaining what the actual point of these silly phrases were. So, if the person is able to ignore the sentances in whole and gather the important bits - the grammar that is shown - and figure out how to re-use them, themselves, then it's a useful program. Expensive as all heck, but has the potential of being useful. Just for the cost and lack of back and forthe interaction, I'd recommend you go with LiveMocha, instead. There you can actually get real feedback on your progress (there are reading and writing exercises that you can submit and have native speakers critique your work). And, so as not to SIMPLY crap on the Rosetta Stone, it is even used here in Germany to help native speakers. Got a friend who works in a place to help children who've come from bad - or limited - situations. Some of the children (fully German children), have not learned to speak very well (to the point of potentially being considered handycapped or impaired, and some actually are) and my friend said they use the Rosetta Stone to help the children, since it's interactive, easy. He says it seems to help. So, the Rosetta Stone does have advantages. But, I personally disliked it, specifically after the cost was considered along with what it offers/doesn't offer. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kf4ebp Newbie United States Joined 5418 days ago 13 posts - 18 votes Studies: English*, German | Message 13 of 20 12 January 2010 at 4:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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I completed Rosetta Stone German 1,2, and 3. When I finished, I realized that I had spent $500 (US) and four months on a glorified flash card program.
While I did gain a large vocabulary in a relatively painless way, I do not feel that I gained any conversational skill from the program. I do not recommend it to anyone. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5216 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 14 of 20 09 February 2010 at 1:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I like Rosetta Stone, Version 3 at least. Far better than Version 2. No more that "The boy is under the table" stuff. Unit 1 starts with simple phrases like "He is running" or "The apple is green", but after that start the greetings, conversation, social situations, etc. It cannot be stressed enough how much Version 3 is better than Version 2. I haven't finished the Level 1 yet for Japanese, so I cannot say how much will I be able to communicate in it after I finish all the three levels. One nice thing is that there are lessons which are made solely to teach the Japanese scripts. Edited by Delodephius on 09 February 2010 at 1:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5824 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 15 of 20 09 February 2010 at 11:59am | IP Logged | ||
But how do they make it clear that the image means "the apple is green" and not "a green apple", "the green apple", "green apple", "this apple is green", "apples are green" (some languages express this concept in the singular)? Rosetta Stone is cheap. It's cheap software, it's cheap translations, it's cheap pedagogy. The only thing that isn't cheap is the price tag. Honestly, they must be making like 1000% profit or something. It's bad, but so is most stuff on the market -- if it was priced the same as the rest of the rubbish it might be acceptably bad, but at that price it is atrocious. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5216 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 16 of 20 09 February 2010 at 7:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know it is against forum rules to say this (I think), but I never met anyone in my country who bought Rosetta Stone, if you know what I mean. ;-)
Second of all, some languages like Slavic don't make a difference between "a green apple" and "the green apple", and phrases like "this green apple" or "that green apple" would usually have a kid or someone pointing to the apple. Besides, this is just the first Unit where the basic feeling of the language and basic grammar is to be acquired. Starting from Unit 2 there are no more such phrases; it's normal conversation and actually useful stuff till the end. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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