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How useful is Rosetta Stone? | ||
Tags: Rosetta Stone | Usefulness | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| ALS Senior Member United States Joined 5617 days ago 104 posts - 131 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Finnish, Russian | Message 17 of 20 10 February 2010 at 1:04am | IP Logged |
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After trying Rosetta Stone many times with many different languages, I firmly believe it should not be used as the first course for your intended language and that it's best used after you have a good grounding in the language. Such as finishing the Michel Thomas courses, which mostly focus on grammar and pronunciation, and then using Rosetta Stone for vocabulary and exposure. I believe there are two major flaws with Rosetta Stone.
1) The complete lack of explanation or reference for grammar points. Even a companion booklet that follows along the RS course and explains grammar points as they are presented would vastly increase the value of RS. 2) The cost. For the same price as Rosetta Stone I can get an entire Michel Thomas course and a library's worth of grammar books, dictionaries, children's readers, etc. This is most apparent when you compare different languages; nearly every RS course is exactly the same, regardless of languages, with the only differences often being the pictures it uses. I have a hard time believing they need to charge that much money for the little amount of work that goes into this software. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6085 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 18 of 20 10 February 2010 at 4:28pm | IP Logged |
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FSI is better as far as I can make out. Some of the vocabulary is out of date there in at least some of the languages, but it is free and accessible to anyone who has an Internet connection. The verdict on RS seems to be pretty mixed.
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 19 of 20 11 February 2010 at 11:05am | IP Logged |
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Well what version are you talking about? V2 or V3?
Anyhow, I'm learning Japanese with RS and I'm very satisfied with it, maybe because I haven't tried other programs, but then again I can't afford any (nor I think I could find any at all in my country). The most positive thing I can say about V3 is that they actually added lessons for learning Japanese scripts, so I'm learning Hiragana and Katakana and also Kanji through the Furigana option, and when I forget I can just switch to Romaji for a sec. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Destroyer Hexaglot Newbie Czech Republic Joined 6399 days ago 16 posts - 17 votes Speaks: Czech*, EnglishC2, Spanish, Russian, German, Esperanto Studies: Japanese | Message 20 of 20 13 February 2010 at 7:59am | IP Logged |
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I think that Rosetta Stone V3 is very useful as a supplement to any more standard
approach at a beginner/elementary/preintermediate level. It provides a change of pace and can be surprisingly fun (at least for me). It helps me directly connect words with vivid images (that are much better than in V2). Overall, I would definitely recommend it, though not for the full retail price. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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