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Rosetta Stone and Michael Phelps

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CaitO'Ceallaigh
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United States
katiekelly.wordpress
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795 posts - 829 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian
Studies: Czech, German

 
 Message 1 of 6
19 March 2010 at 7:28pm | IP Logged 
I stumbled upon a great blog entry criticizing an interview with Michael Phelps and how Rosetta Stone helped him learn a few "useful terms" in Mandarin.

Please check this out and let me know if it made you as queasy as it did me.

I had some positive results with Rosetta Stone in Spanish, and I've posted favorable reviews here, but I already had started with Pimsleur, so I had "some" background.

I have since then come to think it is ridiculous. And what turned me off once and for all was when I was actually interviewed for a commercial for RS. I just tried to give them honest answers. The director kept saying, "Cut! Try again."

My boyfriend came too, and though he had only tried RS once, for Italian, he was so good at saying exactly what they wanted to hear, even though they were all lies, that the film crew took an immediate liking to him, and interviewed him! Neither of us made it into the final cut, thank goodness.
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numerodix
Trilingual Hexaglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
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 Message 2 of 6
19 March 2010 at 7:50pm | IP Logged 
And here I thought the voice recognition feature might actually have some merit, despite I never tried it. But then I read that blog entry.
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Arekkusu
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Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
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Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 3 of 6
19 March 2010 at 7:57pm | IP Logged 
Feminine and masculine in Mandarin, right...

It's a good thing he wasn't learning Spanish, 'cause he'd have looked like an even bigger moron saying he didn't learn anything.

Why would Rosetta Stone use a sponsor who will never learn a language?
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CaitO'Ceallaigh
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
katiekelly.wordpress
Joined 6616 days ago

795 posts - 829 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian
Studies: Czech, German

 
 Message 4 of 6
19 March 2010 at 8:34pm | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:
Why would Rosetta Stone use a sponsor who will never learn a language?


My gut says it's because anyone who has used Rosetta Stone, even with success, isn't going to give the glowing spiel they want. It'd be far better to use a spokesperson who is more willing to repeat their message, and the more clueless you are, the better.

I hate to say this, because as a swimmer myself, I'm inclined to say that probably Michael Phelps is a nice person, but ugh. That was painful.

One of my friends actually did make it into a Rosetta Stone commercial. But the next time I saw her, I greeted her in Spanish, and she said, "Oh, I don't really speak Spanish."

But boy did she sound convincing in the commercial!

What they want you to say is how Rosetta Stone helps you feel more a part of the culture, that it made your traveling so much easier, how you learn like a child.

They're catering to people who travel, but not really people who learn languages.

Even then, I used Levels II and III for Spanish, diligently, and it helped. But I think there are better ways.
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CaitO'Ceallaigh
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
katiekelly.wordpress
Joined 6616 days ago

795 posts - 829 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian
Studies: Czech, German

 
 Message 5 of 6
19 March 2010 at 8:36pm | IP Logged 
Oh yeah. The angle they were working on with my boyfriend and me was that Rosetta Stone "brought us together."

Please. I gave him RS Italian for Christmas. He used it once.
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TerryW
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United States
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 Message 6 of 6
20 March 2010 at 11:30pm | IP Logged 
We had a similar discussion in this thread:

Michael Phelps on Rosetta stone


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