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Rosetta Stone Q&A (Former Employee) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4929 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes  Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 35 of 109 13 June 2012 at 4:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't that at all from your postings. If anything, it comes across as calculated product placement. R. == 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Eumaeus Groupie Australia Joined 5403 days ago 75 posts - 134 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 36 of 109 13 June 2012 at 5:19am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Oh so now you're putting it all back on us? I seem to remember it was you who had their posts deleted for, of all things, name calling. And that was after you had already referred to TerryW's question as " childish" and "idiotic". My complaint is in no way circular. I paid an exorbitant amount of money for a substandard product. It was like a set of flash cards made by Fischer Price. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4990 days ago 245 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 37 of 109 13 June 2012 at 6:58am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Ask the people who followed Pimsleur or Michel Thomas first. The logs here are full of such people, and they appear to have done just fine. There are many right ways to embark on a language study. There is nothing magic about Rosetta Stone. Yes, it's slick but not magic. Again, there exist cheaper and equally (if not more) effective methods for getting an introduction to a new language. After 600 hours of study, whether a person started with Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone and then went on to something more comprehensive like FSI, the thing that will determine their current ability is what they did in those final 550 hours, not the first 50. 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6396 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 38 of 109 13 June 2012 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
And using a photo of an Arabic newspaper basically takes away all the good about RS. If this was at least a well-known one like The Times or even better, a popular Dutch newspaper for a Dutch course, it would create stronger associations than the generic, random one that most users of the program aren't ever going to read. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4808 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 39 of 109 13 June 2012 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Firstly, my experience with Rosetta stone is limited to the demo on the website. I read a lot about RS and I was curious whether it is really so bad or just intended for other kind of use. I gave Rosetta the chance to impress me with the demo and their information about the courses. The price is high but I might have even spared the money if it was really great (I am already giving quite a lot for my resources, so I could gather the money (or I could wish it for Christmas) :-) ). But for the price, it would need a lot of input, lot of audio, useful exercises and enough content to be my main resource for levels A1-B2 (or at least B1). After trying the demo, I wouldn't even waste the space on my hard drive for a pirated copy. First con is the lack of clear explanation of grammar. For the basics, it wouldn't need to be so far from the "no translation" approach. I would just need to know what is each part of the sentence, and why the verb just changed to not have to only memorise a phrase. The "grammar explanations are boring, difficult and good for nothing" is just a marketing using people's experiences with school language classes decades ago. A good explanation doesn't harm, quite the opposite. The output you mention in the post (it made me laugh so I quoted it) is something I didn't find in the demo. Multiple choice is not much of output. It requires memorisation word-picture, which may be really great (I use flashcards and find them really efficient) but applying this to whole sentences just cannot lead to creating your own, not right from the beginnings as RS claims. Not without grammar explanation. I am all for a ton of examples for everything you learn, but just the examples without any explanation would make me learn 100 times slower. Sure, the voice recognition would be a wonderful thing, and this might be the great output you speak of, David. If it really worked. I would love to use something like this myself for my self-taught languages in the beginnings, to perfect my pronunciation. But if it is buggy, and recongnizes heavy american accent as correct and native speaker as wrong, as more reviews mention, I don't think it is worth the money. I couldn't try it myself, because it is not part of the demo. Too bad, since it is something RS seems to be so proud of. What I loved in the demo, is the audio. Great for a beginner. I can't tell how much of it is in the whole course, but I really liked the pieces I heard in the demo. I've read the content list as well. The topics seem to me like A1/A2 level, but there is no official information about the cefr level. Which is quite lacking since the product is offered in Europe as well. And I cannot see how the product teaches me to write, which it claims to teach as well. A few things in the "how it works" seemed weird and nonsense to me: "By eliminating flash cards, dictionaries, grammar and boring memory tests, our solution empowers you to discover, experience and enjoy your new language to the full." What I saw of the product were ONLY flashcards and memory tests. Yes, RS might be good at that (it might even be the best flashcard software :-) ), so why don't they admit it as a value? This is just stupid marketing expecting people to be idiots. "Hear, write and retain knowledge by matching words to images" How can I "write" by matching words to images? And shouldn't I be learning to "listen"? I can "hear" any foreign language without a single minute of study, my ears are alright. "you’ll be sharing opinions and ideas on art, politics and culture" How can pictures teach that? (Even though the picture showing "corruption" might be funny) Why I wrote this. I wanted to show David this community is not a brainwashed group of RS haters, who only parrot what they saw somewhere else. I am surely not the only one who tried a demo and thought about it, even though I am one of the most serious cases of unability to write briefly. And I think it is good to appreciate the new marketing strategy "reach to the clients, show you understand them and their complaints, answer the questions, and try to convince them of some RS qualities from the inside of the group." It is less stupid than the previous ones. Even though I like you log and wish you a lot of success with your Russian, your posts on this thread look like nothing but this kind of marketing, I'm sorry. 13 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Steffen Newbie Germany Joined 4770 days ago 27 posts - 63 votes Studies: German* | Message 40 of 109 14 June 2012 at 6:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I have been using RS courses for Swedish, French and - to some extent - Greek and even English. In my opinion, the programme is aimed at absolute beginners but - as is usually the case with beginners' material - may be of some use to false beginners too. At higher levels, it also helped improving my fluency in English, although to a lesser degree than I had hoped for. All five levels seem to give a well-rounded, albeit (of course!) incomplete overview of basic and intermediate grammar (pretty much as an Assimil course does) and teach about 2000-2500 words of vocabulary. I estimate that the complete course will get a serious learner up to level A2-B1 of the European Reference Frame. As for the sneering attitude many self-proclaimed language learning experts around here show towards RS ... well, it's simply unsubstantiated. Ever since RS launched Version 4, this has become a pretty respectable language course, which has its strong points as well as its downsides and will appeal to some learners more than to others. Since it includes personal tuition now, it is not even overpriced anymore. I am a bit suspicious that the OP does not mention the huge change this product underwent since the early days of the company (years before the time, he/she allegedly worked with them). The software still generalises language patterns, perhaps too much so, but has become much more flexible in that regard than it used to be. Although I gave up Greek after just a few months, I found it much easier to grasp some bits of the difficult Greek grammar with RS than, say, with the German Assimil Greek course. (I like Assimil too, though). Finally, I noticed that RS is not quite the undemanding, oversimplified language course for the undiscerning masses many people here seem to think it is. Since you have to spot grammar rules (and their exceptions!) on your own, the experience can be quite challenging and even intellectually satisfying. If one, on the other hand, just clicks wildly and mindlessly about as if this was a video game, one will get bored quickly and get little mileage out of it. So the course in a way mirrors its users seriousness and impartiality. Edited by Steffen on 14 June 2012 at 6:57pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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