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Rosetta Stone | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| ducr Newbie Canada Joined 6906 days ago 16 posts - 16 votes Speaks: French | Message 17 of 41 24 June 2005 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hi Victor. My reading was at a much lower level when I tried RS2 a few years ago. Maybe a 3? I’ve since spent over 1200 hours in the classroom and have done lots of self study. At that time, though, I had completed Pimsleur III and a few other self study methods and my vocabulary was, I’m guessing, around 800 to 1000 words. I still found RS2 to be somewhat rudimentary. It wasn’t that I hated it. It’s really an elegant program and I can see why people love it, but for me it didn’t live up to its claims and I grew tired of it within a couple of weeks. I used it a number of times after that, but not much. There just wasn’t enough substance for me and I didn’t learn a great deal from it. I was really hoping to get more advanced grammar from RS. It didn’t even cover present subjunctive or conditional and it was difficult to find lessons that contained the grammar points that I needed to work on. It’s just not organized that way. For some people, that’s fine. For me, I found it disappointing that I couldn’t find different verb tenses or pronouns or any of the more challenging grammar to work on. It doesn’t really teach grammar, it just had a lot of pictures and situations (4 pics per lesson page) that one chooses when you hear some audio. It presents them in many different ways, but after a while it became rather boring for me. Perhaps it was good for review at the time. I went through a lot of the later lessons and spent a fair amount of time with it (about 40 or 50 hours). I found it was mostly testing me on things I had already learned. That’s not such a bad thing. But worth $225? Here is what Rosetta Stone claims to offer:
This just isn’t true. All key language skills? Advanced proficiency? This is hyperbole intended to persuade people to buy their product. It can’t really teach someone how to speak or write very much. It might be great for learning vocabulary, simple sentence structures, and perhaps training one's ear for basic things. I don’t remember that it even taught subordinate phrases. (Somebody please correct me if I’m wrong about this. It’s been quite a while since I’ve used it and my memory isn’t perfect.) RS is good for what it is - an introduction to the language with lots of amusing exercises. If you’re a beginner or a low level learner, then it’s great as a supplementary tool, but I wouldn’t rely on it as a primary learning method. I’ll give them credit - It does have a lot of exercises. They claim to offer over 300 hours of material. I’d suggest if you’re really curious about it, see if you can find a used copy on eBay. That way, if you don’t like it you can probably sell if for what you paid for it. Anyway…sorry to be so long winded, but I hope this helps. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Dogbert Newbie United States Joined 6905 days ago 8 posts - 10 votes | Message 18 of 41 24 June 2005 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I used Rosetta Stone online (German) for 3 month and paid 80 dollars (after a 10$ discount). I cancelled after that and do not think that it was worth my money. I considered myself a beginner in reading and writing, but the 1st level was too easy even for me. It does move rediculously slow, too, and it is just more and more of the same to the point where I couldn't take it anymore. The 2nd unit is not much different.
Another big problem with this course is that everything is in 3rd person, so you will not be able to carry a conversation, and since it is simply not good enough in teaching you to read, I'm not really sure what it's good for. The only thing I like is the way the program is made. It's easy to use and is a lot of fun (at least until you realize that all these countless lessons repeat each other). I felt that I wasn't taking 10 lessons, but 1 lesson 10 times. I hope this helps. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Nephilim Diglot Senior Member Poland Joined 6957 days ago 363 posts - 368 votes  Speaks: English*, Polish | Message 19 of 41 25 June 2005 at 2:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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Ducr,
I raised my Rossetta Stone question independtly of the thread as I didn't know there was a thread going - the administrator probably moved it there. It should really have been deleted or put at the beginning as it looks stupid in the middle of a thread. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bart Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 6972 days ago 155 posts - 159 votes Speaks: Dutch*, French, English Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese, Swedish | Message 20 of 41 25 June 2005 at 3:42am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm currently using Rosetta Stone Swedish and having a lot of fun. I think you shouldn't view it as a language learning program, but more as a fun way to excercise.
(Although it is indeed a little too expensive for that purpose) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Al-Malik Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member United Kingdom arabicgenie.com Joined 6946 days ago 221 posts - 294 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Dutch, French, Arabic (classical) Studies: Mandarin, Persian | Message 21 of 41 25 June 2005 at 4:33am | IP Logged | |||||
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If you want to take a look at RS, visit their free online demo: http://www.rosettastone.com/ind/free_demo/online
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sir Nigel Senior Member United States Joined 6916 days ago 1126 posts - 1102 votes 2 sounds | Message 22 of 41 25 June 2005 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I really wish they would make the level 3 edition for other languages besides Spanish and English. It covers grammar lessons in the target language, again with no translation. It has full length videos too with people using pretty much all the tenses that are used to converse. I think if they did that and released levels I-III for about $400 a lot more would like it. The photos could also use a redo in level 2!
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6933 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 23 of 41 27 June 2005 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think this independant review says it all regarding Rosetta Stone.
http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/chorus/call/reviews/rosetta_ russian/ 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| morprussell Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6975 days ago 272 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 24 of 41 27 June 2005 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
I wasn't able to get that link to work. Try this one. http://www-writing.berkeley.edu:16080/chorus/call/reviews/ro setta_russian/index.html Edited by morprussell on 27 June 2005 at 7:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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