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Rosetta stone, how many hours? | ||
Tags: Rosetta Stone | Time to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Tonitrus Groupie United States Joined 5902 days ago 64 posts - 68 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 26 03 April 2008 at 12:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I think I was using Version 2...I bought it right before they revised the website and added more Level 3 languages.
But, as for Swahili, more so than just the grammar, any language that doesn't use The Latin Alphabet (Arabic, Russian, Greek etc etc) would be incredibly hard to learn in Rosetta Stone. Thanks for your input, but I put German aside for awhile to focus on Spanish, which I am much farther along in. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| benjavi Newbie Brazil Joined 6138 days ago 4 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English | Message 10 of 26 03 April 2008 at 8:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've just bought a 3 months online subscription for German (v3). This is exactly the same course as the cd-rom
package. Here is how it breaks down: The course contains 3 Levels. Each Level has 4 Units. (e.g.: Level 1, Unit 1 is "Language Basics" and Unit 2 is "Greetings and introduction") Each Unit has 4 Lessons (about 30min each), plus the 5th "Milestone" lesson (about 10min). So each Unit has about 130 minutes. A Level has 4 Units = 520 minutes And since there are 3 Levels = 1560 minutes, or 26 hours. As for the course itself, I'm aware of the positive and negative opinions here. My 2 cents is: I'm not bored at all. If I relax and just listen, I think I can do it for more than an hour everyday. It's no more repetitive than any other drill, and far less dreary. I'm ignoring speech recognition, both because of the unanimous agreement that this feature doesn't work well, and because I don't believe in speaking until you have a very good understanding of the language. It should definitely be used together with another material which teaches you grammar, preferably starting after you have a general idea of how the grammar works. In its defense, I'm not aware of any course/method/system mentioned here that when combined with more material is not better suited for learning. As far as how much you will learn, I'll let you know in a few weeks. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6895 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 11 of 26 03 April 2008 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Benjavi, are you doing any of the "focused activities"? Yes, each lesson is about thirty minutes, but there's an hour or two of practice for each one as well. If you follow their recommended course (select "Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking" when you start off) each Unit is close to 6 hours. This makes 24 hrs. per level and 72 total. Of course, if you only do the main lessons then each level is only about 8 hours, but you miss out on the vocabulary and especially grammar practice.
I agree that speech recognition can certainly get annoying at times. Alex 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| benjavi Newbie Brazil Joined 6138 days ago 4 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English | Message 13 of 26 04 April 2008 at 8:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Alex, you're absolutely right.
When you run your mouse over the Core Lesson icon it opens a dialog box saying it's "Lesson x, about 30 minutes". I've just presumed all those other icons (the Focused Activities) were sections of said lesson. They are further exercises, and add up to between 40min to 1h45, depending on the Lesson. So your estimate of 72hs is right on the money. It's worth mentioning that I've done the Focused Activities besides the Core Lesson, and it felt like 30 minutes... either the program is nicer than I thought, or I'm highly influenced by estimates :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6895 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 14 of 26 04 April 2008 at 8:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Time certainly flies using the program! I had no idea it was taking up so much time until I realized that you could mouse over and see the time estimate.
I just finished Italian Level I, and counted the individual words I learned, not counting different forms like "I have, You have, She has, etc." In total, there were about 390, or about 25 words per lesson. I don't feel anywhere near fluent/conversational (though I could converse pretty freely with those 390 words, in the present tense). However, I feel like it has taught me a lot for the 24 hours that I used it. Considering that Pimsleur teaches only just over 100 words in their first level, I'd say RS taught a good number of words. If the pace keeps up, then I should have around 1200 words by the end of the three levels, which is certainly a good start! On to level 2.
For Arabic, I have to agree. However, version 3 does make an effort to teach you the alphabet, and you can now type in these foreign languages. It shows you letter by letter what sounds they make, focusing on most common first and then less common letters later. By the end of the second unit (eight lessons), I'd say you'd be able to read a foreign script like Russian pretty well. I sampled the first two lessons of Russian (school has it) and didn't feel hindered at all by the foreign alphabet, because the "reading" activities (new in v3) focused exclusively on the sounds of different letters. (Russian was hard for other reasons; noun declensions, adjective agreement, verbs of motion....ack!) Edited by AlexL on 04 April 2008 at 8:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| johnclt Newbie Joined 4867 days ago 4 posts - 5 votes Studies: French* | Message 15 of 26 21 January 2011 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here is my personal experience with Rosetta Stone. About 10-15 hours to finish 4 lessons
and hit a milestone w/ 12 hours being my norm. I hear that the later units have less lessons but using logic about 40-60 hours to finish a unit. All 5 units? Well that's about 200-300 hours. I am an extremely slow learner but my gf speaks french so I have a hand up. My advice? Don't focus on how long it will take you probably will never establish fluency until you actually live the language. Just enjoy your learning experience and celebrate everytime you make a stride. Enjoy it! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geirtbr Groupie Norway Joined 6468 days ago 83 posts - 90 votes Speaks: Norwegian* Studies: Russian | Message 16 of 26 27 January 2011 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Does anybody have any guess on how large vocabulary you get with version 3? If you complete the three levels.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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