• LAVA Moderator: Shinji Ikari

How do you feel about Rosetta Stone language learning software?

purple_cloud

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Dearest mods, I'm not sure if this belongs moreso here or in P&S, but I think it fits okay here since it's learning related. It could also go in SO I suppose?


Lately, I've come in close contact with Rosetta Stone. I've noticed some things I think are a great idea, and others I think are awful. For example, all the languages use the same method, and introduce concepts in the same order (all begin with boy and girl, especially gender languages like italian and german for example,) but an attempt at phonetic makes some things difficult to figure out, especially since it's usually at least partly orthographic as well. I've yet to find out IF you can actually choose IPA as any form of setting, I doubt it, and to me that's a huge disadvantage since it's useful to know and to those who know it, the other interpretations could just be confusing. Does anyone feel like the software is strictly geared towards someone who knows English? Also, they don't gather stuff in neat charts like used in rote memorization, and you sorta have to figure out what's changing in order to figure out the meaning, and while this is probably a pro I tend to get annoyed by it. I'm just curious, since the concept of learning an L2 the same way you learn an L1 would be through having to figure things out, and that's what they boast their method is.

Essentially, has anyone used this software and effectively learned another language? If you have, what are some advantages/disadvantages to it's method? Is it worth the hefty price tag that comes along with it?
 
To be honest I don't really think Rosetta Stone is worth the price. For getting some of the basics of the language I think it's pretty effective but learning a language fluently(or at least conversationally fluent) is pretty much impossible on Rosetta Stone. It is definitely not worth the price tags. I find the most effective way to learn a language is to surround yourself with the culture, buy a dictionary, a grammar book, and start learning the basics.
 
To be honest I don't really think Rosetta Stone is worth the price. For getting some of the basics of the language I think it's pretty effective but learning a language fluently(or at least conversationally fluent) is pretty much impossible on Rosetta Stone. It is definitely not worth the price tags. I find the most effective way to learn a language is to surround yourself with the culture, buy a dictionary, a grammar book, and start learning the basics.

immersing yourself in a language isn't always possible. especially if you want to learn a less than common language.

i was able to use rosetta stone to learn the baiscs of a language pretty quickly. in about a month, i was able to converse with my roommate and his family about as well as preschooler. i was pretty pleased that i could string together words to get my point across without having to translate every word. all i wanted was basic conversation skills, i am not sure how it works for becoming fluent.
 
I don't know about other languages, but for Russian Rosetta Stone is a joke. I know quite a few people who tried to use their software to improve their Russian and it doesn't really go beyond the basics in any meaningful way.

But then again I am biased, as I work for a startup that develops Russian language software (with a focus on grammar, no less). :)
 
^ Leviticus, I think being trained with such a HEAVY focus on grammar is what is making the whole "distance immersion" idea so difficult for me. If I literally was thrown in another country, clearly I'd figure it out --- it's something humans do to adapt and survive. I'm just not sure if I'm creative enough after having enough formal and scientific information about language forced into me. I feel like RS is good for those more ignorant to the fine linguistic details. If they labeled those spectrograms a little better/make them easier to see, and had IPA as an option along with some charts tossed in that are printable for those who may need to use several methods at once to effectively acquire an L2, then I'd be happier. However, the software is HUGE, that would drive the price up even more (it's dropped SIGNIFICANTLY in the last year, it is not $700+ for a complete language anymore), and it wouldn't benefit the general customer target either.


animal_cookie, that sounds like what I expect to get out of it, just the basics, so we'll see how it goes as I further play with Italian...
 
RS was a good thing for me to use to gather basics before I actually immersed myself in another culture, although I had already done that in Latin America (with good ol' highschool spanish) and I did fine and picked the language up quickly, so I don't really think it matters if you use RS or another method to get familiar with a language before you travel to a place.

Also, I never knew RS was $700+ for a language. Spend that money on a plane ticket, yo.
 
animal_cookie, that sounds like what I expect to get out of it, just the basics, so we'll see how it goes as I further play with Italian...

i definitely learned the basics. i could string together 5-6 word sentences with proper grammar as long as i spoke in basic tenses. i learned enough vocabulary to pick up bits and pieces of conversations but i found it hard to follow them completely. i practiced speaking with my roommate in person and typing to his friends online.

btw, i was not making a serious effort to learn the language. it was more just to prove to him that i could. i used rosetta stone a few times a week for maybe a half hour at a time.

some libraries have copies of rosetta stone. you could check it out and see how you like it before buying it.
 
^ I have access to the software for a certain amount of hours per week for free, any and all of the V4 languages (and Latin which is V3), so I am sticking to using it that way for now. I couldn't bring myself to ever spend that kind of money on it...I was just interested to see how other people felt about it.
 
I was thinking of using Rosetta Stone to learn Thai before I go off there, but this uncertainty is kinda putting me off. (I dunno if this is allowed, but surely I could find it as a torrent? Theres no way im paying that price for it if it's going to be questionable at best)

I heard it was really good....anyone know what its like for learning Thai?
 
It's crap.

My opinion at least. I learned Spanish far quicker just studying in my own manner and I was able to almost get a huge grasp of it in a couple weeks.

What's especially bad is they use the same images and everything for different languages so it seems lazy and doesn't really inspire you much to learn. Plus I don't believe in the "hammer you with foreign words and some pictures" concept all that much.

I firmly believe in acquiring a decent understanding of linguistics enough to understand how the language works, then acquiring knowledge of the language in question through free sources (there are lots for most languages), and then or subsequently immersing yourself in the language through audio and video.

I can read most Spanish w/o issue atm and can follow along TV with subtitles. Understanding it w/o subtitles and speaking fluently are another matter. That is the next step though for me.
 
I side stepped the price tag and got like lvl1-2 on about 24 languages, 1-3 on south american spanish and french.

The software is not as intuitive as I would like, and I didnt know each level had 4 sections so I did the first section on 3 levels of spanish. Then I lost my job where I actually wanted to use spanish, it helped on quite a few saturday nights. They use the same photos basically for all the languages, its amazing how lazy their approach was. Im sure they made bukoo bucks.

I went to amazon and got a couple of my favorite books in spanish thinking that would help, and Im sure it would have had I been more diligent. Perhaps starting with 1984 was a mistake, maybe the cat in the hat would have been better.

How do I feel about piracy? ARGH Matey, ill trade some bootie for some land HO!

Really wish I had gotten the farsi one right when bush declared war on afghanistan. Translators were/are making like 150k a year. Im sure 6 months of intensive study would have really paid off. Lesson learned. Next time we invade somewhere Im learning the language stat.
 
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