Opinions of Rosetta Stone

I am sure many of you are aware of Rosetta Stone, the software that offers immersion-based language learning. I am currently using it to learn German, as that has been one of my long-time desires.

My question is directed towards those that has seriously undertaken the task of learning a new language and have used Rosetta Stone as their primary method. Do you feel that Rosetta Stone, alone, is enough to say you "know" the language? Obviously, it is 100% or even 50% of the language, but very few words comprise a majority of a spoken language... I would imagine that the average knowledge of the English language by native English speakers is somewhere around one-third of all words, if that.

A little background for me. I took six years of French between junior and senior high schools. I never had much of an opportunity to use it practically. The most I have done is skimmed some IT blogs and articles that are written in French (which is actually quite easy to do as new technology related words are borrowed from English, for the most part). I have also loosely translated a postcard of a friend's French relative. If I had to, I could probably pick up French rather quickly. Also, I have picked up quite a bit of Spanish without even trying, between having a friend for a year from Nicaragua and watching Dora the Explorer with the kids... and already have studied French for so long (as they are both children of Latin).

I have been teaching myself German, rather pathetically, for the past four years. I have been using books and audio disks. I have a good working knowledge of the grammar and pronunciation. I haven't put much time into it, however, because of various other priorities, like school, work, and certs. Anyhow, I am looking to get serious with it. I have mentioned in other threads that I want to move to Germany for a couple of years and work there. My reasons are multiple: 1) I am of roughly 40% German descent and want to learn more about the culture and try to work through more of my genealogy over there, 2) I want to experience Germany as a traveler and as a resident, 3) I have a niece that I have never met in Germany (her mother is German) and I would love for my family to visit her, 4) Germany is a central location in Europe that would allow for short trips all over the continent via train and short flights, or even driving, allowing me to give a breadth of experiences to my children and my wife. My current employer occasionally has opening in Germany, but I may also consider other employers.

My main worries are how accurate can I say I "know" German after just completing Rosetta Stone (German levels 1-5)? Indianapolis is an old German town; up until World War I, there were German language newspapers here. We have a fairly good German-American Club (GAK) here and a few German restaurants and a bakery that support local events. In addition, Cincinnati is about a 90 minutes drive and is another old German town (they have a Hoffbrauhaus!). I have been actively looking for German copies of movies (I have Madagascar 3 in German), and I can easily browse the web for newspapers, but I can also pickup newspapers and magazines at the local German bakery. As far as taking courses in German, it isn't very feasible based on the time constraints and the schedules for courses (I can take any undergrad course as audit for free at my Alma Mater, but foreign languages, with the exception of Spanish, are only offered during the days at 50 minute sessions four times a week... if it were two sessions of 100 minutes, I would be better able to do this when factoring in the commute, since it is around lunch time). The other big local university (IUPUI) offers German in the evenings, but each course costs about as much as the retail price of Rosetta Stone (sale price is only $500).

What are your thoughts? Thanks.

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neocybe

I've heard fluenz is a good product as well. Apparently they have a different approach; conversational Vs showing you a picture of an apple and how to say it in the given language.

powerfool

neocybe,

I will have to give that a look. I am also considering finding a "chat" buddy in Germany that has a job in technology. It will serve multiple purposes: 1) Networking, 2) General language practice, and 3) specific language practice that will be good for working.

And to those that may mention it, yes, many (most) Germans speak English. However, I feel that it would be in my favor to also learn German. I have a feeling that in meetings they wouldn't wish to change the language to accommodate [potentially] one person; while individual conversations could probably easily be done in English. Also, my point is to force me into using German so I can get better.

One note: I really do like the method employed by Rosetta Stone. It doesn't just show pictures of an object and say what it is... although that is the basis of how it works; it starts out like that and then builds upon in without explaining in English, at all. I am just worried that there won't be "enough" covered through the five levels. My youngest daughter is also using it and she is doing fantastically well. My eldest daughter is essentially uninterested and doesn't want to come to Germany with us, but I think she just may have to suck it up and come along for a semester or two... maybe we will let her come back home to finish up, as my in-laws live in our school district. I have to call up her school and find out what options she has for foreign languages that are not offered by the school. I went to the same high school and we had Spanish, French, and Latin. Now, they have Spanish and Latin... but they were going to offer either Chinese or Japanese this year, but that never materialized. She was hoping to learn Chinese... but since she has to take three years of one language, or two years each of two different languages, to get an honors diploma, she will likely be starting Spanish next year. A neighboring school district offers Spanish, French, Latin, German, and Japanese... so that may be an option (we are just 200 feet from the district boundary, anyhow).

Anyhow, thanks neocybe, I will give it a look.

demonfurbie

try eve online ... its an mmo but i played it and picked up russian because the people i was shooting at are russian and i spyed on there teamspeak,

if ya want a chat buddy

f0rgiv3n

I have learned Spanish through Rosetta Stone back in HS. I took 4 classes of Spanish and a lot of it was Rosetta Stone based. From my experience, after taking and learning that I knew the words but not necessarily fluent discussion. I have since traveled to Spain twice and have attempted to speak to others who speak Mexican Spanish. When traveling to Spain I realized how much I am lacking in the every day, casual conversation. It's hard to say that you "know" a language with only using Rosetta Stone.

My advice would be to do Rosetta Stone to get your solid foundation and then find groups of people who either speak German already or are learning like you are. The only way to get to the 100% fluent level is to speak it in a conversation.

What Rosetta Stone gets you is the process of speaking. The thing that you need to get down is the on-the-fly response. Like I said, the only way to get that level would be talking to someone in German.

/MyTwoCents

ptilsen

Rosetta Stone and similar methods can teach how to get by in conversations, but I don't think using only RS is enough to be able to say you "speak it". I would even say the same of true immersion, ie living in another country as an adult. In the absence of actual knowledge of grammar, all you can do effectively through immersion is learn how to say specific, common things and hope to infer how the grammar works well enough to get by when you need to say something uncommon. That might work for German, being a Germanic language like English with very similar grammar, but it doesn't work well for Spanish, in which grammar is drastically different even though vocabulary is similar.

In short, I think RS can lead to much stronger conversational fluency, but it must be coupled with more "traditional" language study to produce a truly useful understanding.

it_consultant

I did Russian I and II and I was able to understand most spoken commands, street signs, menus etc. My problem is that I am extremely shy, while I might be able to understand and know how to respond, I clam up and reply in English.

I spent a good amount of time learning Cyrillic only to find that in the subways of St. Petersburg they put the latin script on the signs to help out the foreigners...I felt a little cheated.

Mrkali

My wife and her family are Persian. Even through her family speaks English, at gatherings typically other Persians are present so everyone is only speaking Farsi.

I picked up Rosetta Stone Farsi and gave learning the language a shot and while I know the words, I've been.. informed.. that my accent is.. horrific. You'll definitely want to find a native language buddy to practice with in addition to the software.

About7Narwhal

If you are going to use Rosetta Stone, I would suggest you also watch TV shows or movies in the language. This will help aid in both comprehension and conversational skills. Rosetta Stone does a great job of teaching you the language, but lacks a little in teaching you how to use it.

Roguetadhg

I'm a firm believer that if you only take 1 type of language lesson, it won't be enough.

You've really need to get your head into the culture, watching movies, music, even going as far as to convert your computer's language into that language / region helps. I was learning Japanese, and went full bore into it. But it's been 9 years of trying to find ".co.jp" websites and my interest waned. I couldn't speak to anyone in person, and no one at any "Japanese" stores wanted to speak to the dumb american :P

...I got laughed at. Something about A cat drives slowly on the moon?

it_consultant

The couple of times I broke out Russian the people were so surprised that I had bothered that they didn't care that my pronunciation was awful.

It takes 2 years of 5 day-a-week all-day training from native speakers for you to become somewhat fluent in a non-latin based language if you go to the Defense Language Institute - and they are the best. They have short courses for the State Department Foreign Service so their people can read signs, converse with taxi drivers, etc. So don't feel bad that fluency seems hard to come by.

jamesleecoleman

I was thinking about getting Rosetta Stone for Russian. From what I've seen, it looks like it's a flash card type deal for the most part.

I didn't see any way I could take command of the language through Rosetta stone. So I just brought books and went over to Livemocha to find native speakers.

powerfool

I am finding that listening to some of my old high school favorites (Rammstein and KMFDM) is giving me something to listen to that is real...-ish.

gkca

it_consultant wrote: »

I did Russian I and II and I was able to understand most spoken commands, street signs, menus etc. My problem is that I am extremely shy, while I might be able to understand and know how to respond, I clam up and reply in English.

Don't be shy, most Russians would be very pleased that you took time to learn the language and nobody really cares if your pronunciation is a little off.

antielvis

I've learned several languages over the course of my life, one from Rosetta Stone. RS allowed me to be functionally fluent in the language. I could read signs, I could speak to people and I could understand the langauge I learned. It does not teach you slang and you will stumble in a fast conversation. If you couple it with other activities like forums & watching media in that language it'll work just fine.

powerfool

@jamesleecoleman - thanks for the mention of Livemocha... I was looking for something like that.

antielvis

Problem is Livemocha is very slow/dead lately. It seemed to be big a few years ago. Personally, I think it has the potential to be a good version of Facebook.

it_consultant

jamesleecoleman wrote: »

I was thinking about getting Rosetta Stone for Russian. From what I've seen, it looks like it's a flash card type deal for the most part.

I didn't see any way I could take command of the language through Rosetta stone. So I just brought books and went over to Livemocha to find native speakers.

When you get to L2 you start learning grammar and the alphabet more thoroughly, it is more than just flash cards. Plus, they have voice recognition so you should be speaking every lesson.

DevNRG

Look into the Pimsleur Method.

Psoasman

gkca wrote: »

Don't be shy, most Russians would be very pleased that you took time to learn the language and nobody really cares if your pronunciation is a little off.

Very true.

My wife is Ukrainian and her family all speak Russian. I had started to use RS Level 1 before starting at WGU and once I graduate, I am planning to pick it up again.

paulgswanson

Look into the Pimsleur Method.

I second this. I was trying to learn Vietnamese via RS, I bombed so hard...then I heard about Pimsleur and I feel its far superiour to RS

MSP-IT

DevNRG wrote: »

Look into the Pimsleur Method.

Agreed. I am currently using Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone for both German and French.

kurosaki00

I did a semester of Japanese in college and after that I used Rosetta stone and other stuff to keep learning.
In my experience is that Rosetta stone is great but as getting the core of your language.
For example when you are a kid and you learn the verbs and such but is not until you hear and speak with people that your sentences and what you say takes meaning and sense.
Rosetta stone + something like Pimsleur will help you quite a lot.
Pimsleur is more practical but is not as in dept as rosetta stone.

gkca

Well, while I've never used neither Rosetta Stone nor Pimsleur method and can't comment on those, I've thought I'd share what worked for me - a combination of a basic grammar book and good dictionary to build the basics, then reading as well as listening to the audio books and watching the tv to expand the vocabulary and develop understanding of the spoken language and finally reading aloud and active participation in the conversations with the native speakers to overcome shyness and start talking. That's about it

Cherper

I majored in Russian the first time in college. I could read, write, speak, and would even dream in Russian. Not using for years, I lost lots, if not most. I picked up Pimsleur and it was good to refresh, but I also tried the Michel Thomas products, and they were great. Rosetta Stone didn't do it for me. I wish I had the time to spend 3-4 hours a day speaking Russian again, but I am probably back to 30%. While not great, I can at least get by.

Chivalry1

I started picking up a little French 7 years ago from 2 coworkers in a past company I worked for. Both were from Africa (Morocco and Congo). 2 years ago I decided to learn it fluently. I purchased Rosetta Stone; I think it was a waist of hard earned money. IT became very boring!! RS is a resource but it IS not close to being a sole resource for learning a language. Similar to Shon Harris cannot make you a CISSP....it comes from experience and various resources and influences.

My opinion you have to immerse yourself in the language. This means listening to music, movies, television shows and opting to read in that language. Sometimes I opt to watch DVD movies in French! Also finding languages groups in your local area. This offers you the ability to communicate naturally with speakers. To me that improves language learning.

These days I find any reason to improve on my language skills. Also speaking of approaches; I think Michel Thomas is better than Pimsleur!