I’m considering Rosetta Stone to learn a new language. Would anyone like to comment or provide opinions on the quality of this or other methods and products?
By the way…looks like I’ll be trying Danish.
I used Pimsleur and found it helpful because there is no book, so I could be walking or driving. I’d probably combine a listening/speaking/repetition method with a computer-based reading method.
Having once had the misfortune to be accosted by a self-taught Japanese student of English, wishing to test his skillz–I have to say that having a teacher, at least at the beginning, is necessary. I literally couldn’t understand a word he said, simply because he had never had anyone to correct his pronunciation, and probably over time the innacuracies snowballed and degenerated because he had no real world hurdle to compare to, just his own imaginary one. I would imagine that his grammar was similarly flawed but, of course, I was too busy just trying to grasp the words to pay attention.
The best method for learning Danish begins by sticking a hot potato down your throat…
(Well, somebody was going to say it. I just got here first 
)
Seriously, can you find somebody to speak it with? That will make any method work better. It can’t be coincidence that the most successful adult language learners I’ve met have started off by falling in love with either the country or, more likely, one of its inhabitants!
Rosetta Stone is used by the military–soldiers in Iraq are getting promotion points for finishing modules in Arabic. The interface is intuitive and it has recordings so you hear how words should sound. Eventually, though, you’ll need to be around a speaker of the language to correct pronunciation and to learn idioms if you really want to learn the language properly. Best method is immersion, though.
Isn’t there a Doper who’s just returned from Denmark? Merkwurdigliebe?
Once you’re out of the initial learning phase, and can make simple sentences etc, nothing beats practicing by instant messaging. I did that for months to build up vocabulary.
Then comes speaking.
Do you know any Danish already? Do you know anyone who does know any Danish? Why do you want to learn Danish?
My personal experience - I tried Rosetta stone for Italian, and it seemed ok. I learned “man,” “woman,” “boy,” “girl,” “the boys jump” “the children are on top of the table,” “the birds fly,” etc. And it seemed like a good program.
So I bought the Russian version. With that, all the flaws in the program became exceptionally clear.
RS shows you four pictures, and then either plays four sounds or shows four written sentences. There was no English-Russian dictionary, there was no Alphabet list (what sound does “и” make? RS isn’t going to tell you), there was no translation of the sentences (is that picture “the man is on the roof” or “the man is on the house” or “the man is fixing the roof” or “the man is holding a nail” or “the man points at the sky” or “the roof is leaky” or “the sky is blue”?). The spoken sentences are done by native speakers who do all the things that native speakers do - slur their words, chop off endings of words, mumble, etc. Going through the modules without understanding a damned thing is pretty easy. All it takes is matching a picture to a sound to a line of writing. As long as you know “when the guy makes that grunt, click this picture” - you don’t actually have to know what the picture is supposed to be showing you.
The reason it had kind of worked for me in Italian is that I semi-speak & read Spanish, and the structure and grammar and pronunciation of the two languages are close enough that I was making reasonable guesses as to what they were trying to get me to understand. When I was doing the same thing with a language with which I was totally unfamiliar, I didn’t have a chance.
Finally, after I’d plunked down way too much money for RS, I found out that my local library system offered it for free. So - yours might too. You may want to check.
My opinion, FWIW… I’ve never used it, but Rosetta Stone lauds itself for not using grammar drills and vocabulary lists, but rather focusing on developing language the ‘‘natural’’ way, i.e. the way you learned to speak your native language as a child… as amarinth notes above by using pictures and sounds and patterns.
The problem I see with this is that there is a specific mechanism in the brain designed for language acquisition. When you’re little, your mind is wide open, able to adapt and acquire the patterns and vocabulary and grammar of any language in the world. Eventually it begins to recognize the specific patterns of the native language surrounding it… and then it begins to close. As your brain develops, the native language acquisition mechanism shuts down… by the time you are 15-16 years old you do not have that magic super rapid intuitive language thing going for you any more.
So much as I think Rosetta Stone is a bit innovative for its approach, I have a hard time believing that the method is effective. By the time you are a teen you would normally learn new languages with a completely different hemisphere of your brain… it is entirely different sort of processing. RS is trying to do something that I think is probably scientifically impossible… optimize language acquisition by using a mechanism that no longer functions.
For second languages, the brain craves structure, grammar, and vocabulary drills. The very best method for learning a second language is to get a grip on the basics and then spend an extended amount of time in a country that speaks the language natively. There really is no substitute for total immersion.
Every brain is different, so everyone needs a different way to learn.
I walked into Cameroon speaking no French. I had ten weeks of training and stayed with a home stay family. As part of my training I had at least three hours a day of intensive French training in very small groups (2-4 people). These sessions were almost entirely spoken, with very little formal instruction on grammer, etc.
I walked out able to speak enough French to teach high school computer science classes.
I’m a convert to this method.
We had Rosetta Stone for Arabic and found it both wonderful and useless: wonderful because you had a good pronunciation model to follow at all times, immediate feedback, and the ability to work at your own pace. Awful because … well, adults can’t learn language “naturally” like kids. You need the explanations and translations that a teacher provides. Or at least, we did. Rosetta Stone was useful but only when it was an adjunct to regular lessons with a teacher.
Since Danish teachers aren’t standing about on every streetcorner waiting to be hired, perhaps you could combine Rosetta Stone with a traditional “How to Speak Danish” book. The two together might be a good combo.
What a perfect excuse to go to Denmark!
Well, that and visiting Legoland. 