Has Anyone Used Rosetta Stone?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, I really need to learn Spanish. About 40% of Indianapolis speaks Spanish, and about 25% of that 40% don’t speak English. I’m going to be re-entering the job market pretty soon after being out since I had a baby (except for some free-lance cash-basis stuff that brings in about $600/month). I’ll probably just be looking for part-time, minimum wage, get my feet wet, since what I used to be was a sign language interpreter, but I can’t do that anymore, because I have developed carpal tunnel syndrome. I really don’t know what I’ll end up doing, but Spanish would look good on a resume, plus, I’d just really like to be able to talk to everyone.

I thought about taking it at the university, but aside from the expense, if I can find something just as good that doesn’t require me to stick to a schedule (because little kids get sick and have to stay home from school, and it you have an exam that day, it’s just tough. The best and most convenient university here is a branch of the one that gave me my degree, so my grade would go on my official transcript. To keep my grade off my transcript, I’d have to go either to a two-year school, or a private (read: expensive) school.

Everyone I have talked to says good things about Rosetta Stone, and I know the Army relies on it for soldiers who want a second language, but are not interpreters for their MOS (they have a year-long immersion program). The sample I took looked good, and one thing that it offers is Skyping with fluent speakers for practice sessions.

Right now, I have lots of Spanish speaking neighbors, so this is a good time to learn, because I will have lots of opportunities to practice. About half of the apartment complex speaks Spanish, and about 20% of those don’t speak English (or speak very little). I could take someone out for coffee three times a week, and get plenty of practice.

So I’m considering getting Rosetta Stone. Has anyone had any experience with it? How did it compare to other online courses? CD/DVD courses? college courses? Did you achieve conversancy in the language you studied?

I’m not interested in speaking like a native, or being able to be a simultaneous interpreter, I just want to be able to carry on a conversation about simple, everyday topics.

2

I have a friend who used Rosetta Stone to learn Spanish. From what he told me about it, there is a relatively low ceiling on what you can achieve with Rosetta Stone alone. It will give you a basic vocabulary and a rudimentary understanding of syntax, but that’s about as far as it will get you. To get to a point where you can have even a very basic dialogue with a fluent speaker, you will need more than what Rosetta Stone can offer. My friend is a competent Spanish speaker now, but he took a class and did a lot of traveling in Mexico and Central America.

3

We get it free at work, and I don’t know anyone who thinks its a good way to learn. You certainly aren’t going to get up to professional competence with it. I think givernment just provides it to soldiers because it is easy and it gives people something to do.

Duolingo uses the same approach, and is free, do you might try that. If you have an iPhone, the Cat Academy Cat Spanish app is actually pretty good for basic conversation.

If you want to build fluency, you can’t get around needing to talk to live people. Would you consider a language exchange?

4

I’m not sure what you mean by language exchange. I will certainly go look up the free app, and I may go to Amazon and order a textbook. I knew street “Spanglish,” when I lived in NYC (although people in Indy are mostly Mexican, and people in NYC are mostly Puerto Rican, Dominican, and South American), and I took several years of French, and can still read it, so I thought if I had a text for the grammar, it would help. I’m definitely going to make a point of talking to people, though, so I can become conversational.

5

A language exchange is just finding someone who will tutor you in Spanish in exchange for instruction in English. Conversation is good, but IMHO a good tutor can work wonders (though tutoring is an art and good ones can be hard to find.)

Also check your local library. They often have language tapes and software available for free. Another awesome resource is you can get the old Foreign Service language tapes for free online. They are spectacularly boring, but actually remarkably effective.

One thing I’ve done when traveling is to use brute force to memorize 1,000 words. It’s not really a way to learn a language, but if you have a good artillery of vocabulary memorized, it really makes the process of learning grammar and the rest much easier as you aren’t puzzling so hard over example sentences. There are lots of free flashcard services out there. I use Memrise.

6

It’s been a couple years since I used Rosetta Stone for Spanish, but I wasn’t at all impressed with it. There is no explanation for grammar concepts, only four pictures and you are to choose the correct picture. So if you learn grammar by having it explained to you, then you’re SOL.

If I remember correctly, the only tenses Rosetta Stone teaches are present indicative, preterit and future. Maybe present perfect as well. It doesn’t touch at all on any of the progressive tenses, or subjunctive and conditional moods. My Spanish professor told me that one would be at around the Spanish 102 level in college when completing the entire program.

7

Is there a reason you are discounting a 2-year / community-college avenue for learning Spanish? I learned Italian at our local community college, and it was overall a good experience. The regular classes and homework meant I was forced to actually do it (which I have problems with when trying to learn something independently… unless there’s an external force pushing me I tend to get lazy halfway through), and I felt like I learned pretty well. I got to the point I could probably have had simple conversations, although I mostly was learning for being able to read and pronounce (both of which I learned as well as I think I could have from the class) so I never really tested this.

Now, the teacher was not the most brilliant one I’ve ever had, I will admit (she was an Italian grad student at the nearby 4-year university, so was not used to considering it as a second language). But my undergrad university had a range as well – I had professors both worse and better than this particular teacher – so whatever.

The university I went to as an undergrad did daily language courses (like, an hour class every day, bright and early in the morning), so I can’t really compare them – obviously the courses at my undergrad institution were a lot more hardcore. But I also wouldn’t have taken them while holding down a job or acting as a stay-at-home parent, while the CC course was just right in those respects; I missed the occasional class and it was fine. I could have missed the exam and eh, whatever.

The other plus with having a scheduled class is that it works well for scheduling a spouse and/or other babysitter for looking after kids – it’s actually pretty nice to be able to know, okay, Thursday evening: that’s my class, that’s when the kid’s going to have special Daddy time (or whatever).

8

I studied German for four years in high school and Italian for four semesters in college, and I was better able to communicate in Spanish by picking it up from waiting tables part time at a restaurant where over half of the employees were native Spanish speakers, and about half of the native Spanish speakers couldn’t speak English. My Spanish was very rudimentary, but they could understand me and I could understand them if they spoke slowly and used simple words. I bought the Berlitz Berlitz Self-Teacher and Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish, which I used to learn the basic grammar. The Madrigal’s Magic Key book did not teach second person formal, but I had already been familiar with it by then.

Eventually, I decided to study it at the local community college for four semesters, then a private tutor for six months after. I ended up taking three extra courses to get an associate’s certificate in Latin American Studies that I can add to my resume. I haven’t attained fluency yet, but I can have conversations for over an hour without much problem. My plan next year is to get an online bachelor’s certificate in Spanish for Business at UMUC.

9

My wife used Rosetta for basic Polish, and then went to Pimsleur, which she thought was a much better program.

10

I agree that you should check with your local library for help. Also, listen to Spanish radio and watch Spanish TV. Then talk to your Spanish speaking neighbors. You don’t need to be an expert, you just need to be willing to try. Most people are happy to help someone try to talk their language and won’t be mean about it…although you might make them laugh at times.

That’s what worked for me when I was stationed in Okinawa.

11

I think I’d try Rosetta Stone before going to Okinawa to learn Spanish. :rolleyes:

I play a game with the local community college. Every fall I enroll in their basic conversational Spanish, and they cancel it due to lack of interest. This is my 3rd year.

12

If your French is good enough, you can probably just pick it up. My son did exactly that, not studying formally, and he can get by. He is fluent in French. And I can read most of the transit ads in NYC although I have never studied Spanish at all, just using my poor French.

13

I’ve found Rosetta Stone for Spanish to be useless and a giant waste of money.

Try free podcasts instead.

Also, RS will spam you to tears if they get your email address. I especially loved the mails showing the same package I purchased for half the price I paid.

14

I use Pimsleur and can now spit out short conversations in Vietnamese and Hindi even when I am too nervous to be entirely sure what I’m saying.

15

“I’ve got a gun pointed at your back, and I need you to stay calm. Now, I need you to give me the directions to the pharmacist in Hindi. Got it? The directions to the pharmacist. Maybe discuss the weather in Vietnamese a little. But we don’t have all day. Get going…NOW!”

16

Fifth the un-recommendation of rosetta stone.

I like audio lessons where you have to construct sentences yourself. Michel Thomas is good for absolute beginners, and then Pimsler after that.

In terms of improving listening skills, I haven’t come across very good resources for that (yeah ultimately you can just watch foreign TV or whatever, but I mean when you’re not up to that level).

17

Anybody can learn grammar and vocabulary, from any method, with success according to incentive and desire. But if you want to speak and understand the language conversationally, you won’t learn to do that unless you have somebody to talk to in that language.

Personally, I’ve found that one of the most effective ways is to watch YouTube music videos of songs in the target language, which have English subtitles. Or else find the lyrics to the song on line and use Google Translate to read the English while listening to the song. Music is sung more slowly than conversational speech. Millions of people around the world have mastered a lot of English expressions that are the words to songs.

18

Uh, uh, Kol ha-Aretz kham ha-yom, Mar Kauffman…" Damn it, that’s the Hebrew disks!