Have any of you used the Rosetta Stone language course (specifically Spanish, but any other language to)? Does it work? On a scale of 1-10 (1=Sucks, 10=Awesome) how would you rate it? Overall is it worth the money? How long did it take?
I haven’t used their courses but check with your public library. Mine has these courses available for free via the library’s online services.
I used what I believe to be a very early version of Rosetta Stone back at Georgetown when I worked in the language lab. I don’t know how much it’s changed its approach since then, but what it basically did was give you several words, then phrases, then sentences, and you had to click on the picture the item described. You saw the text and heard someone speak it, so it helped reinforce visual and aural comprehension, but did absolutely nothing for active use like speaking and writing. Keep in mind I only used what appeared to be a sample program at the very basic level, so I have no idea what the advanced levels do - but my experience leads me to believe it would be a fairly decent supplement, but not a tool to be used by itself for language learning.
When we first took our assignment down here, lots of the other guys acquired the Spanish Rosetta Stone. After a year, none of them were ever able to carry on a conversation in Spanish, except for one guy, and I’m certain he picked that up from his hos (his words, not mine).
My wife has English Rosetta Stone. It seems to be high quality, but she’ll never get fluent from just it. Hell, after being married to me for 10 years, she’s still not fluent!
Is it worth the money? I’d have to vote NO. Try to get a free preview somewhere, like at the library.
It’s better than nothing, and probably the best of the computer-based language tutorial programs. I give it high marks for building vocabulary and aural recognition, it is essentially an adaptive multiple choice test where you listen to phrases and snippets of dialog, and then select the proper contextual choice.
I ultimately didn’t like it though, since it gives absolutely no references to things like grammar, tenses, modifiers, gendered words, etc other than trial and error without explanation. Its speech recognition is very spotty also.
I think it’s a good practice supplement, but not an effective replacement for class or immersive learning.
Lastly, many public libraries have it available for free.
I have Rosetta Stone and I find it so boring it’s hard to even get past the first lesson. As others have said, they say the word and show you. Then you go back and they say the word and you have to pick the picture.
To me it’s like the game of concentration. You know where you reveal two square and then have to keep picking them to reveal the ones that match. The info doesn’t stay in my head.
I was disappointed with it too. I did go back and use some of the lessons when I took a Spanish class at college. It’s ok for vocabulary. Sometimes they do things without explaining. I guess they wanted you to blindly memorize phrases. But, my real class in Spanish taught grammar and that helped me understand the phrases used in Rosetta Stone better.
From someone who speaks multiple languages, I’ll give you my standard spiel on Rosetta Stone. Don’t waste your time. Rosetta Stone does not teach you how to speak a language. It teaches memorization of words and associations. Not only will you not become fluent in any language with Rosetta Stone, you will not become conversational, or comprehensible when using what you’ve memorized, except on the most rudimentary level. You could probably fill a large stadium with the number of people who purchased Rosetta Stone and gave up after 3 months.
Having said the above, no computer language learning course will teach you to speak, read, and write a language contemporaneously, when you need it. For that, you need interaction with those who speak the language, in conjunction with some method of immersion in your daily life. Everything else is just a feel-good waste of time and, in the case of Rosetta Stone, money.
Why shell out the money for the program when you can get the internet version for free? Check out http://www.internetpolyglot.cominternetpolyglot.com for free. It’s basically the exact same thing. It even lets you build your own lessons so you can tailor it to your skill level. I love it.
Don’t bother looking for Rosetta Stone at the public library. Rosetta Stone discontinued their public library division some time ago and no longer provides their product to public libraries. Mine now uses a product called Mango Languages, your local library may have found a different substitute.
If you take someone who went through the Rosetta course for French and someone who didn’t, and you drop them both in Paris; do you think the Rosetta student would have the better advantage?
Another vote for “not worth it.” It is basically a vocabulary flashcard system, and not very good one at that. One would think you’d want to teach the most commonly used words and phrases in daily conversation, but no, instead I learned how to say “Egypt” and “the keys are in the shoe”. At least I learned “Hello” and “Goodbye”, I guess.
There’s a whole range of factors you’re leaving out here, like what - if any - other activities these two students were involved in. If the Rosetta Stone were the only thing the first student did while the other student didn’t do anything at all… no, probably no advantage. Maybe a better ability to pick up on certain key words he’d learned in the lessons.
On the other hand, if you’re looking at two students who studied French fairly intensively, practicing both passive (listening and reading) and active (speaking and writing) skills in their studies, the Rosetta Stone might give the first student some advantage, again in listening and recognizing vocabulary. But beyond that, nothing. As a self-study tool, you’d be better off picking up the books from the Teach Yourself series with the CD audio pack.
Again, though, I have to emphasize that I never dealt with the more advanced levels of the program, just the beginner’s level - and that as a limited review copy. But it seems my impressions are in line with that of people who have used the software more extensively.
It depends on what, if any, language study the person who didn’t use Rosetta Stone engaged in. To get to the heart of your question though, of course someone who has knowledge of 10 words in a given language is going to be better prepared than someone who has absolutely none, but that’s not saying much. Recognizing a word in a language, and the ability to use that word to communicate an idea or concept and to comprehend when it is used in context by native speakers when prepended and appended by other words in quick succession vocally are two different things.
There are people who hear certain foreign language words all their lives, and know what they mean. However, place that word in a sentence out of a context they’re used to and they’re lost, unless they look it up, and maybe not even then. For example, a very common word in Hebrew that I would guess every Jewish person has heard and even used, as well as some non Jewish people, is Shabbat, which means ‘the sabbath’. However, if I were to walk up to an average American Jewish person and say “Tochlu lavo leviti beshabbat learuchat tsohorayim?” (transliteration unavoidable to make my point), unless they actually speak the language to at least a conversational level, they’d have no idea what I just asked. Oh, they may have picked up shabbat in that jumble of words…maybe, and therefore surmised it had something to do with the sabbath, but not in a million years would they have guessed that I’d asked if they were available for lunch on Saturday. I’m not fluent in Hebrew. Friends say I know enough to be dangerous, but I can make myself understood, and understanding is the whole point of learning a language, not being able to rattle off vocab lists or recite set phrases, which is about as far as you’ll get with Rosetta Stone.
Years ago, when I first became interested in learning my now favorite language, Japanese, I purchased Rosetta Stone. It was either version 2 or 3. It think they’re up to version 4 at this point. Anyway, it was stinking expensive, like $500, and extra for for language packs, but like an idiot, I fell for the marketing hype. After all, they’re everywhere. In airports, in malls. I heard them on the radio. They must be great, right? After about a month I began to get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as the realization sunk in that (a) there was no way I was ever going to learn Japanese if I stuck with Rosetta Stone, and (b) I’d flushed over $500 down the toilet that I’m never going to get back. Japanese is a language you have to learn to read, write, and speak simultaneously, otherwise you will never really grasp it, and its multiple syllabaries makes it even more of a challenge, so it was, for me, an exercise in frustration.
Rosetta Stone, in my opinion, is simply not structured to teach real world use of a language. Just how often do you really think you will be asked “How do you say car (or tree, or house, or bike, or…) in [target language]?” If you answered “a lot”, then Rosetta Stone may be what you’re looking for, because when you’re done with Rosetta Stone, yeah, you’ll have learned possibly hundreds of new words, but still be unable to place a simple take-out over the phone.
After Rosetta Stone, I took a couple of online courses, on sites such as LiveMocha, which sucks, by the way, before I decided to sign up for real classes with a live, native Japanese speaking instructor…best thing I ever did. I’ve been taking Japanese language classes for two nights a week for a couple of years now and last November, I took and passed level 4 of the JLPT. As with Hebrew, French, and German, although I am not fluent in Japanese, and may never be, I can speak, read, and write it enough to make myself understood and to understand.
I wrote my post above at 2:45 this morning before going to bed, so please pardon the 8 billion typos. I hope they didn’t detract from the points I attempted to make. I really shouldn’t post when I’m delirious. 
One thing I found a while back was a demo CD of it, and that convinced me that it was not going to be useful at all. The [del]Flash[/del]quicktime game I’d gotten back in 1995 was better.
I do think it’d be nice if they sold it with the vocabulary words of actual courses, as it was easier than actual memorization.
I’m currently using it Latin American Spanish. I find that it has some usefulness in giving one a basic idea of how Spanish works, and it’s a fairly painless vocabulary builder. It also helps with pronunciation. The word recognition is flawed, but there are enough speaking exercises that one’s speaking improves anyway.
However, I don’t think I’d have a hope in hell of becoming fluent in the language if it were my only study tool. I augment it by a) watching Spanish-language TV (I’m gradually improving in my ability to understand what’s being said); b) studying grammar from a book, and from some nice youtube videos (RS never tells you what’s going on with grammar); and c) doing readings. And next year I’ll take a course with real people.
Actually, I thought it was a well thought-out and composed post. So neener. 