We appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you. Listening to bloggers and customers is important to us. If you're interested in reaching out to me, I can be contacted directly at dlaplante rosettastone. I've been using RS Russian for about 3 months now. Bicycle and one of the speakers' accents being the only two negatives on that. I also like the shorter, step by step sections.
I've had to use numerous outside sources to figure it out. I was curious about the Rosetta Stone process but wouldn't dare to buy it mainly because of the price.
I have heard that they use images and speech recognition system to correct the learner pronunciation, - just like a little child would learn their first language. So, I thought the focus was on the spoken language only leaving the reading and writing part out of the learning process. But based on the images you posted I can see now that reading and writing are also part of their method.
I learned German the old fashioned way, immersion in Germany, with a state sponsored class, 5 days a week, pm everyday. For 2. As an adult learner, you are fighting your mother tongue - the intuitive understanding of grammar, we saw and heard this day after day in our class.
Learning about the process and how our brain translates provides a very valuable insight into how a fluent mother-tongue speaker absorbs a new language.
I cannot understand how you can pick up a foreign language without the cornerstone of grammar. Therefore I have a mixed opinion about Rosetta Stone's methodology. Thanks for a very interesting article - you are right in your analysis of the strengths of RS and, as a languages teacher, I agree with your recommendation to use a variety of resources. Personally, I use Skype with native speaker friends, originally contacted through the excellent old LiveMocha.
I'd be very interested to read your comments on the "new" LiveMocha which is encountering widespread hostility from LM users because of its limited options, design, instability, quality of lessons and pay-to-learn model. There appears to be an exodus from the site. I think your balanced approach is just what's needed on this new product. I'd be interested in discussing some of the features which caused me to leave after 3 great, productive years. I found the review open and considered. I am personally studying to teach ESL, and thought that the least I could do was attempt to learn a second language myself.
Let me say that I chose Spanish, since it is prevalent in my area, and I found that those years of high school Latin I took so long ago helped make the program more relevant to me. The grammar and conjugations of the verbs started to fall into place, clearly displaying their reliance on Latin roots. Sometimes I have to think more than others to understand the meaning of the sentence or conversation, but that actually seems fair to me.
I believe that there is probably a place for learning some vocabulary in addition to the program, to be able to get more out of the training in a shorter amount of time, but that doesn't diminish the fact that this form of immersion is very like going to a country without learning the language, and trying to pick up the key vocabulary based on need. My only criticism of Rosetta Stone is that there is not way to prioritize the vocabulary that YOU feel is important. I consider that a mild aggravation, not a condemnation of the program.
Not too bad. At that price, I can play around with it for quite a while and get my money's worth. I am hoping to get good enough to be able to converse with the students I tutor, sharing the difficulties of learning a second language and creating a rapport - it is no easier for me than for them.
I just have the advantage of not being totally dependent on learning the second language to function in every day life. Well I am one of those learners that has done really great with Rosetta Stone.
I do know that learning a new language takes commitment of time and practice practice practice. The other thing learning a language takes is some responsibility to do some extra activities in conjunction with the primary program. I purchased a grammar book to hone in on the rules for example. I joined a chat program where I speak with native speakers at least once a week. I utilize all the perks of Rosetta Stone Totale, the group Studio lessons, the games, the reading exercises and private Studio sessions.
I am 53 years old and I can carry on a decent conversation in Italian which is my new second language and only after using Rosetta Stone for one year. My speaking is considered an A2, which is pretty good having no prior experience in Italian. This is the one thing that I know. There are many types of learning styles and everyone has a unique style. If you are visual and enjoy figuring things out then Rosetta Stone is a great choice. If you are lazy and don't want to commit to speaking, practicing, doing exercises then yeah, Rosetta Stone is not a good investment for you.
For me, it is the best program and I have tried many I found RS to be rather poor in learning Japanese. I actually got up to level 3 before moving to Japan but once I came here, I realized that it was almost completely useless.
It definitely does not explain the differences in politeness as mentioned in the article. As I found out, most people do not speak in the way RS teaches you.
Also, grammatical intricacies like habitual action versus non-habitual is not explained and is a very important part of Japanese. All in all, RS falls short in my opinion. I have tried my friend's Rosetta Stone to review my French and Spanish. The Rosetta Stone language programs lack verb conjucations. Thanks Donovan. Your review came across as both unbiased and comprehensive.
My problem with RS is it's games policy. After 3 months the games are deactivated and you have to pay for reactivation. The games enhance the learning experience and should be a permanent fixture to a very expensive program especially if one has paid full price for all 5 levels.
I've sent in my concerns to RS a few times but have yet to receive a reply though it's stated on website that someone would contact me within 72 hours To me rote memorization is the hardest learning, and the slowest. Avoiding teaching grammar makes things tedious. Then again, if it is only vocal and not written input, you might not even figure out where words start and end and that -o and -nun were endings.
But if you first teach me the above structure in 1 minute then have me memorize 15 nouns and 10 verbs, I will know how to make thousands of sentences. And when I hear sentences, I'll be looking for "nun, o, ida" which will help me separate out the other words, both ones I know and new ones.
Learning vocabulary require memorization, so is a great place for interactive repetitive games like selecting pictures to match. Just now I tried RE's free demo of the learning process. I always got the answer right I picked which student is drinking tea but had no clue what part of each syllable phrase I was picking was "tea", "drink" so couldn't memorize individual words, and had no interest in memorizing whole sentences that meant vaguely "child drinking tea" without knowing which words are what.
But the intro claimed that after each lesson I'd be practicing the things I'd learned with live other folks online. Really liked this review, I felt like a lot of reviews online are unfairly against it and as someone who started Rosetta Stone Mandarin a month ago but had previous experience with the language studied abroad in college for a semester and ended up taking 15 hours of Mandarin by graduation , I find a lot of the complaints laughable, particularly the "no explanation" complaints.
There have been a few times where a word seems unclear to me, and yes, if you wanted to you could probably get through the whole course without learning much for example, not understand why you're clicking a picture except you heard the word for "man" and there is only one picture with a man. However, if you're going to spend the money on Rosetta Stone I bought all 5 levels of Totale Mandarin for as part of their Christmas special , I would assume you would WANT to know what was actually being said and it wouldn't take too much inquisitiveness on your own part to either use google or a chinese dictionary app to clear up any confusion.
The Totale components are a bit gimmicky, particularly the online games because nobody is ever online available to compete against, but the live tutoring sessions are pretty useful in my opinion even though they are a bit too-structured I've found that if I'm the only one in the session, the teacher will go off script pretty often which is nice.
If nothing else, you are being forced to comprehend a native speaker and produce a response on your own. There is no substitute for that besides living in the country of the language you are learning.
I've also felt a bit of a boost in motivation after finishing a session, regardless of how useful the session might have been. Not too be a Rosetta Stone ad, I do find some things rather annoying. For example, the order at which they decide to teach you some of the words or phrases doesn't make a lot of sense sometimes. This is definitely a program aimed at someone who is in it for the long haul and has a lot of time to devote to the language, not for someone wanting to quickly learn some useful phrases for a vacation you may never get too them!
I also think the speech recognition is quite faulty, particularly on Chinese where tones are so important. All in all, Rosetta Stone is my favorite purchase so far Rocket French, Pimsleur Mandarin if nothing else because it is fun and makes me want to come back and keep "playing" if you will, because it does feel a bit like a game. And after all, if you aren't motivated or sticking with it, it doesn't matter how scientifically effective your program is.
Have you reviewed other online language learning systems - or just RS? What about Mango Languages? I learned formal Japanese first and, when I went to Japan and stayed with a family, I was told my Japanese was very "polite". I quickly picked up casual speech from listening to the family but I would not have wanted to wander around on my own, speaking rudely to clerks and train personnel. I would rather be too polite than not polite enough. If I were teaching very young children up through 6th grade , I would concentrate on casual speech but anyone above that age should be speaking at the average level of speech which is what you speak with people outside your 'in-group' in Japan.
I agree with Ethan on a major factor that is: it is fun. It makes me want to come back day after day and learn more. Not to say RS doesn't have its pitfalls, but it keeps me motivated to keep learning. It is a very good review. However, the price issue is over emphasized. The RS program is not ideal, but it is the best of all similar products. I liked this review. Currently I looking for alternative French teaching tools. Firstly, the price I paid was discounted, but still high.
However, if it taught me French, then it's worth every penny. In any case, when I indicated to RS that the software was not suitable for me, they quickly and efficiently returned the money as per their 30 day policy. The part of determining the exact meaning of a word can almost be determined after a few pictures. In my case, being inpatient or if I had doubts, I looked it up on an online dictionary. I'm using it to learn, so I don't mind using supplemental material.
Overall the style and way RS reinforces words I think is good. The reason I eventually returned it, was the pronunciation and to a lesser extent the speech recognition.
The pronunciation is performed by native french speakers, pronounced very fast, with accents and the habit of missing or running words together. Two of the speakers were intelligible, the third barely Repeating the sentence as I heard it was a complete miss on the speech recognition software, but speaking as it was written was more successful, but not always.
While this is probably good for understanding local speakers, I don't believe its good for teaching beginners.. After 2 weeks of heavy use, this frustration grew to the point of returning the software. So, in my opinion its worth trying for yourself, if its a style that works for you great, if not, return it. I think many of the very negative reviews are written by people that think it or other software will magically teach them French.
All of these tools will require lots of work, patience and probably some boredom. Regrettably, I am not one of those people that appear to be a natural at languages. I saved up my measly minimum wage paychecks so I could try to learn Russian for someone I love very much. The sales person said that was all I'd ever have to pay so very reluctantly I purchased it. This seems so sleazy and intentionally malicious and after putting such a high price on your product it seems completely unreasonable.
I now view it as almost a personal goal or vendetta to make sure as many potential buyers of your product are aware of this as possible because there is no logical economic explanation for this greed after such a high initial product price. Rosetta stone and affiliates, you have lost all of my respect. I took 6 years of Spanish in high school and college, so the vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure are already familiar with me. I just need high level refreshers and conversation practice since I have forgotten a lot of it and will be traveling in South America.
Very good review, thank you very much! As for the online sessions, apart from the included live group sessions, you can also buy additional one-on-one sessions. The online subscription also includes Rosetta World, which encompasses culturally relevant stories.
I hope this is is helpful information. Its almost comical to read all the focus on the cost of the program. What does this statement mean, I can learn the same amount of language skill from 20 hours of in-person as I would from owning and practicing with Rosetta Stone??? Since I don't own RS I can't verify, but my intuition has me doubting that. Once your 20 hours are over, they are over. Owning something gives you the option to go back and repeat, reference and share.
Some good points in the post to consider before purchasing. Thanks for the time it took to put it together. I think Ethan's comment is a good one -- in the end, the best language learning method is the one that you actually use.
I took classroom Russian for four years in college and did NOT become fluent. The teachers were almost all American grad students who spent a huge amount of time speaking in English about Russian grammar.
As a result, I know a lot of Russian grammar and not a lot of Russian. I remember him yelling at us that it was disgraceful that we were in fourth year Russian and couldn't understand what he was saying, but it was true! With Rosetta Stone, I automatically know when they're sneaking in a grammatical point "ah!
Now they're showing us that nouns being used as objects have to be converted to the accusative case" which gives me an advantage,, but the fact is you can go out and buy the Penguin Russian language book and all the rules are right there and you could look them up as you went along.
But it would be darn hard to sit with the Penguin book by yourself and learn to actually speak Russian! I've used Rosetta Stone while taking Italian introductory level course in a college campus. It's useful, but I see why some people may become "frustrated" when they believe everything should be spoon fed to them when learning a language. When you start from ground zero, you want to learn the very basics.
And when people don't hear a translated version of English first, they frequently forget and can't match a "vague" picture to what they learn. I believe in order to succeed using RS you should be very alert and active while studying vocabulary and should also try having a basic Spanish, Italian or whatever language book handy in order to look up conjugations of present form, preterit form, etc etc if needed. Another thing that would help is if you have general basic knowledge of a language.
Vocab knowledge would be a biggie! I've finished all levels of Rosetta Stone and posted a video of me speaking or trying to speak my new language. I purchased Chinese Mandarin one year prior to my travel to China. This site is right on time regarding the difficulty and expense of Rosetta Stone. Pretty fair review. As a former employee at Rosetta Stone I can safely say that the system is stagnant and just doesn't work. The strongest aspect of the system was the ability to schedule studio time with a native speaker when you complete a unit, but last year they cut the studio time from an hour to 30 minutes, and you are only allowed to attend a handful of sessions a month.
Their Reflex program, released in South Korea and Japan, focuses on teaching by rout and basically making the students memorize role play scenarios and not natural speech. The CEO has even stated that Rosetta Stone continually is non profitable despite their name brand recognition, and the fact that the system hasn't updated in years is very telling.
Thanks for your review. I thought I would put my 2 cents into the ring. For the record, I am learning Swedish and have been using Rosetta Stone on and off for a few months. It is fun, interactive and plays like a game. Of course not everyone learns the same way, but I think some people are too caught up on being perfectionists.
RS has its own schedule. You can fight it and think this program is crap, or accept it and get over the fact that you will be asked the same questions many, many times over, hidden in different units.
What I found really hard is trying to decipher the grammar using pictures. This was when I started flailing prior to that, I was a super enthusiastic student. After starting Swedish classes where the bulk of the lesson is about grammar and syntax, I went back to RS and found that I finally understood, and could see in hindsight what it was TRYING to teach me, grammar-wise.
Of course a software program no matter how advanced and expensive will ever replace the value of human interaction. But it is a good place to start and as the reviewer said, a good companion to your language learning.
No one who ever learnt a language from a textbook can go to a country and expect to be fluent. I want to be taught the correct way of saying something, not the slang. That can come later when I have mastered the basics. In all, I would say RS is great for a beginner, great for building vocabulary flash card style , practicing your listening but not great for grammar, reading or writing extended text.
I have been practicing French using rosetta stone.. My native language is Spanish. When I came to the United States when I was 6yrs old I couldn't understand anything most of the teachers, students, at school would say I would just hear people speak and see I would watch pokemon.. I could easily understand other people and with the little things I did know I learned more : and well I think Rosetta Stone does just that..
I think the people that do not like this program are just.. If you are a visual learner.. Rosetta stone takes care of that.. If you are older than 5, you don't talk like that. They should develop the curricula separately according to the languages. The set has all five levels. Having grown up in Texas, I'm familiar with Spanish already - pronunciation and some basic words and sentence structure. I've always been mystified at how to conjugate verbs I eat, they are eating - it makes perfect sense to me now.
What you say about the program forcing you to quickly and accurately speak a response is spot on. What I find most helpful and fun are the stories I can read using what I've learned. Much like a first grader discovers the joy of reading "See Dick. See Jane. Run, Jane, run" - it's a thrill to read and comprehend something entirely in Spanish without even pictures to put it in context. At night in my dreams, I am reviewing what I learned.
I can only imagine how fluent I'll be by level 5. It's not perfect by any means, but it is a very, very good program. One point is clear; there is no magic bullet or shortcut to learning language. One must practice frequently for a long time and ideally start at a young age. Some schools rely on video or software only thus shortchanging the children. The children instructed through video or software miss out on the natural interactions of interpersonal communication between real humans.
Use technology as a tool or supplement, but not as a replacement for the teacher. I just finished all 5 levels of French and I can say I agree with most points of the review. I had good success with RS, but I do think it depends on your circumstances and learning style.
In my case, I started about a month before being relocated to Lyon for a work assignment. The company covered the cost, so that wasn't an issue. I also had studied Spanish in school and lived in Madrid for a semester of college. So I had a lot of the foundations of romance language grammar such that I could recognize it when it showed up in French. I also began living in France when I was early in the program, so it's hard to say how much French I learned on RS and how much in real life.
I have examples of seeing things on RS after I ran into them in the real-world and the other way around. I would also say that I am a visual learner, and matching what I'm reading and hearing to the pictures worked well for me. Finally, I also worked at it. I did lessons almost every day, did the live chat sessions as I qualified for them and spent some time with the games and such. LIke anything you're learning you have to do the work.
On the point of other aides, on occasion I did refer to french. I bought my R. I didn't download it until 6 months ago and had no problems until 2 days ago when I was suddenly unable to access it. I telephoned the help-line and was informed that my version of the R. S was out of date and that I would not be able to use it unless I downloaded the up-dated version.
They sent me a link to up-date my version but after 5 hours of following their very confusing instructions and getting nowhere, I gave up. I am 62yrs old and a computer 'newbe' but I don't understand how I can be refused access to a product I have bought because it has been up-dated by the retailer.
Hi, Thanks for the review. It was one of the most indepth one I have read regarding Rosetta Stone. I am currently learning Korean, having started on and off about 2 weeks ago. To put it into perspective, I already speak 4 languages fluently, some French and very little Welsh and can understand some Spanish. I can pronounce some Korean having learnt it 2 Sundays ago when I was in bed for a day with a bad cold but have no idea what it says.
I did it using a free phone apps. I borrowed a copy of Rosetta Stone about 2 days ago and am on lesson 2. I find it quite tedious and am getting quite sick of having to guess all the time. I had a week of Welsh lessons where I was the only non native speaker with zero knowledge and ended the week by being near the top of the class.
The Welsh teacher thought that it was due to my already being able to speak a few languages. I do not think that there is any great secret to learning languages. I think there is some truth in that children learnt by guessing a lot of the time and that it pays not to question too much at first, just memorise what you are taught. However, you do need to understand and remember what things mean which I find irritatingly missing in Rosetta Stone.
You have to guess a lot of time which would be fine for a child but not for an adult. Thus far, I have not learnt anything useful after the first short lesson except that it has become tedious.
I have already learnt most of the words taught thus far by watching Korean dramas with mandarin subtitles. I had to do it by guessing and so do not expect lessons to be further guesswork. I have seen the French version which I thought was quite good. It might be that not all languages can be learnt this way or that it will be most helpful when you are already familiar with the language and is using it to brush up your knowledge. I think that Rosetta Stone will be vastly improved by having at least a 5 minute lesson where the meanings of the words are explained at the end of every lesson, As it is, it is a hefty sum for learning a language which I feel could be put to better use.
There is no substitute for putting time into studying a language and those who think that they can get away with that by spending this amount on RS will be sadly disappointed. Rosetta Stone is a swamp!! Had started with a purchase of a 4CD set two years ago. Am able to get back into it, now, and tried to access it on my Android. Silly me. When you call "customer service" they are of little help. Their "chat" is worthless. Found myself with their "created" e-mail address for me and a different password Yes it was as crazy as it sounds.
So, yet another confused phone-call with someone who struggles with the English language. What was a very good company and product has gone downhill very quickly!!!!! I don't get paid for fixing their broken service. Will go with a competitor I think this is a really decent, thorough review. Thank you for a great review. I was given a Spanish edition of RS and could not use it. I gave up after 1 hour. I tried other learning material but nothing really worked but using Spanish tutoring books helped more.
Because I at least have near perfect pronunciation for Spanish and Italian, it was more of an exercise in building vocabulary. Native speakers I meet have always told me that my Spanish pronunciation is perfect. Why don't some of these courses work? Because many of us learn material in different ways and I found that not having a translation at the bottom of the Spanish material in RS ruined it for me.
I have to see the words in the new language, hear it and see the translation. I then write the new language on paper as I use it. That combination works for me.
I am also now in an environment where I work with 30 Spanish speaking people. I look up words and phrases on line. I am one that never shied away from trying to create a sentence the way I think it should be. That helps. I read and write Spanish better than I speak because I can figure out the words in context in a sentence. I had lived in Spain for a year, 30 years ago and became fairly fluent but lost it when I did not use it. Immersion with native speakers is a great add on to using structured material.
Being personally tutored by a native speaker that knows how to teach is great in addition to using structured material. I realized this year that I started thinking in Spanish with no mental translation. I would be in the warehouse speaking Spanish and the next English I heard, I automatically answered in Spanish. To make learning a language work for you, you must be determined and keep at it and try to have fun with it. Never be afraid to try it.
I viewed the demo of the French version just to get an insight into how the system works. When taking a look at the value of the program, prospective buyers would be advised to use this as a base price.
Great and correctly titled Balanced review of Rosetta Stone! I am pleased that someone actually appreciates that cultural relevance in the image content delivery by Rosetta Stone should not be the focus as some people like to stress. The currency is something that can be researched later on, but it is introduced in the content as well, so again not a drawback.
Now I strongly disagree with you in the area about learning first the informal, everyday and in some languages even rude way to address someone. The formal way to speak should be taught first since no one would be offended if they are spoken to this way. However, you may come into a world of trouble should you use the informal way to speak to an elder or political figure if you find them out and all you know is how to say "What's up dude?!! To put things in perspective, it is always better to speak to someone using "Usted" in Spanish than "Tu" since a lot of people you interact with at any place if you have never met or been introduced to might completely dislike you, dismiss you, or in rare cases hit you should you address them using "Tu".
When you are growing up, and someone's parents have any inkling of decency and responsibility, they will teach a child to always use the word combinations May I and Please as in "May I have a banana please? Now do you use the expression "May I" that often and everyday?
Probably not, but at least you will not come out as an uncaring rude individual if you always use it because that is the only way you know how to speak AND everyone will understand what you are communicating.
Also, the most effecient way as adults to learn a language is through classes offered by a native speaker, and frankly the cost of enrolling at colleges or institutions for 2 or 3 years of tuition comes out as far more expensive than Rosetta Stone to achieve the same level of fluency and understanding, and the electronic alternatives to Rosetta Stone are far more inferior in my opinion. I completed Level 1 of Portugues in 1 month, and after visiting Brazil for the World Cup, I was able to engage in basic conversations with natives if they spoke to me slowly just out of this first level.
I am continuing the next levels and am delighted with it. So yes, it works and I think it's worth it to get you to be able to read and understand quick provided the alphabet is one you have used most of your life. For languages using a different alphabet, more time AND a solid strategy are very important in order to save into long term memory all the content, such as Russian which I am also learning. I use the Duolingo app for French and think that combined with writing exercises and member community corrections on iTalki these are a good pairing.
I really like the Coffee Break French free podcasts that I can listen to anytime and there are lots of idiomatic expressions that are taught although perhaps a little old fashioned perhaps in season 3 but a little too much spoken English. The only product that I have purchased is News in Slow French and it is relatively inexpensive and if you like news, it is also informative and the two broadcasters have good chemistry. Rosetta Stone is on sale today so that is what made me look for reviews.
I like what you have suggested in terms of iTalki lessons with tutors and the 30 to 50 sessions would totally outweigh the benefit of the price of the Rosetta Stone package.
I have decided to spend the money on iTalki tutoring after reading this! Let's put the cost in a little better perspective. Start with the actual price tag. As of today, you can buy levels of French, Italian, German, Spanish, etc. And you will own it forever and can share it with whomever you want. Each level includes 4 units of 4 lessons each. Of course, if you own it, you would repeat any lessons you want and if there are two people in your family, you cut the per-hour cost in half.
Or if you give up on things easily, etc. Yes, you can fly to a country that speaks your target language. But who in this country would teach you the difference between masculine and feminine words? The subjunctive? How to use the conditional or imperfect? If you don't have a base, going to a target country is fun and you pick up things, but this is not a learning strategy.
You can't learn a language on vacation for a week; the best you can hope is to make some progress if you already have a good start. Yes, you can get 15 hours less than one-tenth the hourly content of Rosetta Stone of in-person instruction.
But how much better is a person going to be teaching you how to say "apple" or "red" or "twelve" or "I'm hungry" than a computer is? I would argue the live tutor would be worse because they don't have the stock of images to illustrate all these basics. Even if the person is just as good, you get one-tenth the value; and if the person, somehow, is twice as good, you still only get one-fifth the value.
Many of the complaints people have are valid, especially that they don't tell you things. But there is no rule inside Rosetta Stone prohibiting you from using a dictionary, looking something up on Google, or asking a native speaker.
The woman who melodramatically drove across town illustrates the point: sometimes you have to go to certain lengths to figure something out, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I bet after all that effort and fussing, she won't forget what she learned.
The thing to keep in mind is that this is one tool in your toolbox. It can and should be one of the most useful tools for a beginner, but like a hammer you still have to use it properly in order to derive any benefit.
Using it properly means: studying the content, not just breezing through it; repeating what you don't absorb the first time; being curious about the content and why things are true; and -- perish the thought -- going outside the program for an answer if you don't immediately get it. Other tools you can use concurrently or after you finish include reading children's books, watching cartoons and movies, going on vacation to a target country, subscribing to other learning tools, getting private lessons, or -- if you're really serious!
There was a lot of information given in the review however none of it really answered the only question that I was interested to find out. I currently have the RS Latin Spanish installed on my computer so I don't need a lot of talk about whether I should spend the money. After all, I already have and am working my way through the program. More specifically how fluent should I expect to be when I finish the series. Having read what seems like 5 pages of review never seemed to answer this most obvious question.
What am I missing? Also - nice job mentioning the fact that you can get these second hand or slightly dated versions, this is quite true and they are not hard to find. What do you think of the Rosetta Stone Shared Talk website? Any experience with this? I am going to be reviewing your website very soon on my own, keep up the great work, truly a gem of a site you have Donovan.
This was a helpful review. Duolingo and Rosetta Stone both offer versions for online and mobile use. Users can pick from multiple languages broken up into short lessons.
When you sign up for either service, the app asks you why you want to learn the new language and what level you're starting at. You also don't have to choose between the two. Try them both out for free. So the question is -- which one to try first? As a regular Duolingo user, I enjoy the app's simple, colorful interface and short, game-like exercises.
The app doesn't restrict how many languages you can try to learn at the same time personally, I think two is a good maximum if you want to retain anything , or how many lessons you can complete in one day, even on the free version. I use Duolingo to keep up with Spanish and German.
It's an easy app to test the metaphorical waters because it doesn't require you to create an account right away. For example, even if you start with little to no understanding of Spanish, the lessons are pretty gentle. You'll choose which picture -- paired with the Spanish translation -- accurately describes basic phrases and words. Duolingo translates from English to Spanish and back again.
Most questions let you tap or click on the Spanish word to translate it in case you get stuck. The app offers additional learning resources if you click the lightbulb icon, as well as the ability to fast-track your lessons if you click the key icon. Duolingo's "streak" feature motivates you to keep up with your language learning efforts by tracking the number of days you've reached your point goal.
It can also make it feel like your world is crashing in if you lose an day streak not that I'm speaking from experience. Resources such as Duolingo Stories, which are short audio stories that allow you to check your comprehension skills as you go are available online and in the apps. Duolingo also has a podcast that reiterates the lessons you've completed. Want more details? The differences in the products range from subtle to more noticeable. Our Spanish Latin America product is based on the way Spanish is spoken across many countries in North, South, and Central America and the Caribbean, while our Spanish Spain product is based on how Spanish is spoken in Spain and its nearby territories, such as the Canary Islands.
While most forms of Spanish retain an essential core understood by most speakers of the language, the two forms we teach contain notable differences in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. Grammar differences also exist--for example, Spanish Spain has some additional verb inflections, and verb tenses may be used differently in Spain than in Latin America.
Similar to the way British English and American English vocabulary have evolved separately over the last several hundred years, Spanish vocabulary has diverged from one side of the Atlantic to the other. This is especially true in areas such as technology. A simple example would be the word for car, which is coche in Spain and mostly carro in Latin America.
Even within Latin America, there are regional differences in vocabulary, so for our Spanish Latin America product, we chose standard words that are understood throughout Latin America. Will I be able to run this on my PC? What if I have a Mac? The minimum system requirements are:. I'm receiving an error code when using the product, what do I do? While we do our best to ensure our products work as often as well as possible, errors do happen. If your issue provided you with an exact error code, visit Success Central and run a search for the exact code.
How do I install the program? First and foremost, make sure your computer meets the minimum system requirements.
If it does, then you're in good shape. If you happen to have TOTALe then you're in luck, as the program is entirely browser-based and requires no installation. For Rosetta Course, however, installation is required. A handy wizard will walk you through the process when you insert the CD, for Download you simply follow the online instructions.
If you need a bit of further guidance, see this video if you're installing on a Mac. If you're on Windows, check out this video. How do I deactivate the product? There are plenty of reasons to deactivate your Rosetta Stone product, from a simple return to migrating to a new computer. Deactivating is a simple process that can be done through the program interface itself. Still need help? Try this comprehensive walkthrough. Things are a slightly bit different if you're on Version 3.
See the walkthrough. How to install Rosetta Course on a computer with no CD drive? Where do I renew my subscription? Within the product interface, you can renew your access to the online features by choosing Manage My Account from the toolbar. How many computers can I install the software on?
0コメント