Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone is an American company that makes language learning software.
Rosetta Stone |A personal experience
I bought Rosetta Stone to try to learn Polish. I think paid over two hundred dollars for level one.� This was at the height of my motivation, when I was just starting out. I spent about three to four hours a day trying to learn Polish with Rosetta stone. The effect was, I wasted my time.� Why? Rosetta Stone was constructed to learn English. It was written by English speakers who tried to fit English construction to every language in the world. This is ridiculous. English is about tenses and noun articles, on the other hand, Polish, Ukrainian and Russian is about cases and gender.
I tried and tried and yet Rosetta Stone only yield confusion and frustration as nothing was clear. The idea of Rosetta� Stone is good, however, in reality it does not work. However, I would be open to hear if anyone became fluent or conversational using Rosetta Stone and their only personal experiences.
Rosetta Stone | An alternative
If you can not affod Rosetta Stone, do not. Make flashcards with index cards for about eight dollars total from WalMart. You can make thousands of useful words and phrases on your own. You can make more useful and practical sentences than Rosetta Stone and make more progress. Or you can use my learning language with music if you want to learn Polish, Russian or Ukrainian. These languages will be out soon. But if you want to learn a language, I personally would not use Rosetta Stone.
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September 1, 2008at 10:38 am
“Rosetta Stone was constructed to learn English.”
Probably your’re right, but my experiences with Rosetta Stone are different. I learn french with it, with the help of a grammar-book. And I combine it with Pimsleur and french movies.
That’s quite effective for me.
Greets from Germany!
September 1, 2008at 12:42 pm
Christian, thanks for the comment and great blog you have. Maybe if you combined Rosetta Stone with other methods it would be better. I think you need to have a grammar book, you need to maybe like you did watch movies. If you used Rosetta Stone alone, it would not be enough. But if you used, books audio, movies, etc, then I think you would make progress.
September 1, 2008at 2:48 pm
I think that Christian really nailed it on the head. You need to do a variety of things to learn a language.
September 3, 2008at 8:14 am
As far as learning a language is concerned, can I put in a word for Esperanto?
I suggest not because it has become a living language, but because it has great propaedeutic values as well.
September 3, 2008at 8:28 am
Brian yes you can but I I should write a separate post about Esperanto, this is more about people’s experiences with Rosetta Stone.
September 3, 2008at 8:34 am
Ryan, I agree you need a variety of ways to learn a language, but for me using Rosetta Stone to learn Polish was more of a time waster and demotivator. That same mental energy could have been applied to more efficient methods of learning a language. But to be fair, maybe it was the language. Maybe with languages that are more like English like German Rosetta Stone can be one of the arrows in your quiver, but for me Rosetta Stone Polish took the wind out of my sail and I had to learn Polish my own way mostly with flashcards. Basically if you buy Rosetta Stone, you have to learn the language on your own and Rosetta Stone can be a toy to play with once in a while but no great value.
November 17, 2008at 7:01 am
I have an employee from the Dominican Republic who’s native language is Spanish. She has been in the US working in the health care area for over 10 years. She needs to upgrade her language skills for improved customer service. Her verbal communication skills are good but need to improve as well as her written skills. Has anyone had good experiences with the Rosetta Stone English learning program?
Thanks
November 17, 2008at 7:27 am
Jodi, I think a book and mp3 would work better. I know many people who learned with mp3 and books quite well. Rosetta stone cost a lot. If you have the cash you can try it but I think its more marketing. Basically she needs to read and hear the language. If she can speak English to an intermediate level - tell her to buy fun books, things she would read in Spanish but this time in English. Maybe romance novels. If she reads 7 books her English will improve. If she is just starting a book and mp3 is better. I teach English to foreigners.
November 17, 2008at 10:57 am
Mark,
Thank you for your input.
Jodi