Any experience with Rosetta Stone language courses?

[lee_44106]

My wife is interested in the Rosetta Stone language course. The CD/DVD's for the three complete sets are about $550. Worth it?

 

[Go Surface]

I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with this as well. Been thinking about buying the French one.

 

[Jumbie]

Did you try googling for reviews and reading ones on places like Amazon or similar?

Could probably find lots of end-user opinions that way.

 

[itsstillmatt]

Not bad. They are very helpful for vocabilary, but not so much for speaking.

 

[Brad]

Originally Posted by iammatt

Not bad. They are very helpful for vocabilary, but not so much for speaking.

Taking English?

 

[itsstillmatt]

Originally Posted by Brad

Taking English?
Neckst yeer.

 

[pruppert]

They're fairly easy to pirate if you're into that sort of thing. Then it's definitely worth it. At full price i don't know if i'd be satisfied. Have french and italian and both are fairly helpful, though you learn like a child, so you're kind of beat over the head with everything. But it sticks, so it's doing something right.

 

[dusty]

I downloaded one to see if they would be worth buying. Absolutely not. Helpful for vocabulary only. Plus the program itself has virtually zero production value: for $500 you'd think they could update the Windows 3.0 presentation.

 

[Roikins]

I wanted to brush up on my French and got a torrent to see if it was worth buying, and decided it wasn't.

It's very good at training you with vocabulary, but it's useless when it comes to truly learning the grammar of a language, like conjugating verbs or knowing the proper order for nouns and adjectives. You'd be better off getting a tourist's handbook of phrases and memorizing them, because that's what it seemed like. If you have time to learn, I would recommend getting one of those audio book programs from your local library that includes audio and a companion book that lets you learn to read the language as well.

 

[Jumbie]

Originally Posted by Roikins

I wanted to brush up on my French and got a torrent to see if it was worth buying, and decided it wasn't.

It's very good at training you with vocabulary, but it's useless when it comes to truly learning the grammar of a language, like conjugating verbs or knowing the proper order for nouns and adjectives. You'd be better off getting a tourist's handbook of phrases and memorizing them, because that's what it seemed like. If you have time to learn, I would recommend getting one of those audio book programs from your local library that includes audio and a companion book that lets you learn to read the language as well.

I plan on giving it a trial as well to learn some basic Spanish and then going on to specifically learn some medical Spanish because right now I can get by fairly well with my non-English speaking patients (an aside: learn damned English if you're living in the US) through pointing and asking things like "dolor aqui?" i.e." pain here?" but it's nowhere good enough. Grammar, syntax, etc. be damned; for now anyway.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by dusty

I downloaded one to see if they would be worth buying. Absolutely not. Helpful for vocabulary only. Plus the program itself has virtually zero production value: for $500 you'd think they could update the Windows 3.0 presentation.

That's hilarious.

 

[Joffrey]

Apparently the major languages (French, Spanish) have multiple levels. So maybe Grammar would be tackled in one of the higher levels?

I have been interested in using this, though I really just need help refreshing my vocab, conjugations and speaking.

By the way if you're in a major city, check this out: http://www.globallanguagegroup.com/i...sk=view&id=127

 

[Milhouse]

I've been using it for a few months now. Overall, I'm not real happy. You'll learn lots of nouns, but very little actual grammar. Now, that said, I'm using it for Spanish, so it is a language that is not too different from English. I thought that I would start from the beginning since the basics are important. Well it turns out I could go right to the high level and complete those lessons easily. I took Spanish when I was in college though, so I'm not real surprised it started coming back quickly.

Personally, I find that reading, writing, speaking, and listening are all very different skills and each need their own practice. My college level coursework stressed reading the most heavily with writing a close second (I might be a bit cynical, but I suspect this is for ease of testing students rather than from any kind of desire to make sure students learn useful foreign language skills, something that really irritates me now that I have a need to use Spanish). I am far superior at reading than any of the other skills.

Rosetta Stone gives you some practice in listening and speaking, which I like, but it is not nearly sufficient. Grammar is very weak.

Overall, I would say Rosetta Stone can make you a decent tourist, e.g. you won't be clueless, and you'll be able to use pointing and nouns to communicate.

My advice is find ways to practice each of the 4 skills. Rosetta Stone may play a small role in that, but you'll need a lot of other methods too.

 

[globetrotter]

I've used it, I like it very much. good value

 

[eidolon]

I've been through a few systems for French, Spanish and German (which I never stuck with, my German is still awful). I didn't really enjoy the Rosetta Stone. My recommendation would be Pimsleur + a local club dedicated to speaking that language (pretty common in more populated areas, normally just a few people who get together).