Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone is an American company that makes language learning software. I think it is a good idea and can recommend it to some people but not all.
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 afford 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, but it is not a bad product over all.
Tags: Rosetta Stone
25 responses to Rosetta Stone
“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!
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.
I think that Christian really nailed it on the head. You need to do a variety of things to learn a language.
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.
Brian yes you can but I I should write a separate post about Esperanto, this is more about people’s experiences with Rosetta Stone.
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.
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
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.
Mark,
Thank you for your input.
Jodi
Hi,
I’ve read your article regarding Rosetta Stone and i agree, or at least i do for their Version 2. I also tried to learn Polish from this and found i could say “The blue car is between the red cars” but had no idea how to order a meal in a restaurant.
However, I’ve taken a look at Version 3 of their software and they appear to have addressed this major oversight. Unfortunately, my requirements have changed now and they don’t provide a version in my target language of Ukrainian.
If you do find time to try version 3 i would be most interested in your opinion.
regards
Tony
Hi Tony, I have no experience with Rosetta Stone 3. From their website you can download the entire program for free in pdf. That is the text. I think they tried to improve with Rosetta Stone 3 to make it more up to date, but since I did not have a good experience with Rosetta Stone in learning Polish I will not spend that much cash. I think they are marketing masters and that is why people buy them. However, to be fair, Rosetta Stone 3 is an improvement. For Ukrainian (my grandparents can from Ukraine
I will create a learning Ukrainian program for mp3 with music and grammar included and conversation. But it is a ways off. I might get Ukrainian flashcards out this summer. I think Ukrainian is a beautiful language.
I’ve got good experiences with using internet software to learn Spanish. I used others which got good reviews and was a lot cheaper than Rosetta. They do not have as many languages as Rosetta yet, but if you’re looking for some of the most popular languages its worth a
If you already know a couple of languages the feature that you can chose any instruction language you want is very useful. It’s much easier to learn Spanish using French as the instruction languages- the languages are very closely related.
Mark, your concerns about RosettaStone are appreciated. I need some recommendations concerning other software programs which are computer and MP3 based. I am looking for software that will provide feedback concerning verbal pronunciations and also provide an understanding regarding grammatical structure. Your thoughts?
Creators of Rosetta Stone invented a bycicle again. They try to teach a foreign language with no translation at all. It does not work if a student tries to learn another language in his own country because there is no immersion as such. A student can learn ‘red, blue, yellow’, or 1, 2, 3 and easily recognizable nouns or pronouns supported by pictures with no translation. What about verbs ‘to think’, ‘to dream’, ‘to like’, etc. Creators of Rosetta Stone software do not use a communicative approach in teaching Russian as a foreign language. Who is this software for? Is this for business people, students, tourists, children or adults? Is this for everybody? If this software would be destined for a particular category of learners it would be more effective than now.
About product improvements. Once in a while Rosetta Stone Company puts an ad on the Internet saying that they are looking for instructors, creative and talented. They ask to submit them your own vision of how this or that foreign language, in this case, Russian, should be taught and how their software could be improved, in your opinion. I read their ad and emailed them something similar to what I am writing here now. They responded and asked me to submit more. I emailed them a role play segment that was easy to compehend with almost no use of a dictionary just to be supported by images/drawings. It was about arrival of American tourists to the airport and passing customs in a form of dialogs. I have been teaching Russian as a foreign language using a communicative approach for years. We live in a world of situations: greeting each other, getting acquainted, shopping for food, going to the restaurant, talking on the phone, etc. These are the areas to be studied and perfectioned. If there is a real improvement in Rosetta Stone products it would be mainly because of all those professionals like myself who submitted their own ideas supported by the years of their successful linguistic and teaching experiences. We should be credited for that. All of us who submitted their creative materials did it for Rosetta Stone free of charge.
Eleonora (great name by the way), I agree with you Rosetta stone may work with colors but not Russian cases etc. I think they have good intentions but for me it did not work at all and could have better spend the money in other ways. Sorry for the short reply, I am on vacation in Greece.
I am also teaching language and creating software – mp3 learning and normal flashcards. I am trying to do something very different then Rosetta Stone.
I don’t know what you mean by Rosetta Stone is “constructed to learn English”. I have some experience with more than one language with Rosetta Stone. English is my native language and there is no reference to English structure. In fact, the lack of any reference to grammatical rules is a characteristic of Rosetta Stone (RS). RS uses a much more sophisticated and well-organized approach pioneered by Berlitz called “structured exposure”. The sequence of images and words are such that you naturally get a sense of the grammatical structure without having to bother with rules.
You don’t speak your own language by thinking about rules and you didn’t learn it that way. I’ve been a student of languages ever since I was twelve and have made a lifelong study of the most efficient approaches. RS uses all the best methods in an extremely well-constructed format. I’ve never seen a more intelligently structured method for acquiring a new language amazingly quickly and easily.
I can’t help but think that some of those who tried other methods after RS and found them better had unconsciously learned more than they thought from RS. You do have to stick with it for awhile and give it a chance. Some people are far too easily bored, too. I found RS highly efficient, rewarding, and just plain fun when learning a language to which I had never had any previous exposure.
Robert, thanks for your reply on Rosetta Stone. I think Rosetta was a pioneer in language learning. Hats off to them for trying to improve the method of learning a language. In fact, I think they are still trying to improve, their teaching method. But for example, the Russian language is all about cases and in their first lesson they give you three cases with out reasons and it is very confusing. I think it was constructed to teach English not every language in the world. I teach languages in Eastern Europe and I learn languages myself and have used Rosetta Stone. It is my personal experience.
I think if you get someone who is not an experienced language learner, Rosetta Stone will in the end not get them too far. Plus it cost a lot.
But I do not want to be totally critical of Rosetta Stone as I think it could have value for someone who is really gifted for languages and can just pick it up naturally. But if your not one of those gifted linguists I would say this language software might not be your optimal solution.
I learned Korean with Rosetta Stone. It was my main source of learning and I’ve taken multiple trips to Korea over time. I used it rigorously and it eventually paid off. RS is a little bit iffy with languages that are grammar/case intensive.
PS:
I didn’t spend any money on Rosetta Stone, but that’s another story. The grammar for Korean is RIDICULOUS. Plus knowing the Jamo(Korean letters) and when some are silent etc is difficult as well.
The first lesson you do in the 1st level, 1st unit is a Core Lesson. This throws out everything you’ll be learning within the first section of lessons. After you do the core lesson, each individual lesson elaborates on the material you’ve just learned. So, while it seems impossible at first, it IS explained further. Once you get the grammatical rules down it really is not that difficult. I definitely recommended Rosetta Stone. In some languages it can serve as a stand-alone, but with others, it should/could be used in conjunction with other tools.
Thanks, I think most people try it for a few months and put it in their closet.However, I am softening my stance on Rosetta Stone and guess it can help. But for me and the Polish language it was not help. That was my personal experience. It did not address grammar and really was more for fun.
I’m working on my first language with Rosetta Stone, and have only had the program a few days, so it’s way too soon to tell! I did read a lot of articles first to help me decide (I’m a psychologist, so went straight to research by cognitive psychologists on Acquiring a Second Language) – while it’s not perfect, I noticed in reviews of the software by language instructors (and you can see this on the wiki page) that languages that differ from European have much more mixed reviews. I can’t help but wonder if there’s a little truth to the comments above that Slavic languages might have not been as well catered, at least initially? Russian, for example, is one of the few languages with an academic review I could find, and it was panned thoroughly as poorly developed. I’m hoping this is corrected in more recent versions, though! I have V3 of French, all the way through Level 5, have taken beginner level 1 & 2 at the local l’Alliance Francaise a few months ago as my first exposure to a foreign language, and live with my Parisian boyfriend, so I’m hoping I have a leg up…. I’ll be back to post my experience later!
Try Tell Me More. I have been using them for about 6 months to learn french. great product. there customer service is excellent. they did a free training for me. the software has alot of translation and fun activities.
I tried it and it was just OK for me, however, I will have to check it again, what was your favorite part of the program you liked?
Two years ago I purchased Rosetta Stone for learning Farsi. Right away I had a problem with the written translation of English. I thought I had installed the program wrong and chose Farsi instead of English. I contacted technical support right away and they gave me instructions. The instructions did not match my version. I was so frustrated that I did not touch my Rosetta Stone for a year and a half. Last night I uninstalled Rosetta Stone and reinstalled the program. I can change the written language to Chinese or any other language, except English. If I really want to still use the program with Farsi as the written language, I will have my friend who speaks and reads Farsi read it to me and translate it into English. This way I will know what I am saying when I see the correct picture of the boy under the table. All I knew was boy, not under, and not table. My friend and I will always have to be together when I am trying to learn it. I installed it on a laptop yesterday, and it does the same thing. I have a glitch in my program. They will probably not replace it since it has been so long. Wish I had know what all of their problems are. I could have just learned Farsi from a friend instead.
I think Rosetta Stone has good support if you have technical problems, but there are issues with the program from a learning stand point at least in my personal experience.
Leave a reply to Rosetta Stone