The Truth About Rosetta StoneThese language courses are indeed 'all their cracked up to be' - if......
So what was the Rosetta Stone anyway? Discovered by the French in 1799 at 'Rosetta' (hence the name), the Rosetta Stone is a large stone tablet with the same carved text in 3 different languages (Egyptian Heiroglyphics, Egyptian Demotic, and Greek). This tablet led to a revolution in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Rosetta Stone, that language resource company has tapped into the famous artifact to make their famous namesake. How does it work? The concept is ridiculously simple: Display and read word or phrase in foreign language (in native script) and provide 4 pictures to choose from, with one being the correct answer. Provide a few variations on the theme (hidden words, audio, writing etc...), plus individual lessons in pronunciation and you pretty much have the gist. The easiest exercise involves choosing a picture that represents the word spoken by a native speaker. You can choose whether or not to have the word spoken, displayed, or both. Your job, in each case, is to figure out which picture the word (or phrase) refers to. Moving on, you will be asked to build phrases without the assitance of the speaker - based on previous lessons. This works very, very well for those who are inclined to learn in this manner. The program is also effective at teaching writing in native script (if you ever wanted to learn Cyrillic - here is your chance) - and does so in the same manner as the other immersion exercises - prompting for typed responses (screen keyboards are provided for alternate alphabets) as opposed to clicking or speaking. Additionally, the program includes a speech recognition piece which attempts to compare your voice to the the actual pronunciation. As part of this total immersion experience, you will immediately notice that there are no English translations available anywhere in the program. Other programs have attempted the immersion technique with much less success, such as the abominable Tell-me-more Instant Immersion series (it could have been a wonderful conversational course, but.....). Rosetta Stone gets it right in so many ways. Crisp, clean presentation with clear goals make it the clear winner in this category. The program is not without flaws, however. Although, all of your first answers in the block will be a 'guess' (hence the immersion), you will notice is that it's all too easy to discern answers that follow in the same four picture block by simple elimination. Your temptation will be to quickly click on the correct answer before the speaker has completed the sentence. Doing this can be detrimental to your learning and understanding, so be forewarned. The software does try to make up for this by moving the pictures around, changing the mode (words with speech, speech no words, etc...), and adding complexity to the pictures as you go along (for example a series of men and women standing or sitting in various combinations forces you to look at the phrase and the picture in more detail). This could be improved upon by presenting an entirely different set of pictures early in the learning process - and combining these toward the end of the lessons. Additionally, that fact that no English translations are provided can really hamper the adult learner - especially when introducing articles. The Russian version is guilty of this very early on, and had be scrambling for a Cyrillic translator to understand the phrase was conveying the word 'it', sort of. A simple English fallback would be very nice, but I suspect Rosetta intends to keep the concept of full immersion going forward. One other minor complaint is that the program is heavily reliant on the present progressive tense. This is a particular problem for the Spanish version, as this tense is not used extensively in conversation. Finally, the speech recognition, designed to improve your pronunciation in the actual language falls completely flat (although it's improved in V3). I won't hold this against it - speech recognition is dodgy in most applications, I have found. So what's the real deal? Well, that depends on who you are, and you won't know who you are until you demo the product. Some people cannot learn to swim, simply by being thrown into the water. Likewise, instantly immersing someone into a language is only going to be successful for those who are capable of learning that way as an adult. It has been tested, and somewhat verified that adults learn much faster, when native language comparisons are done side-by-side, due to the adults existing native grammar skills. On the other hand, children are far more predictable in their ability to learn through immersion, and I feel that all around, this is an excellent course for older children and pre-teens. Therefore, there are two distinct groups of people - those that can learn a language through total immersion, and those that can't. For those that can, the Rosetta Stone programs are nothing short of outstanding - it does immersion better than any other product I have ever seen. Those that can't will end up investing a lot of money and gaining nothing but frustration. Which one are you? I don't know, but I can make the following recommendations: 1. Take the online tour of the product at the Rosetta Stone website. The tour is thorough, and shows you exactly what to expect from the programs 2. Check out the online version at your local library, or library website (if available). The online version is a 'traveler' version in the version 2 style. 3. My personal take is that for adults, these programs should not be the first exposure to any language. I would recommend an audio package, coupled with a dictionary and phrase book prior to starting the Rosetta Stone program, as it will increase its effectiveness substantially. Pros
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If you like the program and are thinking about buying - it's cheaper at Amazon (the more common languages are offered) than direct from Rosetta. Three levels comprise each full language course, and they can be purchased individually. But, from a cost perspective, why spend $180.00 to $215.00 on a single level, when you can get all three less than $450.00? You decide. Rosetta Stone V3: Spanish (Latin America), Level 1, 2 & 3 Rosetta Stone V3: Spanish (Spain), Level 1, 2 & 3 Rosetta Stone V3: French, Level 1, 2 & 3 Rosetta Stone V3: German, Level 1, 2 & 3 Rosetta Stone V3: Arabic, Level 1, 2 & 3 Rosetta Stone V3: Portuguese, Level 1, 2 & 3 Rosetta Stone V3: Italian, Level 1, 2 & 3 Rosetta Stone V3: Russian, Level 1, 2 & 3
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