Rosetta Stone

[ferryman]

The on-line language learning tool. Any of you guys used it? I know it's slated for being very expensive but I've just bought the Complete French version at a very cut down price. Would be interested to hear any users views before I fire it up...

Merci

 

[Dazed and Confused]

I've used it 15-20 years ago (German and French), both for refreshing skills.
As always, these things requires discipline and commitment, but I think the stuff works.

Only downside for for me was the lack of options when on the road (car driving, airports, in flight etc).

 

[RedheadDane]

And here I was thinking Rosetta Stone was a woman sitting on a bus...

 

[The Hitch]

I don't recommend it, though I guess it depends what you want it for, but programmes like this, duolingo, etc require a lot of effort to go a little way.

Id estimate that a week of intensive learning in a language school in Paris will produce the equivalent French level as you will get from doing Rossetta stone 2 hours a day for 3 or 4 months.

The second option is not only longer but also a hell of a lot more boring and less rewarding.

If you are trying to remember a language, or just trying to learn the basics before moving in a few weeks, it can be helpful I guess, but from my experience only the extremely dedicated will find it useful and not end up with wasted hours.

Then again, in previous reviews I did on the internet i got responses from people telling me they found RS to be brilliant, so maybe its just me.

 

[ferryman]

I don't recommend it, though I guess it depends what you want it for, but programmes like this, duolingo, etc require a lot of effort to go a little way.

Id estimate that a week of intensive learning in a language school in Paris will produce the equivalent French level as you will get from doing Rossetta stone 2 hours a day for 3 or 4 months.

The second option is not only longer but also a hell of a lot more boring and less rewarding.

If you are trying to remember a language, or just trying to learn the basics before moving in a few weeks, it can be helpful I guess, but from my experience only the extremely dedicated will find it useful and not end up with wasted hours.

Then again, in previous reviews I did on the internet i got responses from people telling me they found RS to be brilliant, so maybe its just me.

Cheers all for the replies. My basic school boy french has been embarrassing me on holiday the last few years so I'm going to commit myself to this. Unfortunately, I'm going to have more time on my hands to give it a real go in the next few months...

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

If you already know basic French, the best thing you can do is to find somebody to speak French with, read French books, watch French films etc. The best thing for acquiring a language is real life practice.

Also, some people are embarrassed to speak a language when they still make a lot of mistakes in pronunciation and grammar. This is a disastrous attitude for acquiring conversational skills in a language in my opinion. You need to have the courage to try to speak French and not be too embarrassed about the mistakes you will make. Hours of studying with grammar's and vocabulary lists and whatever, the school method, is really inefficient. If I look in my own country, almost everybody except older people know English as a second language. This isn't due to school, but due to internet, media, movies et cetera being in English. Most children nowadays learn English before learning it in school or doing any study, because they are exposed to it. The school just refines their grammar a bit.

Duolingo or Rosetta Stone can help you get started or help you to be exposed to French a bit every day. I don't have any experience with Rosetta Stone, but I've personally found Duolingo to be somewhat helpful for acquiring basic skills and vocabulary in Spanish and French, but for any more than that in my opinion what you really need is real life practice.

 

[ferryman]

If you already know basic French, the best thing you can do is to find somebody to speak French with, read French books, watch French films etc. The best thing for acquiring a language is real life practice.

Also, some people are embarrassed to speak a language when they still make a lot of mistakes in pronunciation and grammar. This is a disastrous attitude for acquiring conversational skills in a language in my opinion. You need to have the courage to try to speak French and not be too embarrassed about the mistakes you will make. Hours of studying with grammar's and vocabulary lists and whatever, the school method, is really inefficient. If I look in my own country, almost everybody except older people know English as a second language. This isn't due to school, but due to internet, media, movies et cetera being in English. Most children nowadays learn English before learning it in school or doing any study, because they are exposed to it. The school just refines their grammar a bit.

Duolingo or Rosetta Stone can help you get started or help you to be exposed to French a bit every day. I don't have any experience with Rosetta Stone, but I've personally found Duolingo to be somewhat helpful for acquiring basic skills and vocabulary in Spanish and French, but for any more than that in my opinion what you really need is real life practice.

Thanks, a very interesting and informed post. Unfortunately, I'm not exposed to anything French apart from holiday's and a few years many ago at school.

I've started the course but will also check out Duolingo. Cheers for your reply.

 

[Pricey_sky]

A guy I used to work with brought the Spanish version as he was getting quite serious with a Spanish lady he met on holiday and wanted to learn the language. It's quite expensive if your on a budget but he said it worked wonders and he is now engaged to her so I guess he fully recommends it!

 

[TomasC]

A guy I used to work with brought the Spanish version as he was getting quite serious with a Spanish lady he met on holiday and wanted to learn the language. It's quite expensive if your on a budget but he said it worked wonders and he is now engaged to her so I guess he fully recommends it!

In this case I guess it was the Spanish lady that worked wonders, not Rosetta.

 

[Electress]

A friend of mine who works in this area said there is actually no empirical evidence that they way they do these online tools works better than the very grammatical approach of say 30 years ago despite the claims that they make. I know I find the new style irritating, because I quite like having the grammatical structure to hang things on.

I would agree with the poster who said 'go to France' and the other who said do anything which exposes you to the language - try just having French radio on in the background and get a French newspaper and read it aloud. In the last 6 years, I've learned French, Italian and German by cycling around Europe. I'm pretty fluent - because I just talked to everyone and anyone I met. I used to be quite shy about it when I was younger, now I love speaking anything - Dutch, Russian…I'll have a stab at anything by ear and follow up at home with the books.

Good luck though, and I hope RS works for you. If it was cheap, it's probably worth what you paid.