Rosetta Stone Strategies
September 1, 2008 7:37 PM   Subscribe

Just picked up Rosetta Stone for Farsi- any strategies for using the program? How should I pace myself? Tips for getting the most out of my experience? Other tips for learning Farsi also appreciated.
posted by mhaw to Education (1 answer total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: I'm guessing that Farsi means that you have version 2 of the software.
First piece of advice is not to waste your time doing every single exercise for every single lesson. The way I use RS is to pick one exercise from each category, except the speech one, before I move on.
Why not the speech? The voice matching software is iffy at best. I would rather repeat what I'm hearing a few times and trust my own ears to tell me whether or not I'm saying things right. Get in the habit of repeating the word/phrase/sentence every time you hear or read it.
The hardest thing about using RS with a language that has a different alphabet is that it's hard to pick up pronunciation cues easily. Make sure that you learn the alphabet first, and then, starting with the very first words that you learn, write out the word several times. Do it first while thinking about the writing, and the letter shapes that you are forming, and then again while thinking about how the letters are pronounced. Practice your handwriting!
I'm a big fan of RS as a painless way to get introduced to a language. Don't expect too much more than that. It's one of the most pleasant ways I know to learn vocabulary, and at the same time it gives an intuitive introduction to grammar. However, especially with a non-Germanic or Romance language, you have to be careful because your intuition about how a word works might be completely different from how it really does. Don't be afraid to have a grammar book with you, and look things up when you encounter them on RS and aren't quite sure what to do with them, even after going through a whole lesson.

Good luck, and please tell me if you have any more specific questions!
posted by snoogles at 12:29 AM on September 2, 2008


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