Language Aids

July 11, 2005 6:50 PM

Has anyone learned a language using Rosetta Stone software, or something like it? Does it work?
posted by rtimmel to Education (12 answers total)

I haven't, but my wife saw me looking at the site and went nuts. According to her, it's "The BEST software EVER!!!" She and her boss used Rosetta Stone to learn Swahili. Of course, she used this some time ago (maybe three years ago?) so things may have changed. I wouldn't think they'd get worse over time, but you never know...
posted by Moondoggie at 7:01 PM on July 11, 2005

I can say that the Department of State definitely uses the software as a significant part of their language training. That's gotta mean something.
posted by sachinag at 7:14 PM on July 11, 2005

I've used it but never stuck with it long enough. Basically, it does what video games are very good at doing: rote memorization. So if you want to get your vocab down very quickly, this is probably very good. But it might not be as good on things like grammar or saying things other than the vocab provided for you. For example, I was pretty impressed (as was a man I met at Barnes & Nobles a few years later who gave me an hour lecture on Rosetta Stone's virtues, not realizing I'd already owned it), but a friend of mine got it to learn Arabic, post-9/11 and thought it was awful. "All it would tell me to say is if the ball was on top of the table or under it!" But this is a criticism of almost all language learning programs, right?
posted by kensanway at 7:14 PM on July 11, 2005

I've never used it myself, but it is a local company, and I can tell you that their software has a great reputation.
posted by geeky at 7:27 PM on July 11, 2005

I'm using it right now to study Italian and Greek, and I like it so far - but I'm combining it with free audio lessons available online from places like the BBC, because it seems to give me a little extra edge. I definitely recommend combining it with a free offering that is a little more structured - though, I must admit, the Rosetta Stone method is very solid and makes learning much easier. It can be somewhat difficult to infer meaning from just the pictures ("left" and "right" took me forever to figure out in the Greek lessons, until it clicked, but I remember that feeling from being a little kid learning English, so they must be doing something right.)

I leave for Italy in 50 days - hopefully by then I'll have gotten to the part in Rosetta Stone where I learn the words "beer" and "bathroom".
posted by annathea at 7:44 PM on July 11, 2005

P.S. I'm using the online version only - I can use it at work during my lunch break and I didn't have to wait for a CD to arrive. It works on both OSX and XP for me.
posted by annathea at 7:44 PM on July 11, 2005

Lastly - I tried the online demo of Rosetta Stone at least once a year for three years until I finally had a need to actually learn one of the languages, then I jumped in. I didn't say enough about the method above- it aims to teach you grammar and vocabulary in context with repetition, like you learned as a child. By tossing you in cold and not providing the safety net of a dictionary or a "lesson", you end up using the same process as you did to learn your first language as a child, which is very effective. The "edge" I mentioned above with the other lessons is that the combination seems to give me a little head start in terms of vocabulary that allows me to speed through some of the contextual stuff. Whether or not that speed is helping or hindering me, it is too early to say.

So I recommend it.
posted by annathea at 7:48 PM on July 11, 2005

I found it fun and easy to stick with, but then I went back over some old lessons and found that I hadn't really learned very much at all. This was with Japanese though; it might be more successful with less difficult languages.

Being inundated with correct pronunciation, which the software is good at, seems like it would help a lot with an easy-to-read language.
posted by trevyn at 8:20 PM on July 11, 2005

I don't know wether geeky lives near me or not but Rosetta's a local company for me to. In fact, they did beta testing at my middle school. It seemed pretty good then, I hear its getting better with time.
posted by cyphill at 8:36 PM on July 11, 2005

I have worked with both Rosetta Stone (online subscription version) and Pimsleur audio CDs for Japanese. Given my somewhat freakish knack for memorization, I am able to get all the right answers fairly quickly on both media forms. Which is very different, alas, from mastering the material. I find that when I work with either system, it makes sense for me to walk around after, crazily muttering under my breath, working to form new questions, dialogues or constructs using the material just presented. I suppose hiring a native speaker as tutor would be an even better idea.
posted by DawnSimulator at 8:52 PM on July 11, 2005

What sets Rosetta Stone apart from Pimsleur, in my mind at least, is that with my Pimsleur cds I was learning this little conversation- "Hello sir. I am an American"- but with Rosetta, I learned lots of little pieces of language so I could make my own sentences. And I guess that's the difference. Some people want to learn phrases- memorizing them so they can regurgitate them when (and if) the need arrises. Other people want to learn the language and be able to figure out on their own what they need to say from a "library" of nouns, verbs and adjectives. Depending on your learning style and the reason why you're learning the language, just learning phrases may be enough for you. If, however, you are seeking fluency, immersion is the best choice. Rosetta Stone is the only program I know of that comes close to simulating that.
posted by wallaby at 3:06 AM on July 12, 2005

Some people want to learn phrases- memorizing them so they can regurgitate them when (and if) the need arrises.

I don't think that's an entirely true characterization of Pimsleur. While doing Pimsleur, I've been breaking down the phrases in my mind and figuring out sentence structure, not just memorizing phrases; I don't really think it lets you get away with just memorizing phrases. It doesn't give you much vocabulary, but it gives you a pretty good base to start reading authentic materials with a lot of dictionary lookup.
posted by Jeanne at 3:30 AM on July 12, 2005