Rosetta Stone Spanish

[cknorr28]

Has anyone ever used the Rosetta Stone Softwares for languages? I was thinking about buying the Spanish one. I didn't realize they were so expensive though.

[Ian]

I'd actually like to piggyback on this topic myself, as I've been thinking about getting the Italian version.

I'm very curious to know if anyone has used them to any degree of success?

[kdbianchini]

My husband and I have the Italian version. We like it. It was expensive, but I believe worth it. We are hoping to be able to learn enough to go to Italy and be able to converse with people there. We have Level 1 and 2. We are almost half way into Level 1 and have learned alot of various words and questions/answers. The only thing that we are having trouble with is learning the difference with the female/male versions of different words. It is hard, but you have to keep up with it.

[ILoveLegos]

I have the Japanese version. I've completed level 1 and I'm on Chapter 12 of level 2 now. It's challenging because of the whole 3000 character set thing of the Japanese language - but I think that Rosetta Stone makes it easier than any other method I've tried. If immersive learning works for the way you think about language, this is a great way to learn a language. In my oppinion about learning a language without translation, grammer and drill books - I bought a good English/Japanese dictionary and a few grammer references too. It takes some of the mystery out of what in the world you are repeating and actually helps me to grasp grammer concepts better. Especially if you rely heavily on the included curriculum text like I have to do.
I thought the purchase price was steep too, but there is a slight savings if you purchase 1&2 together even more so if 3 is available in the language you want. I reasoned that it is much cheaper than hiring a tutor. It is my goal to complete level two before my scheduled vacation to Tokyo Disneyland late 2008 or early 2009.

[murphy1]

I have the demo disk from them, I want to take the French course. It's pretty cool, it links photos to the words and you get to hear the proper pronuciation, b/c immersion is their philosophy which is great. Go look on Ebay, you can get them much cheaper there.

[WRWDisney]

My sister has used the Italian one and swears by it. She has been to Italy a number of times; her most recent trip, after she started level 1 and she found it to be very helpful.

On an interesting aside, the company is actually headquartered here and the creator/founder was a professor at the university that pays for my Disney "habit" :mickey: before this little "project" of his took off.

[joeyGibson]

Has anyone ever used the Rosetta Stone Softwares for languages? I was thinking about buying the Spanish one. I didn't realize they were so expensive though.

I use Rosetta Stone Spanish with my 9 year-old son as part of his home-schooling. He and I spend 30-ish minutes a day working with it, and he's making amazing progress. There is no English anywhere; it's completely immersive. It also makes heavy use of a microphone, comparing your pronunciation to that of the native speakers, which is much better than just reading and writing, IMO.

If you buy it, make sure you get Version 3. Some of their languages are still at Version 2, which is not nearly as good as the V3 stuff.

[Mufasa]

Rosetta Stone's immersion can be useful for learning vocabulary, but I caution that it should not be the only approach to learning some languages.

The Rosetta approach involves associating images with phrases so you "learn" indirectly- by looking at groupings of images without any other clues, you try to infer the meaning of what is said with a particular image and then it gets reinforced through additional examples.

All grammar rules are tossed out of the window so does that really teach true comprehension of a language? That's up for debate.

There are instances where the example sentences are a bit awkward in their sentence structure- sometimes an example is almost too formal or with some languages, like Japanese for example there's not enough explanation of the subtle nuances to use in certain situations.

For instance, yon is preferred to using shi for the number 4- but there are exceptions, like the month of april is shi gatsu or 4:00 when telling time is another irregular- it's yo-ji, not yon-ji or shi-ji.

Also, verbs especially when taken directly from a dictionary are often so informal you have to be careful about using them in conversation, especially when speaking with elders (though most will understand if you're learning the language).

So I think it's a good supplement to learning a language or can help you to get started, but if you're serious about really achieving fluency in a language you should augment it with other sources which will deepen your comprehension.

And I don't think Rosetta is a good program for trying to learn hiragana or katakana if you're interested in learning to read/write fluently in Japanese. That's less of a problem with other languages which use a Latin alphabet like Spanish or French.

[bleukarma]

I have wanted to try this out to brush up on my Spanish and to learn Italian. I haven't tried it, but I did learn that my local library carries it through their eLearning web site. That will save me tons of money...as soon as I buy speakers for my computer. It's worth checking out your local library system in case they also carry it. :thumbsup:

[ElenitaB]

I don't want to hijack the thread either, but can anyone tell me if it works on Vista? Thanks!

[ILoveLegos]

I don't want to hijack the thread either, but can anyone tell me if it works on Vista? Thanks!

I don't know, I purposely stuck w/ XP on my 11 month old "latest" computer, but then again I'm using rosetta stone version 2. Maybe version 3 is compatable w/ Windows Vista - I'd be interested to know for sure as well.

P.S.

I Just checked online to see the requirements, here they are:

Requirements for Rosetta Stone User Workstations
Windows 2000, XP or Vista, Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later
512 MB RAM
1 GHz or faster processor speed
600 MB free hard-drive space (per level)
16-bit sound card
800 x 600 display resolution (1024 x 768 recommended)
Internet or phone connection required for product activation
Speech recognition feature requires a headset microphone (USB recommended)

P.P.S. An additional site disclaimer:

Note for Microsoft® Windows Vista™ users:
Current Rosetta Stone® products have been engineered to install and run on the Windows Vista operating system. Some 3rd party components used in Rosetta Stone products have not been certified by Microsoft as ‘Vista Compliant’. Accordingly, you may encounter some Vista-related operating issues. Rosetta Stone technical support may or may not be able to resolve these Vista-related issues. Rosetta Stone hereby disclaims any representations, warranties, guaranties and conditions with respect to the compatibility of the Rosetta Stone products with the Windows Vista operating systems.

[HollyB]

Go look on Ebay, you can get them much cheaper there.

Be careful with this. We bought the Rosetta Stone English version for a project. When the project was done, we tried to sell it on Ebay. We promptly received a cease and desist order from Rosetta Stone.

They threatened legal action if we didn't take down the auction. They had Ebay threaten legal action if we didn't take down the auction. This had never happened for any other auction before or since.

My husband called Rosetta Stone and explained that we were an English speaking family that had just needed the software for this one project and we were not trying to sell it at a profit or anything now that the project was over. We just didn't need it anymore. Rosetta Stone maintained we did not actually own the software but that we had only licensed its use. If we didn't want it any more we were welcome to return it to them, but we were not licensed to sell it or even give it to anyone else.

They were quite Draconian in their approach and because of that, when we recently bought new software for a new project, we went with another company.

Meanwhile, the Rosetta Stone English gathers dust on my shelf. . .

[murphy1]

Oh, no, Holly, that's not good! Sorry that happened to you. Ebay is so weird how some people they will do that to and some they won't. This happens with a lot of the boutique Disney stuff on there. I wish they would either enforce it or drop it.

[maelstrom]

I want to learn Russian. I don't suppose anyone has any experience with Rosetta Stone's Russian program?