Rosetta stone vs other language software: What do you recommend?

thefluffyhippo

Hi,
I really want to buy a program like Rosetta Stone to learn Spanish. I did some research but I am not satisfied with what I have read. If i am going to spend a chunk of my money on a program I want to make sure it is a good one. What is your experience with these types of programs? Do you highly recommend one?! Do you highly discourage another?!

Thanks for your help!
Em

RUNN1NGMAN

Rosetta Stone is pretty sweet, I'd say it works as advertised although you do have to basically do it religiously to get anything out of it. The speech recognition is pretty cool, and I found the word/picture association "games" that it uses to teach very effective.

Disclaimer, I only did a few lessons before I broke up with my Argentine g/f and decided to fuck learning Spanish.

KVW

Only having tried the Japanese Rosetta Stone, I can only comment that version, but, from my experience, it was a waste of time and money. I would never recommend it to anyone and there are much better solutions out there for Japanese learning software / aids.

As Spanish is probably a far more popular language to learn than Japanese, it may have a better outing in the Rosetta series, but I assume it would be the same curriculum with different words, meaning I would not recommend it for any language, but, again, didn't use it in Spanish.

Unless you think spending money will be a bigger motivator to actual sit down and study, I think it would be better to go search for Spanish language learning podcasts and websites. Download the podcasts / mp3 files, listen, learn the pronounciations, practice the vocabulary and sentence lessons and move on from there.

My favourite Japanese language resource were the Pimsleur audio lessons. They offer hours of lessons with various repetitions that build on vocabulary learned in prior lessons and all build you towards everyday use of the language. As far as I know, they have multiple language versions available and Spanish should more than likely be offered. Definitely worth looking into and something you can listen to on rides to work, waiting for bus, while surfing the net, at the gym and so on.

Nibble

Rosetta Stone is not good for English speakers learning Chinese and Japanese because they do not adjust the curriculum to accommodate the vastly different grammar. For European languages, I hear it's better; but I still don't think it's a very good program. If you want to learn vocabulary, there are plenty of free word lists and flash-card programs (I highly suggest http://www.supermemo.net/ ). If you want to learn how to actually speak and have a conversation with someone, I think the Pimsleur audio CDs are very good. I have used them for a number of languages, and they are quite effective if you follow the instructions properly.

However, using any kind of book, CD, or software to the exclusion of anything else is not a very effective way to learn a language. If you really want to learn the language, you should enroll in a class or find a tutor, and use the software/CDs/books to supplement your in-class learning.your

Fuzzywhale

I had an okay time learning some german with it. As other people are saying, you'd need to do it everyday. However, you won't learn any grammar at all, so you could throw some sentences together but not really know the rules as to why that works(which is guess is the case for native speakers to some extent..).

I'm enrolled in a mandarin class at my university and I'd probably shoot myself it I had to learn the language with rosetta stone. Fortunately it's taught by a nice taiwanese woman.

Hypatia

Rosetta Stone seems like it's a lot more useful for people who already have a basic grasp of the language, but that's just my experience with their Mandarin version. It also seems to require that you have the motivation to really sit there and study some of the things since there's no way you're going to learn the characters just from them flashing the images up there.

Pimsleur is pretty good for listening comprehension but it goes by rote memorization and depending on the language you can miss some of the correct pronunciations even when they break it down (I still can't figure out how to say hello in Russian).

For Spanish I'd actually recommend the "My Spanish Coach" for the Nintendo DS. Their "My Japanese Coach" is decently laid out and I've heard that their European language coach things are better than the Japanese one.

Unknown

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Comahawk

Sorry to hijack, but does anyone have any experience with the French one?

I'm considering buying it to help prep me for potentially going to RMC, where i will be put in immersion. I just don't want to sound like a complete idiot, although right now I can string together very rough sentences in very specific situations.

Moobly

I can suggest the pimseluer system if you've got the cash to throw at it. It's quite expensive though, so if you're not independently wealthy there's a solid chance you'll need something else. As for Rosetta Stone my experience is similar to that above in that for languages with similar grammar patterns, it's quick to learn. But with japanese the grammar situations just leave you confused and wondering why. So I'd say Rosetta stone if you're going with a romance language, pimseluer if not.