Just got my Rosetta Stone in the other day..

I have used it for about three hours now. My very first impression of it was it sucked, I don’t know what the y, el, ellos and so on are used for nor do they tell you. They are just showing you pictures of things. At about hour two I realized I do know what they are, along with the main words they were teaching. Your mind is learning all of this without you even knowing it. So in just a few hours I have learned a great deal and seem to be retaining it. The only problem I can see happening is that no one that speaks Spanish speaks it this formally. I called my brother and told him some of the words I learned and he had no clue what I was saying on a few of them.

 

You have to get the special add-on pack Rosetta Stone: Rude Sayings and Cuss Words available at a store near you. Seriously though, if you go through all of the levels, you will be able to speak passable Spanish. I think there are 5 levels. It may be formal, but it works pretty much. I went through level 1 of Rosetta Stone and then went on vacation in a small town in Mexico and found that I could say a bunch of things that people could understand. Level 1 did not get me to where I could say that I speak Spanish, but I learned a lot.

 

I've read mixed reviews for Rosetta Stone. From what I've gathered, the best part about Rosetta Stone is the live conversations with a native speaker/instructor. Other than that, I've heard mostly negative things (cookie cutter approach to the images, not culturally accurate with the target language).

I've had a great experience with the Michel Thomas Method Beginner Dutch program (also available in a number of other languages) which consists of 8 CDs. I was so impressed that I've already purchased the MT Advanced 4-CD set. Also, the price is right, as both series combined costs about 1/4 the price of Rosetta Stone!

 

I actually used Rosetta Stone to learn Dutch and I wouldn't say I'm fluent, but I'm definitely conversant/proficient. I can speak Dutch with my friends in Amsterdam and while I get laughed at some times, they know what I am saying.

 

I bought the Spanish elementary version about 6 months ago but have never opened the box. This is a promising report that may spur me to action...

 

I used it a bit more today and was talking to the lady who cuts my hair, she was shocked at how much learned. Its all about how much you want it.

 

Yea, what he said.

 

Hallo,

Ik spreek een beetje Nederlands...

I am curious if you used the latest version with the live instructor. I really need to find some people to converse with online. My CDs are great, but they don't talk back!

 

Great another thing I can add to the list of things I want to purchase...hmm maybe I should get this to have something to do until I start my Master's next month since I am going CRAZY being bored out of my mind.......

 

You can't get that much done in a month. It would take you a year of solid effort to be able to speak a language. Rosetta Stone would get you there, but it's still a lot of work. I'd suggest that you brush up on something you will have to take in your master's studies that you may find difficult. Statistics or something else hard depending on your concentration. I think you would see more results that way.

 

Tom, you way want to use EasyTalk. It is both a text and voice chat site for practicing languages. I think Rosetta Stone owns it, but you can use it for free (last I checked). As an English speaker, you'll be in high demand!

 

I think you can just pay the fee and get access to the online content. Its freakin great! If you want to speak to an instructior you have to set up a time. But you can get with other students that are trying to learn English that speak Spainish and you can work together to learn.

 

This will be a full time thing for me for the next year. Just removed college and replaced it with this. I think its a better investment than another degree right now. A month will get get you started but not worth the time with you starting a masters program.

 

Si, lo que dijo Maniaco Craniaco!!!

Abner :smile:

 

My 10 year old asked for French and Japanese for Christmas this past year. (the geek in me is soooo proud) I had him pick one, he picked French and so he got it for Christmas. He worked on it for about a half hour 3xweek until summer break. He is moving very slowly, (by my assessment) however, I have failed at learning languages MULTIPLE times, so who am I to assess anyone's language progress? lol I do enjoy RS very much, and I enjoy the voice recognition aspect. I think they nailed the method (pictures vs translation) and I expect we will use it again this coming school year. I'm thrilled that you are sharing your experiences, I'll keep watching for updates. While my son was too young to do it, they do have live interaction web chats, so you can practice live with someone from RS. Somewhere in your kit is an access code.

 

I'll have to look into this. Thanks for the tip. I'm actually learning Dutch, not Spanish (I've never been practical, so why start now?).

 

This one is on my list to check out. I will definitely check it out. However, in looking at other language sites, most people that speak Dutch (e.g. people in The Netherlands) speak excellent English and therefore really don't need to practice!

 

I haven't tried Rosetta Stone, so I really have no idea how well it works. The live chat and instructor led sessions do sound worthwhile (although this is only available with the latest version of RS).

Recently, I read an extensive review for the latest Dutch version of RS, which did have an influence on me deciding not to purchase the software (in addition to the fact that the software runs $380 (for Dutch levels 1-3)!

As an aside, Benny's site (source of the above review) is an excellent resource for "language hacking" (e.g. learning a language on the fly) and language learning in general.

 

Since someone brought up Benny's page, perhaps it wouldn't be totally inappropriate to mention one of his "rivals": The Linguist On Language - Having Fun Learning Languages

Steve Kaufmann puts a slightly different spin on language learning than Benny. Personally, I find Steve's approach a bit more satisfying than Benny's. Steve promotes a lot of input (reading, listening, etc. to material of interest in your target language). Steve even has a site called LingQ that anyone can use to find new language materials for free. You can find both texts and the accompanying audio recordings about a lot of different topics. At the present time, the materials are only for English, French, Russian, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Italian, Mandarin (Chinese), Japanese, Swedish, and Korean, but that should be enough for those curious minds. Later on, I heard that Steve is working to allow users to import materials for any language they want.

The only thing that costs money is if you want to work with a private tutor or to create more than 200 (I think) flashcards.

(In case anyone is wondering, I do not work for Steve or LingQ.com. I have simply found the site to be a useful tool for my own private learning as well as for my teaching over the last couple of years. It is a fun tool to improve one's own languages and also to dabble in several others if you have the time and inclination.)