Anyone used rosetta stone?

stimpack

Did a search and didnt find a thread....soooooo.

As title implys, Has anyone used and had results from rosetta stone language learning program? Im currently doing the russian lessons, and its working great! Atleast, it seems im doing great.

Im trying to maximize the speed at which I learn and comprehend this stuff, and wanted to know if anyone else had done it and mayb come up with tips and tricks to speed up or aid in the process.

Currently im doing the lessons where they say a word, then you pick the picture that matches. So while doing that, i write the word down, say it outloud then pick the photo to match. Seems to be helping more than just button clicking and matching pics to words.

numo16

I have tried rosetta stone off and on for the past year or two, it seems like it would work well and probably does, if I could only find some time to dedicate to actually working on it. Hope it works out well for you.

Elhrrah

The one thing that you do not want to do, is get an old version. I ended up with an old version - it was bloody cheap - for Spanish, and the disparity between what was on the site and in my lap was huge. It was a quick-time based mash, without all that much funding behind it. The recent stuff, on the other hand, looks pretty good.

What sort of prices did you get on the Russian version?

Josh_Singh

I have been wanting to try Rosetta Stone Too! What do you guys think is the most commonly spoken Language? Not most spoken Language, I think that is Mandarin, but the Language with the most Utility, like You could travel and Find a pretty good chance people could understand you.
I think It's French. I think If you speak French you have a gate way to speak to Spanish folks and Italian Folks.

Eclipse

I tried using the French version and I just couldn't get the hang of it. They introduce words and such, but don't tell you how to conjugate them or anything and then a writing section comes up and they expect you to know what form of the word goes in there. It started off great and then just ended up pissing me off. I am going to try it one more time in a few months when I take some times off, but as of now I am none to happy with it.

Neox

I think If you speak French you have a gate way to speak to Spanish folks and Italian Folks

i wouldn't be so sure about that but from there it should be easier to learn and understand spanish or italian, but it works for one language, take russian and you can talk to pretty much everyone starting in Poland/Czech Republic and going further east

[Deleted User]

Josh_Singh wrote: »

I have been wanting to try Rosetta Stone Too! What do you guys think is the most commonly spoken Language? Not most spoken Language, I think that is Mandarin, but the Language with the most Utility, like You could travel and Find a pretty good chance people could understand you.

English

No but seriously, if you don't have any particular region in mind, I don't know that there's any "one" language. English is frequently used in international business and tourism so you've got an okay shot already.

stimpack

Elhrrah wrote: »

What sort of prices did you get on the Russian version?

Aww now why u gota go and ask that question =P I totally downloaded this. Im not about to pay 400+ dollars for something that has infomercials selling it. I just grabed first lesson/chapter what ever they call it. If it continues to teach me well, and im progressing, I will purchase.


Commonly spoke language, i would guess is spanish/portugees? I chose russian b/c i have a dred facination with there culture. If anyone else grabs russian and wants to pen pall, hit me up! =D Otherwise im gonna go troll the russian 3d sites and hope there awsome skills rub off on me hehe =P

o2car

I´ve tried both the new version (3.0) and the old one for japanese studies. the new one is really good, and I think its easily the best way to learn a new language.

It mimics the way you learned your native language. Through association and images, not text, translations and grammar.

mdeforge

I just started using Livemocha last night for Japanese. I've never used Rosetta stone, but Livemocha is doing a great job so far and it's free. I found out about it through the free apps sticky here.

Wahlgren

I´m looking into learning french so i´m kinda bummed to hear that their version sucked.

Any other suggestions?

o2car

Stradigos wrote: »

I just started using Livemocha last night for Japanese. I've never used Rosetta stone, but Livemocha is doing a great job so far and it's free. I found out about it through the free apps sticky here.

Trying it out now.
Seems to be very similar to Rosetta Stone.

Elhrrah

stimpack wrote: »

Aww now why u gota go and ask that question =P I totally downloaded this. Im not about to pay 400+ dollars for something that has infomercials selling it. I just grabed first lesson/chapter what ever they call it. If it continues to teach me well, and im progressing, I will purchase.

Want to know a secret? Try buying it through a homeschool/educational site. I must admit that that was how I ended up with a stone-age version of it, but if you look around you should be able to find a modern one.

Also, if you wanted to test it out, why didn't you get the sample disk? Has samples from ever language they offer.

Campaignjunkie

If you want the low tech approach (e.g. a book) I recommend the Assimil series ( http://www.assimil.com/ ) - you can usually buy them somewhat cheap off Amazon.

stimpack

Elhrrah wrote: »

Want to know a secret? Try buying it through a homeschool/educational site. I must admit that that was how I ended up with a stone-age version of it, but if you look around you should be able to find a modern one.

Also, if you wanted to test it out, why didn't you get the sample disk? Has samples from ever language they offer.

I never thought about looking into educational versions. Good call. As for testing it, I did do the demo, and thats all fine and good. Really tho, ive done demos of games plenty of times to find out the final product was ass. For 400 bucks, I want more than a 10 mins demo

Slash

I'm progressing great in my japanese studies with rosetta 3. I also used it to learn (very) basic french last year. (never got past the "language basics" lessons)

If you're dedicated to learning the language it's worth the money, and it will be cheaper than classes by far! I enjoy the process of learning, its more intuitive, and makes you ask questions of yourself, like "why the hell do they do THAT?". Then after some more lessons it becomes clear, and you get very rewarding "AHA!" moments. I very very much prefer this method over the traditional school model of learning grammar rules and lists of verb conjugations, which i despise. I dropped out of school at a very early age, but through other means (mostly videogames and the internet) i've aquired a comprehension of english that surpasses that of my traditionally taught peers.

The sneaky fuckers also appeal to my gamer instincts, there's nothing like having a complete row of green 100% lessons completed.

lefix

i also recommend checking out livemocha, it's free and seems to offer some solid fundamentals so far. will have to see how far this is going to take me (learning italian atm)

kwakkie

Josh_Singh wrote: »

I think It's French. I think If you speak French you have a gate way to speak to Spanish folks and Italian Folks.

I believe Spanish is spoken WAY more than French. But since youre living right next to Mexico, wouldnt it be more practical to learn Spanish anyway?

If youre ever planning a trip to Europe, don't bother learning French for that, I'd only recommend learning French if you're planning a tour trough Africa or something...

Pedro Amorim

Josh_Singh wrote: »

I have been wanting to try Rosetta Stone Too! What do you guys think is the most commonly spoken Language? Not most spoken Language, I think that is Mandarin, but the Language with the most Utility, like You could travel and Find a pretty good chance people could understand you.
I think It's French. I think If you speak French you have a gate way to speak to Spanish folks and Italian Folks.

if you speak french you have a gateway to pussy. true story
ask vahl

whats_true

I got the Stone from school that comes with all of the languages. I still haven't played with it cause no time to learn it right now

Josh_Singh

Ok Signed up for live Mocha, gonna start with Spanish, since I see it as being the most useful right now. Anybody else on Live mocha? Wanna be Spanish Speaking buddies? I am under Josh_Singh

Del

~ Just tried out LiveMocha for the first time and became an instant fan. I can't figure which language I'm gonna practice first though.

Wahlgren

Signed up as Notorious P.I.G
Here we go! French-time.

I only know english and swedish soooo.... I don´t think there willbe much demand for that

erik!

Just have LiveMocha a quick run with Spanish. Was pretty easy and simple. I took 2 years of Spanish in high school and was quite adept I'll add though I can't roll my "r"s for shit. Didn't practice it after that so I've forgotten most of what I learned. I've got a thing for languages/linguistics, so this free learning is very cool by me. I don't know how in depth the basic tutorials are, but looking at all the cool stuff that comes with the premium package has me a little bummed.

Slash wrote: »

I very very much prefer this method over the traditional school model of learning grammar rules and lists of verb conjugations, which i despise.

I like the traditional method! I like to know what and why I'm saying something from the beginning, but that's just me. That's why I was bummed at the premium stuff for LiveMocha what with all the lists of words/conjugation/etc. I'll give this LiveMocha some more time, but I don't think I'll ever be able to speak as fast as a native Spanish speaker!

Oh I'm erik! on LiveMocha.

Slash

To each his own i guess! I just like to be challenged by trying to dig out the knowledge myself, rather than by memorizing tables and rules. Then again, i can't wrap my head around simple math tables, others much prefer that over intuitive problem solving.

super_villain

Gotta agree with erik about the traditional method. A classroom setting is more true to the real use of a language, i.e. a person will say something to you, you will have to interpret it and respond in a timely manner. Plus a class will really teach you the structure of the language. You can always add LiveMocha or Rosetta Stone on the side. As far as languages go in general, English is your best bet as something like 1 out of every 4 people on this planet speak or understand it to some degree. However, like many people already mentioned, if you have a specific use for a foreign language, then go for it, regardless of how useful others might think it to be.

Vailias

I took I think 2 years of Russian in high school. I remember the alphabet, one song, some basic vocab and conjugation, but didn't learn as much as I could have since the teacher was so nice and we basically got to screw around a lot.

This live mocha thing looks cool. I'll hit you up Josh. Hell, living in New Mexico you'd think I'd be more fluent in Spanish by now. though I did get 7 of 10 on their spanish quiz thing.