Look Elsewhere

by George
(NY, NY)

The Rosetta Stone teaches you "baby sentences" like how to point at a blue car or see the ball near the child. It does not teaches you the language. There is no attempt at teaching you verbs and tense. It has nice pictures and you GUESS what the things are. Big, expensive disappointment. I suggest you try something else. I am.

Comments for Look Elsewhere

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I disagree a little
by: Ron

I'm sorry Rosetta Stone was a disappointment for you. I'd like to point out that it needn't be an 'expensive' one as they offer a 100% guarantee, so contact them for a refund.

I have to disagree with you a little bit about the content of Rosetta Stone. Your description of how you learn is fairly accurate, but it doesn't sound like you went all the way through the program, or that you fully took advantage of its features.

You do learn verbs and tenses, but rather than studying 'amo,amas,amat...' you absorb tenses by seeing and hearing them used in context and infer the rules (much like some other language learning methods).

It sounds to me like a 'learning style' problem. The style Rosetta Stone uses to teach is just not suited to you, and you are right for looking elsewhere for a better method for you, but I still think it could help you if you use it as a complement to another method. If you still have it, then try using all of its features to focus on your weak points.

I recommend to anyone who is interested in Rosetta Stone to try the demo first! If you don't like it, you can always try something else.
Not What it is cracked up to be
by: Anonymous

Very disappointed in Rosetta Stone for Chinese. Without any explanations, and just pictures it is very difficult to understand what the words really mean. And when you see the same word in a different context, but with a completely different meaning it becomes very confusing. I also used Pimsulers approach which helped me understand the Rosetta Stone better. The real help was having a Chinese girlfriend who could help me understand the thought patterns of the Chinese language. Also I would recommend the Chinese Pod course. I have been to Shanghai and talked to the people that operate it. I think they have a much better approach to teaching the language to western people.
People should try the software before bashing it
by: JAKSPRATT

This software takes time if you wish to learn to speak, write, and read a new language. If you want to speak a couple phrases buy a 10 dollar book, not a comprehensive software that is going to take some commitment.
Sounds like a user error for the most part
by: Anonymous

Seems that most people complain that it is too simple or you can just guess or you don't learn tense. From taking several language classes in high school, Rosetta Stone seems to follow a very similar pattern as those classes did.

You say you can just guess? Well if you were in a class and were given a multiple choice test, you COULD theoretically just guess on them all, but you would be stupid too because you certainly wouldn't do well. If you actually try on the other hand...

You say you don't learn how to conjugate verbs and tenses and what not. Sure, it is not the best at getting that across, but I seem to remember Spanish in high school where you would have to learn a ton of verbs and all their different endings.... but wait, this one and that one and these ones all have different rules so just memorize those. Some learn better by just applying rather than memorizing a table of words.

And of course it is simple at first. I don't remember learning how to write novels the first week of a Spanish or French class. We learned basic words describing people, places, and things. We put words to pictures. We wrote short sentences. Yes, it takes time to get through all 4 units, but I didn't do conversative Spanish really until the last part of Spanish 2... conveniently enough that's the way this works. Yes, easy to get bored, so don't do more than a little bit a day. It's not meant to be something where you finish everything in a week. You don't learn by cramming. We as people like instant gratification, but it doesn't work.

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