Struggling to learn French

by Laine
(Florida)

I am currently using the French language Rosetta Stone. I'm still on Level 1. It's a great software, but I'm still having a difficult time with learning French. I don't think my inability should be a reflection of the software. Maybe I need to be more patient with myself. My first language is English and in English an object isn't male or female. I also noticed that sometimes the beginning of one word is sometimes pulled into the end of another one. It makes it very confusing. It also seems like if I don't pronounce a word correctly it either doesn't mean anything or it takes on a whole new meaning.

I have definitely been able to pick up on words when hearing other people speak (probably from listening to Rosetta so much) so that has been nice. I've even been able to understand parts of people's conversations. The speech recognition is great, but I'm still not comfortable with speaking French to anyone other than the basic words that I've learned. I'm told that when I do try to speak French that I say words well so I'm thinking it's more of an insecurity issue. My husband is from Belgium and his first language is French. His family doesn't know any English so it's very important for me to learn French. His family also speaks Italian so I was thinking of trying to learn Italian instead. I seem to have an easier time with the Italian words and I'm wondering if it might be easier for me to learn.

I would recommend Rosetta Stone to someone trying to learn French because it seems to be a thorough software with a lot of study time and exercises. I just don't know if it's for me. I'm still working on it though.