Rosetta Stone raises the bar again for language software.
Not cheap, but brilliant value and fun too.Excellent For Students.
Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Level 1-3 Set
Always Wanted To Learn To Speak Spanish.
Best language learning system available.
Rosetta Stone has nailed it. The system is fun and very interactive. It rocks!
Helped Me Break Through My Mental Spanish Block.Powerful Learning In That Yellow Box.A Fantastic Way to Learn Conversational Spanish.Expensive, but it works!The best way to learn Spanish at your own pace.As close as you can get to really heading abroad.You should know when you buy this way that it is an immersion system (without English translations).So worth the investment!A fantastic program for enhancing Spanish glibness. But it still helps to crack a book, conjugate a few verbs, and study…
Will using Rosetta Stone Spanish allow you to say: “Me sorprende que soy capaz de hablar un español fluido después de usar este programa sólo por un par de semanas!” (‘I am amazed that I am able to speak fluent Spanish after using this program for only a few weeks’)?
Probably not. It is, though, a very useful and well thought out program.
The Rosetta Stone line of language products all share the same basic design and interface. The key to the Rosetta Stone system is the presentation of word and action associations, influenced by perspective. This simulates the sort of cues that one would parse and process in speaking any language, even your own native language. Normally, you don’t reckon about this as you speak your own language. But it’s one of the toughest things to simulate outside of dealing with a second language in its own people and having the chance to deal with real life situations involving speakers of the second language.
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Each screen is accompanied by a phrase, spoken out loud by a native speaker in the program, and four slightly different picture scenes that require you to pick the one that the condemn is referring to. Beginning at a very basic level — such as “the boy is under the tree” (in whatever language) with four pictures of a boy next to, under, in the limbs of and cutting down the tree — your proficiency improves as you go through these basic cues to more advanced and complex speaking and contexts. By the end of the program you are dealing with honestly complex situations, sentences and associations.
The program also allows you to repeat the phrase and, using the supplied microphone, match and score your own pronunciation against the supplied sample. You can also test your ability to properly write out a second language by spelling out and typing the phrase, although the work arounds for using a US English QWERTY keyboard with the special font and distinct keyboard layouts used by different languages can be awkward. There are several variations on all the visual, verbal and textual tests.
The most vital question one must answer when considering this product is: will it, as the advertising suggests, be a magic gateway to language learning that is all you need? The answers is: sort of.
First, this is an expensive product. Make no mistake, when you pay for a heavily advertised product like this that you are, in part, paying the cost of the extensive advertising that brought it to your attention and place you in a mind to buy it.
Second, although Rosetta Stone is an extremely well thought out and useful system for review, practice, improving reaction era to prompts in other languages, and gaining glibness through exposure to variable contexts, it is not a complete language way.
I have bought a load of different language courses for languages that I have wanted to study on my own, and I can say, at least for me, that using at least two or more different packages that compliment, reinforce and overlap with each other is always better than trying to learn all with only the logic and pattern of one single way. Above and beyond, you really do need to learn grammar and other parts of the subject that cannot really be roofed by, or communicated well by, a single program, even one as well thought out as Rosetta Stone.
At some point you really do have to crack a book and do some regular studying and learning, even though Rosetta Stone strongly implies that you can be speaking away in a second language with not anything more than some time in front of your laptop.
End: whatever language you are lacking to study, seriously deliberate Rosetta Stone. But also seriously deliberate buying a Pimsleur and a Living Language way to go along with it, and seriously contemplate the very un-Rosetta Stone-ish subject of studying verb conjugation rules, grammar, usage and verb tables.
All together you will stand a much better chance of gaining real glibness, and not just the ability to distinguish if the boy is in, under or above and beyond he tree, or if all of the people, two of the people, the two men or the three women in the picture are intake steak or drinking wine. It’s all excellent, but no one product or way can do it all.
Although very expensive compared to most other akin language products, Rosetta Stone Spanish Levels 1, 2, & 3 takes home language study to a new level. Above and beyond audio and reading components, it is highly visual, and with the provided headset and microphone, tests pronunciation and listening skills too. The combination of all these facets results in a very intensive product that provides the opportunity for immersion. There is also the option of communicating with other learners on the internet, but I have not tried this feature so can’t say any more. Rosetta Stone builds, starting with baby steps, with constant review and reinforcement that prevent one from becoming hopefully lost and dejected. I have gotten through most of Level 1 at this point and find it to be highly effective. The lessons sink in much more than with audio tapes only. I wish I had time to really immerse myself in Rosetta stone on a blitz through the entire way. It would be ideal for someone soon to leave on a vacation or have a need to learn a language. In sum, despite the high fee-tag, Rosetta stone is an brilliant value and may be the best buy when making a serious have a crack at learning a new language. It is fun to use too and my studies will continue!
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