Look For Rosetta Stone Spanish at Amazon
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We’ve all seen the Rosetta Stone infomercials. They feature assorted Rosetta Stone reviewers that assert that this “award winning” program taught them to speak Spanish. Well I was not long ago in a very similar circumstance where I necessitated to learn Mexican Spanish to go on vacation, and I decisive to try out Rosetta Stone. I logged onto the website, and everything looked legit, so I decisive to spend the $500+ on the program, which I later encountered was a big mistake. Thanks to a Rosetta Stone coupon that I had, I was competent to skip the shipping fee’s, but it still took a little over a week. The vacation was planned 2 months from this time, so I was a little crunched for time. The next problem that arose with Rosetta Stone was the difficult downloading process..I would unquestionably not commend it to people with slow computers because it takes up a LOT of space! So once it was in the long run installed, I without delay started to use the multiple choice format that they use. This was when I found the worst portion of the program, their total immersion method. This Rosetta Stone review is in truth designed to make an analyzation of the bad parts of Rosetta Stone, and in a minute I am going to provide you with an alternative. The substitute is Rocket Spanish. Rocket Spanish is what I applied after I failed with Rosetta Stone! They have all sorts of outstanding features such as the MegaSpanish games, the members forum, and the beginners ebook. Most helpful customer reviews 377 of 385 people found the following review helpful. 132 of 137 people found the following review helpful. I think many of the reviews that are available on Amazon are from people that only have a brief experience with the product. This is what I think needs improvement: Here’s a huge tip. Download the couse content guide for the English version of this course. It’s almost the same content and you can read the script in English that cooresponds to your Spanish lessons. You can find the course content guides in the support-download section of the Rosetta Stone web site. The English lesson guide has the content of the core and milestone lessons. It makes a tremendous difference to be able to read the text in English so you know what they are trying to tell you. Also, use google translate. 2. There should be grammer explanations and lessons in your native language as well. They cover grammer by showing you different scenes expressed with different grammer text. It is very difficult at times to figure out why cetain grammer is used in certain cases. I think a spanish grammer book would be very useful along with the Rosetta Stone software. My son is studying high school spanish. I looked at his spanish book and it really filled in the blanks on several fuzzy areas that I have at this point with Rosetta Stone. 3. They should give you a spanish-english dictionary of all of the words that are used in the program for reference. 4. Word recognition can be tricky. You can mispronounce a sentence completely, but sometimes single syllable words are very difficult to score correctly. I feel you can go through the lessons successfully but not really learn how to construct sentences or speak the language in a converation with a spanish speaker. I am also testing out “Tell Me More-Spanish” level 1-10. It is much more comprehensive. The program does contain grammer as well as English translations. There are over 8600 Spanish words in the program. I’ve got about 30 hours into this one, it doesn’t spoon feed the vocabulary as well as Rosetta Stone. The learning curve is much steeper. I will need more time to make an evaluation on whether I like Tell Me More over Rosetta Stone. Tell Me More claims that by the tine you finish their course, you will have total mastery of Spanish. I spoke with their support staff. One person said she was on level 7 of the spanish program and she can now converse fluently with native spanish speakers. That is something you will not have with Rosetta Stone because it is not as comprehensive. I have not tried Fluenz, but many people have reviewed it and prefered it over Rosetta Stone as well. 157 of 166 people found the following review helpful. Why? Because using RS can be very frustrating to a new user. This was my first time using RS but not my first time learning a new language. I learned French the “old-fashioned way” in school and taught myself sign language from a book. In both cases, I got to ask questions of the teacher or look up additional information in my NATIVE language to help me understand the nuances of the language and to clear up any points of confusion. But RS provides ZERO assistance to the student in their NATIVE language. I understand that the very basis of Rosetta Stone is total immersion, meaning you are totally immersed in the target language while you’re learning it. However, I had hoped that there would be SOME opportunity to get questions answered in English and there is not (or if there is, I haven’t found it). When you are in the RS software, there is NO English used (unless, of course, you are using RS to learn English!). When you have your live tutoring sessions with a native speaker (which are, by the way IMMENSELY helpful), the tutors are apparently restricted by their employer from speaking in any language but the target language. This means that, until I am several months into my study, I will not yet have the skills to ask the questions I need to ask in my target language!! Something is wrong with this picture! Additionally, though I am a smart person, at times I could not figure out what was being asked of me in my RS language lessons. Putting aside the fact that I don’t know yet that pelo means hair, I don’t even understand what I’m supposed to do. Repeat the question? Give the answer? MUCH of the learning is VERY intuitive. They say hola. I repeat hola. They say adios. I repeat adios. But as the lessons go on, things get more complicated and there were times when I was failing lessons literally because I did not know what was being asked of me–what I was supposed to do. Eventually, I figured it out. Some things I figured out by visiting the Rosetta Stone website. Some by talking to someone I knew online who was also doing RS but in a different language. Some by trial and error. But to a person who is used to grasping most things on the first try and succeeding much more than failing, it was at times a supremely frustrating experience. Now that I am about to complete the first level (which has taken me about 2 months), I feel much more confident and am having much less frustration with the system. I have had 3 live tutoring sessions and have learned a lot from them. The first was, of course, nerve-wracking, but I am really enjoying them now. In addition, there is Rosetta World, where you can play games to help you learn the language, either alone or with other people from around the world. I am learning Latin American Spanish, and most often play either with other Americans who are also learning Spanish or with native Spanish speakers (usually from South America) who are learning English. They help you, you help them…it is a nice system, and you get to “meet” some nice people and learn about other countries as well. The system also provides audio CDs so that you can take your lessons with you in your car, on your iPod, etc. I found this less helpful, but it is a nice touch, especially for those who commute to work every day and could use that time productively by reinforcing their lessons during their commute. I am now a proponent of total immersion, in that I do see a positive difference between how I recall Spanish when I prepare to speak it vs. how I would recall Frensh or sign language when I would prepare to speak or use them. The old way of learning language required us to constantly translate in our heads…translate what someone says to us in another language into English and then translate our response from English back into the other language before we respond. With total immersion, you just THINK in your new language…there is very little translation going on. In other words, instead of thinking “hair = pelo”, I might touch my hair and think “pelo” without the literal mental translation of “hair = pelo”. I still have issues with the fact that the tutors can’t/won’t answer questions in my native language, but at least I understand more now why they can’t/won’t. Do I recommend this product? Yes, wholeheartedly…BUT with a caveat. Don’t expect it to always be easy. Don’t expect to never be frustrated. And don’t expect to ever see or read or speak your native language while you’re learning. |
A great program for enhancing Spanish fluency. But it still helps to crack a book, conjugate a few verbs, and study…
Good product, could be better
An amazing program, but not without its frustrations
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