Anyone tried the Rosetta Stone Language software?

[shardian]

I'm thinking about getting the Spanish version. Is this stuff really as good as the commercials say it is?

[MustardTent]

Looks pretty cool.  If you go to the website, you can try their online demo or you can order a demo cd.

Might try that myself.

[patrickl]

I tried it. I followed the whole spanish course. Both beginner and advanced versions.

I don't think it works. I scored excellent at all  the tests and indeed when I went to Spain I could understand some basic things of what people were saying or read things. The biggest problem came when I tried to speak.  It really doesn't teach you to speak a single sentence. It only trains you in understanding the language and only using a very limited vocabulary.

Besides that the vocabulary is limited it's also pretty useless. They teach you words for "window", "running", "walking", types of clothing. Basically all words you don't relaly use all that often. At least I didn't.

I also tried the Michael Thomas course. This centers more on teaching you to speak sentences. I used this to learn Italian (and again spanish). Trouble with this course is that the vocabulary is even more limited. I was able to form some simple sentences though. I could actually speak to italian people that time.  Unfortunately understanding them was very difficult since I learned only such a limited vocabulary. I found this out when I had some trouble with my car and the mechanic did not speak a single word of english. But then I had a PDA dictionary to look up the words I needed (which again is not easy since every word has like 5 or so translations of which only one really applies in a certain situation).

Good thing about the Michael Thomas course is that you can do it in the car. I would just run a CD every day I was commuting. Repeated the whole course like 3 times or so til I could dream all the exercises.

I also followed a course in Bulgarian (yes, I'm a language freak). This was a simple CD ROM study from the EuroTalk series. This CD course is really basic. it only teaches you some words, numbers and basic phrases. I thought it was completely useless, but in fact this course did more for me than all the others. I could read menus, order food, ask for the bill. Again no real dialog, but at least basic sentences. Which was good because Bulgarians do not speak english.

Anyway, whatever of these things you user. Never expect to much from them. You will not really learn a language.

[shmokes]

I've gone through the beginner, intermediate and advanced Pimsleur courses for French.  I thought they were excellent.  You're not going to be anything like fluent, but I was really really happy with them.

I know Drew has had some experience with the Spanish Pimsleur program, so you might ask him what he thought of it.  I got the impression that he was very impressed.

They're bloody expensive, though.  I stole mine, which is good, cos they're like $300 apiece.

[shardian]

They're bloody expensive, though.  I stole mine, which is good, cos they're like $300 apiece.

How dare you! I would never stoop to such vile levels.

[ChadTower]

My wife is a linguist and she generally calls those apps the same thing as watching the movie to get out of reading the book.  You're not going to learn the language but you may learn enough to find the bathroom, the police station, or end up in a motel bathroom full of ice with stitches in your lower back.

[patrickl]

Oh right, I tried the pimsleur course too.  I thought that was the worst of them all. I didn't finish it.

[patrickl]

They're bloody expensive, though.  I stole mine, which is good, cos they're like $300 apiece.

I have to admit I only bought the rosetta stone CD's. I think the set was something like $300 too. The other courses I downloaded the "trial versions". Oh and I bough the eurotalk CD, but it was only a few bucks in a bargain bin.

[shmokes]

My wife is a linguist and she generally calls those apps the same thing as watching the movie to get out of reading the book.  You're not going to learn the language but you may learn enough to find the bathroom, the police station, or end up in a motel bathroom full of ice with stitches in your lower back.

I wholeheartedly agree.  There's just no way that any system like that could give you fluency in a language.  Hell, this summer I will have a bachelor's degree in French and I still don't consider myself fluent.  I've gone through the Pimsleur courses to supplement my classwork because every little bit helps and I commute about ten hours a week for work, so it gives me a way to put that time to use a little bit.  But, yeah, I think that most people who buy those types of programs do so while convincing themselves that it will make them fluent in another language.  No such product exists.

[Samstag]

If you're willing to spend hundreds of dollars (or more) and you're serious about learning the language, look into immersive schools where you don't speak any English at all during your stay.  You'll find a wide range of prices and services from a few hundred to thousands.

My wife decided she wanted to teach German so she took a 9-week course in Germany that cost about $3500 (airfare included, she thinks).  She started with a tiny vocabulary and came out of there fluent enough that she tested out of 4 years of college German and passed the certification exam on her first try (it's notoriously hard to pass the first time in Texas).  In her case the $3500 was an excellent investment because she was back in a teaching job immediately and saved a ton of time and money in getting her German degree.

If you can use a second language to further your career, this is the way to go.  Otherwise if you just like to travel and can spare a month or more, it's still worth considering.

[shmokes]

That's the next step for me, though it's only four weeks.  Nine weeks is out of the question financially, and leaving my family for that long would be over twice as hard as the 4-week program I'm going to do.  But I'll be studying in a language institution for four hours a day with students from all over the world, so the only common language is French.  Plus, I'll be living with and having dinner every night with a French family and they are not supposed to speak any English to me (and won't even be able English, for all I know).

I'm hoping that seeing as I'm already getting quite good at French, having completed a bachelor's degree in the subject, that four-weeks will be enough to push me into what would be described as fluency.

I'll tell you one thing: my daughter will speak French from the moment she can talk.  Good god, I have worked ---my bottom--- off to acquire what limited French skills I have.  Four years of studying, and doing exercises and reading books and listening to CDs, and attending French tables religiously (that I don't get any school credit for).  I look at my nieces who were just raised bilingual to begin with (English/Spanish) and they have always simply spoken each language with equal ease.  They have never had to work at being bilingual.  It's SOOO much easier to pick up a language as a child.  If it's not already too late, get your toddler speaking another language!  If you can't teach it to them, pay someone to do it.  It's an opportunity that you can never get back once you've missed it.

[patrickl]

It really depends what you want to use the course for. Indeed they dont't work to teach you a language fluently, but it's nice if you go on holiday and want to learn the local language.

I would never buy a rosetta stone course again. For that money and the time you have to spend on it, it's better to take a course with a teacher.

I like the audio CDs though because you can use hem in the car when you would otherwise just be wasting time in a traffic jam.

I have been making my own CD that I use in my car. Just to learn vocabulary. With a product like Textaloud you can have your computer speak any language you like. I was really impressed by the quality  these voices.

[DrewKaree]

I know Drew has had some experience with the Spanish Pimsleur program, so you might ask him what he thought of it.  I got the impression that he was very impressed.

Shardian, I have no idea what your contact with people who speak Spanish will be, but the Pimsleur program worked/works quite well for my particular situation, I believe.

I work with Spanish-speaking people all day long.  There generally is one person who speaks English passably, and perhaps a handful who can manage a few job-related words/phrases.

The Pimsleur CD's jam a ton of vocab down your throat through sheer repetition, although I liked the way they changed up the usage of the words - meaning you weren't always repeating "Where is my dog?", but you'd get several different sentences with "dog" in them - "What is your dog's name?", "Does Mary have a dog?", "Please give the dog a bath", etc.  You get the same words over and over, but you only realize this because they group certain words in chunks.  Over time, you will use some of the basics you've learned less and less (simply because there's SO much vocab that you could easily spend a CD's worth of time repeating everything you learned up to that point and nothing else!), but as with your native language, you'll find yourself using common words quite often.

Once the few Spanish-speaking people I regularly dealt with found out about the Pimsleur CD's I was listening to, they made it a point to help me with pronunciation (although they felt Pimsleur was pretty darned good at that aspect and how they taught it) and to let me know when something may or may not be useful.  Usted, for example, was explained to me about when and/or why it might be used, and why it is more commonly dropped in casual conversation.

As far as becoming conversational, I felt Pimsleur gave ideas and concepts about stringing together sentences, but was lacking a bit in that area, although I can't even imagine how a CD or video course would go about trying to teach that concept in the limited amount of space these types of courses typically cover.  Being in the situation I was in, I haven't ever taken a single Spanish class (not even in high school), and have simply learned Spanish over time - reading the boxes of products I dealt with at a restaurant and having the Spanish-speaking people correct me or help me remember the name of something, or picking something up and asking what it's called and trying to remember it, etc, and then adding the Pimsleur CD's....I'm still not completely conversational, but I can at least understand what's going on in a conversation now, whereas before I went through the CD's, I only caught bits and pieces of a conversation.

There's 3 programs - beginner, intermediate, and advanced.  I hit the beginner program hard - probably listened to it 8+ times and followed everything to a "T".  The intermediate, I've listened to 3 times and will go through it again before I make the move to the advanced set, which I've never listened to yet.

That's my experience and the background behind what and how it's worked for me.  My guess is that if all you will be doing is listening to the CD's and trying to pick up the language and hoping to run across a few Spanish-speaking people to test out or see if you can understand them, no course will teach you as well as using and testing yourself by being around Spanish-speaking people in addition to whatever other method you wish to try.  You've just got no one to practice with other than the voice on the CD.  If your situation is similar to mine, I wholeheartedly recommend the Pimsleur series. 

[patrickl]

The Pimsleur CD's jam a ton of vocab down your throat through sheer repetition, although I liked the way they changed up the usage of the words - meaning you weren't always repeating "Where is my dog?", but you'd get several different sentences with "dog" in them - "What is your dog's name?", "Does Mary have a dog?", "Please give the dog a bath", etc.  You get the same words over and over, but you only realize this because they group certain words in chunks. 

I guess that's what I didn't like about it. It all goes so slow. IIRC it took a whole lesson just to say hello.

I guess each course has it's strong and weak points.
- Pimsleur was too slow for me, but perhaps it teaches you the most words.
- I liked the Michael Thomas course because it teaches how to form sentences and because of the background information of the language. It teaches you how the language works rather than just repeat sentences. It's like being in a classroom with a teacher on a CD. Trouble with it is that it doesn't teach that many words (it mostly focusses on the verbs and ways to use them) and the guy is a bit of a annoying old geezer. The sometimes rather dumb students that "take the class with you" get annoying too.
- I'm not sure what the strong point of rosetta stone would be. Biggest drawback was that I felt was that it only teaches understanding the sentences. It didn't enable me to form even the simplest sentences myself.

Personally I used flash cards software (on a PDA) and self made audio CDs (in the car) to learn the vocabulary and the Michael Thomas course to get the fundamentals of the language.

[shardian]

Me and the wife messed with the Rosetta Stone software last night. It is pretty neat. It has several different ways to test and teach you for each section. There are no instructions really - it just dives right in. It introduces new phrases, nouns, adjectives, and verbs everyonce in a while, and you use the pictures to determine what the new word means. I find it very neat, because you become an active part of the learning process. It says it uses the basis of language development, and I would say that is correct.
I'll have to look into the audio cd's. I have a 30 minute commute and I get pretty bored.

[shmokes]

See, I could never do Rosetta Stone.  I don't have the discipline.  In the car, well, what else am I going to be doing when I'm driving for an hour?  But when I'm at home there are an endless number of answers to that question.  Hell, how can I be expected to work on a computer based language program when BYOAC is only a click away?

[ChadTower]

You have to be able to do both, bro... that's how I survive.

BYOAC updates via RSS... all work in other windows. 

[DrewKaree]

Hey shardian, I just remembered something I forgot to add.

Have you checked out your local liebary?  I was going through all the different "on CD" methods they had when I found out about Pimsleur from shmokes.

Might be a cheap and easy way for you to test out a bunch of different types, then go buy the one you like.

[patrickl]

See, I could never do Rosetta Stone.  I don't have the discipline.  In the car, well, what else am I going to be doing when I'm driving for an hour?  But when I'm at home there are an endless number of answers to that question.  Hell, how can I be expected to work on a computer based language program when BYOAC is only a click away?

Well I think maybe the thing (sort of) in favor of Rosetta Stone is that it's quite fun to do. It's almost like a computer game. The problem is that at the end of it all you didn't learn a whole lot. Like every language course, you have to do it over and over again. Then the discipline really needs to kick in. Doing the Rosetta Stone course more than once is not very likely.

[clanggedin]

I took an 8 week Spanish course and then went to Argentina for 2 years. I found out the first week I was there that what I learned in my course was Mexican Spanish and not Argentine Spansh (Castellano). They have a totally different vocabulary.

Don't ask for a piña in Argentina. You won't get a pineapple, that's for sure.

[Samstag]

I took an 8 week Spanish course and then went to Argentina for 2 years. I found out the first week I was there that what I learned in my course was Mexican Spanish and not Argentine Spansh (Castellano). They have a totally different vocabulary.

Don't ask for a piña in Argentina. You won't get a pineapple, that's for sure.

Heh.  I took high school Spanish with a Castellen guy.  He really tried to teach us "proper" Spanish from the book but we learned (or more like didn't learn) a really mixed up version.  The vocabulary seemed similar enough for common words, at least, but the pronunciation really threw us off.

[KenToad]

That's the next step for me, though it's only four weeks.  Nine weeks is out of the question financially, and leaving my family for that long would be over twice as hard as the 4-week program I'm going to do.  But I'll be studying in a language institution for four hours a day with students from all over the world, so the only common language is French.  Plus, I'll be living with and having dinner every night with a French family and they are not supposed to speak any English to me (and won't even be able English, for all I know).

I'm hoping that seeing as I'm already getting quite good at French, having completed a bachelor's degree in the subject, that four-weeks will be enough to push me into what would be described as fluency.

I'll tell you one thing: my daughter will speak French from the moment she can talk.  Good god, I have worked ---my bottom--- off to acquire what limited French skills I have.  Four years of studying, and doing exercises and reading books and listening to CDs, and attending French tables religiously (that I don't get any school credit for).  I look at my nieces who were just raised bilingual to begin with (English/Spanish) and they have always simply spoken each language with equal ease.  They have never had to work at being bilingual.  It's SOOO much easier to pick up a language as a child.  If it's not already too late, get your toddler speaking another language!  If you can't teach it to them, pay someone to do it.  It's an opportunity that you can never get back once you've missed it.

Of course it may be different for you, but I've found that even among a group of internationals in France, the only common language is still English, at least in our generation and younger.  You will learn more from people over 30, and I would say even over 40 would be ideal, since their fluency, confidence and willingness to learn English is decreased and thus makes them less likely to try to use you to improve their English. 

I agree with what you say about babies learning faster and I know that the window of learning or whatever is a pretty commonly accepted theory, but I believe that children learn faster in an environment where they see it as necessary.  I think adults are too smart for their own good and learn a language until they lose interest or genuinely don't see a need for it.  I think our brains and learning are related to our survival instincts, basically.

In other words, I believe adult brains are as flexible as baby brains, but adults are just not naive enough (or maybe just too lazy) to put the kind of necessary focus on learning extra languages after they know that they can flourish without them.  Also, I don't believe you can force a child to learn a language without giving it some sort of reason and I wouldn't suggest teaching a language to an infant unless you are fluent.

To end the rant, my wife is German and we are pregnant, so we will have first-hand experience soon.  She will speak German to our new baby and I will speak English.

Oh, and I really love the Rosetta Stone, but definitely wouldn't say that it can inspire fluency or put the determination to learn into a person who doesn't have a daily need to use the language.

[ChadTower]

So, how long until someone comes out with Speak Speak Revolution for the PS3?

[DrewKaree]

I took an 8 week Spanish course and then went to Argentina for 2 years. I found out the first week I was there that what I learned in my course was Mexican Spanish and not Argentine Spansh (Castellano). They have a totally different vocabulary.

Don't ask for a piña in Argentina. You won't get a pineapple, that's for sure.

I'm not certain, but the Pimsleur courses refer to Castellano.  To say that the people I worked with had a totally different vocabulary would be a misstatement, IMO.  They understood what I would say, and therefore knew what I was trying to say, but preferred to use different terminology.

It's more like the difference people have with "English" as it's used in the States here, and "The Queen's English", as used in Britain.  Same language, same words (for the most part), but far different usage in many areas.

I believe if they had a totally different vocabulary, they'd have had quite a difficult time understanding me.

[jbox]

It's more like the difference people have with "English" as it's used in the States here, and "The Queen's English", as used in Britain.  Same language, same words (for the most part), but far different usage in many areas.

You forgot Godsown English, as used in Godsown Country. Similar to the two (and more) lesser versions of English, but with important words like strewth, crickey, shelia and shellberight added to the vocabulary.

[shmokes]

I took an 8 week Spanish course and then went to Argentina for 2 years. I found out the first week I was there that what I learned in my course was Mexican Spanish and not Argentine Spansh (Castellano). They have a totally different vocabulary.

Don't ask for a piña in Argentina. You won't get a pineapple, that's for sure.

Are you a Mormon?

[danny_galaga]

It's more like the difference people have with "English" as it's used in the States here, and "The Queen's English", as used in Britain.  Same language, same words (for the most part), but far different usage in many areas.

You forgot Godsown English, as used in Godsown Country. Similar to the two (and more) lesser versions of English, but with important words like strewth, crickey, shelia and shellberight added to the vocabulary.

uncanny!

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=62822.0

[patrickl]

I took an 8 week Spanish course and then went to Argentina for 2 years. I found out the first week I was there that what I learned in my course was Mexican Spanish and not Argentine Spansh (Castellano). They have a totally different vocabulary.

Don't ask for a piña in Argentina. You won't get a pineapple, that's for sure.

I'm not certain, but the Pimsleur courses refer to Castellano.  To say that the people I worked with had a totally different vocabulary would be a misstatement, IMO.  They understood what I would say, and therefore knew what I was trying to say, but preferred to use different terminology.

It's more like the difference people have with "English" as it's used in the States here, and "The Queen's English", as used in Britain.  Same language, same words (for the most part), but far different usage in many areas.

I believe if they had a totally different vocabulary, they'd have had quite a difficult time understanding me.

Indeed. It's actually already different between countries. I went to Spain and to The Canary Islands and they already speak different spanish (minor differences, but still).

I followed a course where they explained the differences between Castellano and latin american spanish. IIRC it was mostly the way that in some cases the "c" and "z" are pronounced. The "c" sounds like an "s" or more like a "th" depending on the region (and when it it not pronounced like a "k" of course).

[danny_galaga]

yeah, that thtupid lithping thing is from king philip of spains day (19th century). they decided that since the king lithped, then the whole population should! hence no one sees the need to lithp in south america. you think we have brown nosing yes men nowadays! barthelona my arthe...

[DrewKaree]

It's more like the difference people have with "English" as it's used in the States here, and "The Queen's English", as used in Britain.  Same language, same words (for the most part), but far different usage in many areas.

You forgot Godsown English, as used in Godsown Country. Similar to the two (and more) lesser versions of English, but with important words like strewth, crickey, shelia and shellberight added to the vocabulary.

No, I didn't forget it, I just dismissed it as "something those funny-sounding people" like to pretend is a language  

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a headache and need to take some aspirin.  Eet's a rippah, eet ees!

[Dervacumen]

You can get the Pimsleur course at Barnes and Noble pretty cheap.  I commute 50 miles to work and have been learning Mandarin Chinese.  My neighbor is fluent and when I asked her a few questions about my pronunciation she told me it was much better than her 4 year old.

Take that as you may.

I tried Rosetta Stone via the Los Angeles library, and I couldn't get the hang of it.  If I could find a total emersion class I would take it in a heartbeat.   My dad did that several years ago and got pretty good at conversing in about three months.

I did supplement my Pimsleur with a bunch of study on the web that gave not only spelling but pronunciation.  I also have the college texts approved by the Chinese Government (in red moveable type, no less!)  I need to see the different spellings to be able to differentiate the subtle differences in sound since I can't hear worth a crap.

[patrickl]

I did supplement my Pimsleur with a bunch of study on the web that gave not only spelling but pronunciation.  I also have the college texts approved by the Chinese Government (in red moveable type, no less!)  I need to see the different spellings to be able to differentiate the subtle differences in sound since I can't hear worth a crap.

Indeed I have that problem with audio courses too. Sometimes you just get how a word is exactly supposed to sound when you read it. The Michel Thomas cours spells out a few words (the ones that really that need it), but I don't think any other audio course does that.