Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Rosetta Stone - A good way to start?

This time, ill be writing about Rosetta Stone, a program that probably everybody who's starting to learn a new language discovers sooner or later.


When studying with Rosetta Stone, you basically see images and choose out of some the one that shows what's being said, or vice-versa.
Another nice feature is training your speaking abilities using voice recognition. Apart from getting you better at speaking, it can also stop you from becoming a image-clicking machine, which would otherwise be pretty likely if you tend to be inattentive.

And because everybody, including me, is lazy nowadays, ill just list the pros and cons:


Pro:

- You get a feeling for the structure of the language, what goes where in a sentence, stuff like that.
- No need for studying grammar and remembering things, it's basically work-less learning.

Contra:

- Sometimes, the lack of any documentation or explanation whatsoever leaves you not understanding anything anymore, but a quick Google search should be able to fix that as well.

- The speed you're teached not only to speak at but also to listen to. I can understand that beginners cant speak as fast as natives at their first time, but seriously? Its waaay to slow.


Conclusion:

While Rosetta Stone may have some weak spots, I'd still consider it a good way to start learning Japanese.
Getting to know the basic system of a language is always good, and your speaking abilities improve as well.

19 comments:

  1. I heard about rosetta stone before, sounds like a very complete software

    ReplyDelete
  2. i feel like it teaches you the same way for every languange ...but to be good at anything requires your part. the program does its part. pratice.

    ReplyDelete
  3. a month of Rosetta stone taught me spanish better than 2 years at school.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I should start learning japanese, but I don't know is it really difficult. So will check this site.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Always wondered if this program was a huge scam or not... I'll keep it in mind as I want to learn another language... Someday.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm familiar with Rosetta. It's how you like to study, so it could be an improvement. Some people like to study this way some not.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I used Rosetta stone to learn German and French, really good tool for learning a language; can be costly though.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I about to learn Italian through this, I really hope it works out for me!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I found it really difficult to understand what the words actually meant on it, i.e. it'd show a picture of a girl, and it would expect me to know that it was a daughter??

    ReplyDelete
  10. Interesting, might try and see if i can improve my german a bit, or perhaps teach me a few more russian words, spassiba :).

    ReplyDelete
  11. I tried Rosetta stone but I think I'm learning faster using some books and websites I found also I have some audio guides for when I'm travelling.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Good info, I think I may have to give this a try.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I wish i could improve my other languages but i just don't have time for it, its good to see that other people actually put effort on that.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I speak 3 different languages, 2 learned from home and school, and my third was learned using the rosetta stone program and I found that I liked learning with rosetta stone much more than classes.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Yeah i've tried rosetta with mandarin, but those days are now over! :(

    ReplyDelete
  16. I've tried Rosetta with spanish, was really easy. Not sure about japanese though! O.O

    ReplyDelete
  17. I always wondered if rosetta stone worked well with a non-latin based language

    ReplyDelete
  18. I never knew what Rosetta was like, so thanks for explaining. I am trying to learn Japanese but more so in writing, than speaking.

    ReplyDelete