Our customers tell us that they can remember much more for several days after they studied when they use our program, compared to Rosetta Stone. We have written a lot of articles on how to learn any language. These articles will help you learn your new language faster, no matter which program you buy. But we like Pimsleur, and you may too. It does work, especially for going from knowing nothing to being minimally conversant. Rosetta Stone is a foreign language learning program that features beautiful pictures and clear audio.
So does it work? Only rarely. Click on the flag of the language you want to learn below to try a more practical approach and see how much you can remember after 30 minutes of study. This article is based on using Rosetta Stone Spanish 1, 2, and 3 in If you are interested in learning Japanese, you will probably enjoy our. Click on the flag of the language you want to learn below, and start a free practical demo lesson on the next page.
I wrote this review in part to inspire Rosetta Stone to the greatness that the company is capable of. Someday they may develop software that really works. Fortunately, in response to this review and others, they no longer advertise that adults can learn like a child with their software. I commend them for that. Of course, I also wrote this review for the thousands of people who have tried to learn a language with Rosetta Stone and failed.
If you are one of those people, I want you to know that your failure is not your fault. In fact, you might even be a language-learning genius and not know it yet.
Quote from Quote from 1. Sadly, Rosetta Stone Spanish rarely works. Watch This Learn Spanish Webinar. Canadian French. Sadly, Rosetta Stone rarely works.
Children learn much differently than adults do. The whole program is done online or in their Rosetta Stone app. The reason I mention this is because when Rosetta Stone sent me their program a while back, I told them they could see the review before it went live.
I did this to allow them the opportunity to correct any factual mistakes. They were very helpful in making sure there was no misleading information here. They requested that I give a disclaimer that I have my own products, such as Fluent in 3 Months Premium.
When they sent me the program, I studied Dutch, which I was learning at the time while living in Amsterdam. But, this review also covers every other language version for a rather disappointing reason I'll explain below. It only uses your target language, right from the start. Rosetta Stone explained that they were founded by people who appreciated learning by immersion.
These founders had learned languages abroad in immersive environments. They wanted to emulate this as close as possible for people who can't travel. Of course I have other recommendations if you can't travel. But the base concept makes sense.
More on that later. One interesting aspect is how they have no English at all in the program apart from interface and menus. They never present a translation of anything. It's all represented in photos and untranslated audio and text. While there are major issues with this, the idea of not using your native language is an interesting one. I have to admit that I as many learners do learn a lot through English.
Getting my vocabulary through flashcards , reading grammar explanations in English, etc. I'm sure this slows down learning by thinking in English at times, which is an issue this program successfully avoids. But I find many similarities myself. Such learning approaches have big advantages, but I disagree with the concept. Because we can take advantage of the fact that we are adults. We can have things explained to us in more complex ways. The devotion to learning in such a simple way through audio and pictures even though the research behind it is very complex made me learn very slowly in Rosetta Stone.
After days of intense study time with the program, I felt I would have learned the same things so much faster using other approaches. They feel their research over 30 years about when and how words should be introduced have proven to be very effective.
I only made it halfway through my set. But I can't imagine how completing all 3 levels would get you out of what I would definitely call basic level. I tried something similar when I reviewed Pimsleur in great detail. Pimsleur is only audio, so you would think their audio would be superior, but I actually prefer Rosetta Stone's audio.
Apart from instructions like repeat, listen etc. The audio is based on what you would have gone through so far for that unit, so you should actually recognise everything. I like this feature a lot. But even though it's an improvement on Pimsleur, I still found it a bit tedious after a few sessions. Actual native content such as a podcast would have been more helpful to recreate an immersive environment.
But of course, it's all part of the greater whole of the program. They aim to only present you with words you should know already. In this sense, the interconnectedness of the entire set of lessons, audio, etc.
You won't be under much stress in this program to see or hear things you haven't come across before. This makes it an enjoyable learning environment, although hardly a realistic one in my view. Rosetta Stone replied saying that the pace and structure is based on the Comprehensible Input Hypothesis of Stephen Krashen.
His research made huge and important contributions to linguistics in the 20th century. I have issues with how far this research is being taken as being the basis of their entire learning technique.
But, I have to admit that Rosetta Stone applies that approach in an effective way. My parents still have a box set of discs for learning Spanish somewhere in their house. It's a lot easier now with the Rosetta Stone mobile app. Rosetta Stone's method for teaching you a language is more formal and traditional in comparison to Duolingo.
The lessons are primarily auditory with images, but if you're in a place where you can't listen to audio or repeat the phrases, you can tweak your lessons in Speech Settings and Lesson Settings to choose another setup like "reading and writing only" or "speaking and listening only.
A full Core Lesson takes about 30 minutes to complete. In a typical lesson, the app displays four photos and a word.
You must choose a photo that corresponds to the word. It can be tricky if you're totally green to a language. There's no option to tap the word and see a translation like in Duolingo. This might actually lend itself to learning faster since research shows that immersing yourself in a culture is a great way to learn. If you're not sure what the activity wants, you can tap the lightbulb at the bottom of the screen for directions. Some question sections will show a translation if you long-press on the image.
Overall, I found Rosetta Stone to be less intuitive than Duolingo, especially if the sound is off. When you sign up for Rosetta Stone, the program lets you choose the language you want to learn and your overall goal for learning -- travel, career, heritage or just for the sake of learning. Since then there has been a lot of developments in software, technology, and education and Rosetta Stone has slowly faded into the shadows of other big language learning companies like Duolingo.
If you take a look at the Rosetta Stone Wiki page , and the company wiki page you'll see a long list of awards:. But, notice one thing: The last one was received in , and the latest awards were received based on app design, user's choice, and general user experience evaluations , none of the awards since praised the actual educational content. But, a well-renowned company, with a lot of income and lots of language experts can surely improve their offer from 28 years ago?
The following courses only made it to version 2 of Rosetta Stone, and is currently not offered for sale anywhere:. As they graciously give you a 3-day free trial, I didn't have to donate any money to Rosetta Stone to produce this review today, phew! But, unfortunately that's where my joy stopped as I was met with an instant flashback to 15 years ago.
Yes, the user interface is a little more refined, and the graphical side is updated to reflect modern standards. You can see this video for my initial reactions, where I also summarise some thoughts about Rosetta Stone in General:. You're shown a word or sentence in the target language and you have to match it up to the pictures shown below. One important note about Rosetta Stone is that it used to have a policy of absolutely no English or translations in the software.
Whilst it seems to be making certain updates to limit this rule around the courses, most of them are still target-language only. As I recently talked with an English teacher working in Russia about, there are times where it makes a lot more sense to use people's native language or English to quickly explain a concept rather than spending minutes having to explain it in basic target language that the learner can understand.
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