I’m going to get Rosetta Stone as a gift from a relative. I don’t want to be rude and turn it down, so I’m wondering if it has its place in learning.
So sparing the “throw it in the trash” comments, is there any way to make the best and most out of this software? I haven’t heard any good things about it, but I figured it might be wise to try it out.
LingQ is one of many resources I use to study Japanese. I purchased Rosetta Stone Japanese as my first learning tool and I am still finding it useful. Many people complain they get bored of the learning style but I have not, so far.
The way I see RS is that it has been thought out very well, so if you’ve managed to complete all the lessons you will have a good overall basic knowledge of the target language. RS is for beginners so if you are experienced in your target language I don’t think it would be all that useful for you.
One think I do like about the software is the speaking exercises. The speech recognition system is quite clever and it will pick-up on incorrectly pronounced sentences.
The trick with RS is to only do a few exercises per day. The exercises only take around 10 minutes each. If you want to do more studying then move onto something else like LingQ!
That’s good to know, thanks for the reply. My goal lately, is to focus more on speaking and it seems like the speaking software is pretty unique. And how would you define “useful”? It’s a bit vague.
If you want to do more studying then move onto something else like LingQ!
I’m sorry, but I chuckled at this. This is like going to a church and telling someone they should…go to church.
Unless, I misinterpreted your post and you meant, do LingQ after RS exercises.
“useful” because I am at a beginner level and learning from it. Also I prefer flashcards and multiple choice style learning. This is what RS does so it works for me.
lol, I was joking about LingQ, just a suggestion of something else to do.
my issue with rosetta stone was theprice it’s one of the most expensive software on the market and for what it delivers it’s not worth it i would never buy it .but since someone gave you it use it the more resources you have the better even if it has limitations
Rosseta Stone is just one of thousand resources that we have, at the same way with pros and cons.
Just enjoy the pros!
A couple of years ago, Rosetta Stone bought out “Tell Me More”, which was an excellent speech recognition and speech rating software product which, as Rich mentions, was really great for pronunciation practice and feedback. I recommend Tell Me More highly, and, so long as RS hasn’t messed with it too much, then this function would be worth the basic cost alone, imo.
That doesn’t exactly help me, but thanks for the input.
If I have RS, does that mean I have access to Tell Me More?
Yes, it’s free regardless. I’m just curious if it would there would be better things to do with my time or if it would actually help. I guess we’ll see.
I used RS for a bit. On the plus side it incorporates speaking, listening and reading and is entirely in the target language. I like that about it.
Despite having my mic set up (and tested) to be working properly, I had quite some trouble with its speech recognition. I even had my wife trying, since she is a native speaker, and there were times that no matter how slow or enunciated we were it took a good 15 minutes to get it to accept some things.
YMMV.
I confess… I like it. It is a good resource to start with. It helps you build a good foundation. It takes you to a lower intermediate level on my opinion. From there you can move to LingQ. This is how I learned French and Spanish. People say it works best for visual learners.