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Have you tried this language learning course? Based on a listening only method, I am a little disappointed with the free trial.

Jean-Luc wrote:Have you tried this language learning course? Based on a listening only method, I am a little disappointed with the free trial.

Most of us here have tried a free trial, and most of us hate it.
Rosetta Stone (RS for short) is generally considered pretty poor teaching, and extremely poor value.

Previous discussion threads from this forum:

Rosetta Stone - Love / Hate
http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1102

Sincere question about Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone
http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1780

Jean-Luc wrote:Have you tried this language learning course? Based on a listening only method, I am a little disappointed with the free trial.

You can get an equivalent course for free using duolingo. Rosetta Stone is way over priced.

A few years ago I had access to it for free via my employer. I did the 5 levels of Latin American Spanish in about 3 months. I also had access to the online RS activities. I did take advantage of most of those to some extent. I only did one of the online tutoring sessions (which I did like). I probably should have followed up on those more. I supplemented RS by looking up Spanish grammar online and using a few other sites. This was my first exposure to Spanish. I had prior exposure to German and Greek. I'm guessing that my grammar knowledge far surpassed the typical RS user.

The reality is that the "RS Immersive" approach made me feel like I was accomplishing a lot. In hindsight, I'm not sure I was. The lack of grammar explanations (touted as a plus by RS) is a problem. There were times I definitely came to an incorrect conclusion about things and started locking that error into my memory. I was new to Spanish, but I could swear I was hearing a wide range of accents from Latin America. Maybe not, but there were some words I simply could not lock onto. To my ear, I was hearing yellow as both ameriya and amerija (english y and j) depending on the speaker. I also would have much preferred to have images that were focused on Latin American rather than those taken from many cultures around the world. I would have liked to have the words associated with images from Latin American areas rather than Asia or the Middle East. (In the same way I'd prefer Asian or Middle Eastern images if learning Chinese or Arabic.)

I got to perhaps an A1 level after working quite hard on this. I was putting in perhaps 3 hours or so a day on this for about 3 months. It's an okay course, but not up to the hype.

A year or so later I got the Assimil Spanish with Ease. No comparison. I made a lot more progress more rapidly. Of course, having the RS exposure was nice. But it would not have been worth the money for me.

For a beginner with money to spend and a fear of learning languages, it could be a nice painless entry point to language learning.

At the inception of my Spanish studies, I completed a Duolingo tree and kept the trees at full bar before looking at Rosetta Stone. If my recall is of assist, I made it through lesson one in about 13+ rosetta clock hours (based on their report) and spent about the same amount of time starting lesson two and then ditched it. I found that using basic supplementary materials outstripped what Rosetta Stone provided me far too quickly and I was not being challenged by the program any longer.

I had at least two major beefs with it (and could have made a longer list). One is the online program seems to have a built in slowness to it since the website simply moves from one screen to the next at a snails pace (again compared to Duolingo where I could move as fast as I my hands could type). You can circumvent this partially by skipping some of the repetition, but you still have the slow screen loading.

I made many mistakes in this, my first year of Spanish. I would say I gave up Rosetta Stone at about the right time.

The most positive thing I can say about it is that the audio was very clear and well spoken to my untuned ears and that portion seemed to help me as a rank false beginner. Add my name to the list of people who have seem many programs that are far superior offered gratuitiously or at much more competitive prices.

A Rosetta Stone thread is a lot like a wreck on the highway. You know you shouldn't look, but you do anyway.

But seriously, for the cost of RS, one can buy any a good course or two along with a fair number of hours with a private tutor. Disappointed with the trial, run away from it as fast as you can.

tomgosse wrote:

Jean-Luc wrote:Have you tried this language learning course? Based on a listening only method, I am a little disappointed with the free trial.

You can get an equivalent course for free using duolingo. Rosetta Stone is way over priced.

I would argue that RS, at least as I last saw it, is much better than Duolingo. For one, it uses native audio, and sentences that actually make sense. I would argue that learning "girl", "rice" and "the girl eats rice" is much more conducive to (useful) extrapolation than learning (using an example from the Irish course) "lion", "clothes" and "the lion eats the clothes". I also have seen what seems to be a reading passage shared by a friend who uses the RS Irish one. It has the text of the passage and the speaker reading it, then it asked questions about the passage. So it actually tested your reading comprehension some, and not just your ability to translate. And, it has the online tutoring sessions. Which, if they come with the subscription model ($179/year), and are weekly lessons, comes out to about $3.42 for lesson. This alone would almost make me tempted to try it.

Also, their prices aren't as high as I've found everyone suggesting; I think most are still stuck in the $600 days. Right now you can download the program digitally for $124. That's less than 50% more than Genki I and the workbook cost me. And, if it comes with tutoring, might be a really, really good deal.

That said, I still wouldn't recommend it, but neither would I recommend Duolingo. I think both their teaching methods fail, and they both tremendously bore me. But, out of the two, I'd almost say it's better to buy RS and get the advantage of native audio, comprehension exercises (which, by simply covering up the reading, you can make into listening comprehension ones), and the tutoring.

galaxyrocker wrote:
That said, I still wouldn't recommend it, but neither would I recommend Duolingo.

I agree.
When I used RS, it cost me around $400. What it failed at most was in managing my expectations. I thought I would be a lot farther along (in German) when I finished the first course.
Thinking (hoping) that Tell Me More, which is learning software very similar to RS, would teach me more, I plunked down another $400 for it. In my opinion, Tell Me More was better than RS. It was probably 5 years ago, so I can't remember why I thought it was better. Something to do with their dialogue maker, I think.
If Tell Me More lowered its prices to stay competitive with RS (and if TMM is even still in business), I would recommend it over RS and over Duolingo. I have used all three, and I would not use any of them if I had it to do all over again.

coldrainwater wrote:One is the online program seems to have a built in slowness to it since the website simply moves from one screen to the next at a snails pace (again compared to Duolingo where I could move as fast as I my hands could type). You can circumvent this partially by skipping some of the repetition, but you still have the slow screen loading.

Until I read this, I'd completely forgotten that I'd tried it again when they moving it online and marvelled at how they'd managed to make RS even worse. When did you try it out? I'd hope they'd be using a more sophisticated architecture by now so that the browser preloads the next question, but that might be a vain hope....