Product Description
Amazon.com Product Description
Learn a new language with the award-winning method used by the U.S. State Department to train diplomats. Proven effective by NASA astronauts, Peace Corps volunteers, and millions of students worldwide, the Rosetta Stone Language Library teaches new languages faster and easier than ever before.

This comprehensive program provides up to 550 hours of mastery instruction in listening comprehension, reading, writing, and speaking. Systematic structure teaches vocabulary and grammar naturally, without lists or drills. Previews, exercises, and tests accompany every lesson, and there are automated tutorials throughout the program. Graphical speech recognition displays your voiceprint and compares it with the native speaker to help improve your pronunciation. (Ages 6 and older)

All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

Four stars BUT...., April 22, 2004

A high quality, effective interactive learning system. Two complaints:

1) No obvious explanation of grammar. It took me forever to figure out what various particples and other "connectors" meant. If figured this out in an hour at a Japanese class and I am much the better for it.

2) Romaji (spelling Japanese words phonetically with roman/english letters) is a waste. There are differing opinions on this. But my suggestion is to go through the comphrehension and speaking exercises, skip the word recognition and spelling exercises, and supplement the writing with a good book on Kanji and the Kana. Think about it, would a Chinese try to learn German by first trying to spell out all the German words with Kanji? Well, duh...  

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

Fairfield Technologies will send out OS X disks, May 7, 2003

I had initially reviewed this software more negatively because of the software being shipped with disks for the old Mac system. However, now Fairfield Technologies will replace the disks with new OS X disks, for free, even internationally.

Good product, and amazing service.

72 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

Great product (as long as you like the immersion approach), December 7, 2002

This software is designed around the immersion approach to learning languages. A drill will show you a picture of an apple, and you'll see the word spelled out while a narrator gives the pronunciation. At various points in the drills, you will have the chance to read the Japanese word for apple, use your logic and language skills to pick the picture for apple after hearing the word in Japanese, and more. Its target audience is the self-motivated learner who's serious about learning and mastering basic Japanese over a 1-2 year period. Anyone looking for a quick and useful phrases for a short visit to Japan should use the Rosetta Stone Explorer or Traveller programs instead of this set. That said, using the Rosetta Stone is a lot cheaper than a plane ticket to Japan, or the tuition fees at intense summer Japanese courses at various universities around the US. If you master all the drills and vocabulary in the program, you will be well equipped to go to Japan, and to continue learning the language in an immersion environment.

The student who has headphones and microphone attached to his or her PC will be able to take advantage of all the listening, reading, speaking and writing drills in the program. Users can switch back and forth between the romanized, hiragana and kanji scripts.

Your Japanese teacher may not have the time (or patience) to give you individualized, repetitive drills. That's not a problem with this program - you can practice all you like and the program will never get tired of you! As such, the program is a good supplement for people formally enrolled in a class.

For the student who dislikes the immersion approach and prefers to learn Japanese scripts and grammar before tackling any listening or reading, I recommend the Power Japanese and Kanji Moments programs from Bayware software.

Once you have completed the Rosetta Stone programs, you will still need some formal study of grammar, but this program covers basic principles like the subject-object-verb order characteristic of Japanese, and basic verb forms.

I used the online version of RS Japanese, and was extremely happy with it, but only because I have very high-speed internet access. Once my use license expired, I could no longer access the programs. If I had the CDs, I'd always be able to refer to the program later. Take your pick based on your own personal convenience.

I liked my RS Japanese experience so much, that I took the plunge and bought the Level 1 Korean edition on CD.