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.
We all learn our childhood language by associating new words and
phrases with the world around us. The Rosetta Stone method replicates this
process by presenting vivid, real-life images to convey the meaning of
each new phrase. Instead of translating, memorizing, and studying rules of
grammar, you actually learn to think in the new language. Vocabulary and
grammar are integrated systematically, leading to everyday proficiency.
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:
192 of 194 people found the following review helpful:
Fun to use, very extensive, April 24, 2003
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The Rosetta Stone language learning system is based on the idea that
foreign languages should be learned the same way as children learn their
very first language - not by learning words isolated from their content
and later putting them into sentences using painfully learned grammar
rules, but by direct association of words and sentences with visual
images. The Rosetta Stone contains no instructions in your mother tongue.
If you bought German, the program communicates with you only in German.
The only means which the program uses to explain you the meaning of the
foreign words are pictures. You may not understand the meaning of the new
word or phrase immediately. However, the program will use this word over
and over again, and soon you will get an idea what it means. Remember how
parents teach their children to talk, repeating the same thing again and
again in different combinations? This is what Rosetta Stone does to you.
You do not get a translation - insted, you get an image, an idea, a
feeling.
I purchased French, but all 24 languages supported by Rosetta Stones
use the same software and the same or nearly the same structure of lessons
and images. The program works as follows. Once you have chosen a lesson
out of a list, you have a selection of several modes of learning. In one,
the program tells you phrases, and you have to choose one of four pictures
which fits the phrase. In another, you see a picture and chose one from
four written words/phrases. In the third, you chose the written phrase
which matches what you just heard. In the fourth, you see a written
word/phrase and match it with one of four phrases read to you by the
computer. The program keeps on making new and new combination of the words
and phrases for as long as you need to start feeling confident. If you
want to practice your writing, Rosetta Stone will offer you either to put
together sentences by dragging whole words with a mouse, or will suggest
you to type them in from scratch and will correct you mistakes along the
way. Finally, another part of the program works on your pronunciation and
intonation. It not only records your voice as you repeat after a native
speaker, but also provides graphical analysis of the patterns of your
speach, thus helping to identify mistakes. This part of the program
requires a high quality headset..., a cheap computer microphone will not
work.
This program costs much more than the other programs on the market, but
it also has a lot more to offer. Levels 1 and 2 combined contain over 200
units, and each unit may take several hours (depending on your age and
language learning ability) to master. A great advantage which helps to
make the buying decision is that Rosetta Stone offers a fully functional
demo version of the program, which can be downloaded from their web site (rosettastone.com).
This demo differs from the real thing in that you can try only 5-6 units
out of 210 in any of the languages. This is sufficient to get a very good
idea of how you like the program, as well as to understand how the level
matches your prior knowledge of this language. Actually, I must say that
Level 2 goes pretty far, I was surprised how advanced the sentences were
when I opened one of the level 2 units in a language which I learned
before.
In French which I bought each level came on 2 CDs, one with the
software, the second one with the language library. Probably as a heritage
from 1993, when the disk space was scarce, the program reads language data
straight from the CD instead of copying them to hard disk. One has to keep
the language library CD in the CD-drive, where it starts spinning every
half a minute or so. With a noisy 40x drive it is rather annoying. The
program runs on any Windows version after 3.1 (including XP) and on the
Mac.
Besides CDs, the program comes with a manual (how to install and run
the program) and a booklet with cirriculum, which contains a list of all
words and phrases used in the program. There is no booklet on grammar, and
no dictionary because any of these items standard in adult learning would
contradict the spirit and the method of The Rosetta Stone. Both the manual
and the booklet can be downloaded in PDF format from The Rosetta Stone's
web site (another good way to evaluate how much you can expect to learn if
you buy the program).
The developers claim that the program covers 5-year middle/high school
program and includes around 2500 words. I had several other language
programs in the past, and there is no doubt that Rosetta Stone covers a
lot more language than any other program I saw.
Overall, it is a good learning tool, fun to use. It is not cheap, but
if you divide the price by the number of hours of patient instructions
which you get from your computer, you will end up with a cost which is
way, way lower than any teacher would charge per hour for individual or
group lessons. All of us used The Rosetta Stone method of learning between
the ages of 1 and 7 and keep on using it when teaching our little ones.
The fact that the developer remains in business for over 10 years and
keeps getting new awards shows that it is also good for adults. I liked
it. Check out the demo version, you probably will like it, too.
52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
Blows the competition out of the water!, March 11, 2004
Nothing I've seen comes close to this program. It's an entirely
different level. But do yourself a favor before shelling out the $300. Go
to the rosettastone.com web page and ask for a demo cd. They'll send you a
sample with every language they offer included. It gives you a very good
sense of what it's all about.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
The best language software,- A+ , December 4, 2004
The RosettaStone is undoubtedly the best language software on the
market today. The learning comes naturally, its comprehensive; you listen,
read and speak. This is not a word for word translation guide. This
software goes far beyond those French books that simply give you a few
phrases without any real life context. RosettaStone gives you the building
blocks to think, and start building sentences in your new language. O.k.,
this product is a little pricier than other programs, nevertheless, after
I have spent hundreds of dollars on French college courses and, many, many
books and CD ROM's. It is - the best investment I have ever made for
improving my French; - it's like having your own personal tutors. Good
luck!
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Learning a language as a native speaker does, October 31, 2004
I already speak pretty fluent German, which I learned in the
traditional ways: I took classes, I studied the grammar, I did vocabulary
flash cards. I then moved to Germany for two years of study. It wasn't
until I arrived that I discovered I had the vocabulary of a 5 year old,
and that my pronunciation was pretty awful. It was very frustrating, until
I allowed myself to simply watch, listen and learn. Just like a 5 year old
does.
The brilliance of the Rosetta Stone approach is that it skips right to the
idea of watch and listen. The program starts by showing photographs,
showing you the word, and letting you hear the word. You're then shown,
for example, a picture of a boy, a girl, a cat, a dog, and you see and
hear "une fille". You then click on the picture of the girl, and it takes
you to the next set of images. (If you get wrong answers, it will repeat
them later.) Later you'll see a picture of a girl running, one jumping,
etc., and you'll learn to construct sentences in the same way.
The cleverest part of this program is the way it teaches you new words,
since everything is in French (or whatever language you're studying).
You'll get the pictures of a boy, a girl, a cat, and a car. You then see
and hear "une voiture", a word you've not heard before. Since "car" is the
only image you haven't seen before either, you now know that car is "voiture".
This accomplishes two things: 1) you learn new vocabulary by reasoning,
rather than memorizing, and 2) you are NOT learning by translation.
Retaining vocabulary when I was first learning German was the most
difficult part for me. Since doing the Rosetta Stone French program, I
have remembered every new word I've learned, even weeks after having last
seen it.
It's worth the money, if you're serious about learning a foreign language.
It is true, if you need to learn correct speaking and writing for business
or other professional endeavors, that you'll eventually need supplemental
grammar and vocabulary training, but after finishing these courses you'll
be able to do that on your own, and probably even entirely in French, if
you wish.
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