Rosetta Stone anyone?

[Patty_M]

This is my first post on Susan's so if anything is screwed up please blame it on ignorance.  Or maybe stupidity....

Has anyone had any experience with the Rosetta Stone language learning system? 

That is expensive but if it lives up to its advertising could be worth it. 

Thanks in advance for the information.

[Biscuit_Stix]

Yes. I picked up the Japanese a few years back. The menus were in Kanji. Everything. Was. In. Kanji. The settings, the defaults, the main menu and every menu after it, was in Kanji. Translation, I couldn't use the program at all because I didn't speak/read Japanese yet, and I couldn't find anything in the settings to change it to even Romanji. I was so ticked, and the guy at the kiosk was all "Well, it's immersive! You should just follow the program!" What program?! Dude, it's a picture of a duck and a kid, am I learning "child" or "boy" or "duck" or "yellow" or "dinner"?!? Without a solid base understanding of the language it was completely useless. By far and away the greatest waste of my money I've ever spent.

I've heard now, though, it's better. Donno, but I hated it with a passion. I had to learn the old fashioned way, haha. Classes. >.<

[Beth Andrea]

There was a time when I wanted to learn German. Cool language, and all that. I went to several thrift stores, and found 3 or 4 different "learn on CD's" type programs, one of which was Rosetta.

I really couldn't get past the first CD, there was a substantial leap in knowledge needed. I had taken German 101 in college about the same time, got a 3.9 so I did learn something there...

I also did searches on YouTube to see the reviews done by real people; there seems to be no clear "Hooray!" for Rosetta, but Pimsler (which is all audio, there's no written material at all) seemed to get better reviews. YT also had a number of native-speakers giving lessons both in culture and language...one I remember was when they waited outside of small grocery stores, explain what they're doing, and asked people what they'd bought. The people would willingly say "Oh I bought potatoes, carrots, some hassenfeffer..." and so on. It was really neat to hear actual speakers in such situations.

Now having said all that...an ye harm none, do what ye will.

[Patty_M]

Thanks for the information.  You have saved me a bunch of money and frustration.

[monica.soto]

I tried learning Italian with Rosetta Stone and I thought it was pretty good.

I never did get around to using it again though, so in the end who knows!

There's this great post about learning a second language, haven't tried it yet but it sounds logical and legit:

http://lifehacker.com/5923910/how-i-learned-a-language-in-90-days

[Kevin Peña]

I learned English in a way that Monica put up. I still can't pronounce things right. For example, instead "that," I say, "dat."

A grammar book is an important tool and luckily for me, I learned English in school, so I had plenty of people to talk to. The main thing to do is speak in the language you want to learn because speaking is the best way to have it engrained in your mind. I also read a dictionary and a thesaurus cover-to-cover (Yes, from "A" to "zygote") 4 times each and learned a lot of words as a result, which is why perhaps none of you would be able to tell that I am foreign to the language based on what I type.

Essentially, grammar and vocabulary are all you need to learn a language. I highly suggest learning grammar first with a knowledge of a few basic words. Only when you have the grammar down should you try to bolster your vocabulary because speaking is the best way to learn and you can't practice speaking unless you have grammar mastered.

Hope that helped. (If it's important, I know a thing or two about learning a language. I know English, Spanish, and sign language.  )

[Carbon]

I know some people like it but I'd rather learn through a few books. So if I was learning japanese I'd rather have something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Japanese-Beginner-Intermediate-Complete-Reference/dp/140002112X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353188177&sr=1-2&keywords=japanese+living+language

Which coincidentally is a lot cheaper. And there might even be something like this at your local library.