[MW Forums]

Rosetta Stone 3.0 provides an easy and well-organized way to learn a language using your Mac. If you’re willing to really dig in and spend time learning a foreign language, Rosetta Stone can provide a strong foundation. more

[inq]

I'm very curious as to why Mr. Farivar thinks the Welsh and the Polish cultures are so different from the rest of the Western world that they need their own picture set?

[zzipp]

In response to inq:
Did Mr. Farivar actually say or imply that he "thinks the Welsh and the Polish cultures are so different from the rest of the Western world that they need their own picture set" as you claim? I think not. He said:
"For some reason, Farsi, Polish and Welsh all use the Western picture set, meaning the photographs are the same. The learning experience would be more authentic if the photographs were taken in the country whose language is being taught."
I read here that Mr. Farivar is listing these three particular languages as an example for his opinion that each language taught in the Rosetta Stone software should have photos derived from the native country of that language.
Keith G.

[scottgk]

I have used Rosetta Stone for Japanese. First off, I must admit I have not been the most diligent student. That said, I hope this new version of Rosetta Stone does a better job for instructing grammar. As I progressed in my understanding of Japanese, I have found this app less helpful. What would make this 'system' better would be to have a textbook to go along with it. The book that does come along with this only has the words and sentences that are spoken on the CD. No intruction on what all the bits & pieces are between the words.
Also, the quality of the pics could stand an upgrade. I've not seen v3.0, but in the version I have the pics are often unsharp or vague in their 'meaning.

[pcharles]

The Welsh are actually a lot like the French . . . . . They hate English people!

[michaelb]

I wonder if photoshop'ing berets onto French elephants and hijabs onto Persian ones would be okay?
Besides, there ARE elephants in most countries if you go to a zoo, which is where a lot of tourists do go.
(If you go to Sydney, Australia, the elephant house has the spectacular Sydney Opera House across the harbor behind it, so that's the sort of thing you might want to ask directions for. Of course, I don't think Rosetta Stone has a module for learning Australian. There's a product idea for you guys!)

[lkalliance]

Perhaps they felt that the Fosters Beer commercials had limited the market for Australian language software.

"Guppy."
"Bee-ah."

[bradleys]

Gidday Cobba....why wood ya need a langwige guide for Ostrailya when us Ozzys speek bonza Inglish.
Cheers Mate /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[kennethfcooper]

Rosetta Stone advertizes that, "Your learn a language the in the same way you learned your first language."
I find this amusing. I learned my first language by setting in the lap of a beautiful young woman who told me that everything I did was wonderful. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Nobody]

I tried out Rosetta a few years ago on the PC, I didn't find it very intuitive. Sounds like the format hasn't changed much.
I'm quite fond of the Pimsleur method - audio only, but it raises your vocab and fluency very quickly, without concentrating too much on random vocab like elephant, which you could easily look up in a book.

[zahadum]

it is not clear how the application is structured.
is there a basic engine which works witrh all the langauges (loaded as plugins or datasets)? or does each langauge have its own combined system?
each language costs $200? or all languages for $200?
thnax.

[CaseyJ747]

Thanks, everyone, for your interesting comments about Rosetta Stone. Many people have asked me about Rosetta Stone, as the company advertises extensively. I am only an amateur student of languages, and have tried many methods. I find Rosetta Stone useless. My reasons follow.
Is there any better software available? In my experience, Pimsleur seems to be a more productive approach. However, Pimsleur has not kept up with the times, either. Better technology is available that makes audio CD-ROMs seem clumsy. I am trying to gather insights, in order to possibly get some people together to develop better software, for foreign language learning. Any suggestions?
To get back to Rosetta Stone: My copy of Rosetta Stone 2 seems to have some serious omissions, for learning French. Can anyone comment? Is Rosetta Stone updating or correcting anything? Rosetta Stone seems to be set in stone, with no updates nor enhancements. They just pour more money into advertising, hinting that their students make significant progress.
Overall, the omissions in Rosetta Stone seem to be associated with Rosetta Stone using the same series of pictures and questions for ALL of the different languages that Rosetta Stone teaches. The last time that I looked, only Latin, an ancient language, gets some special treatment, for a few lessons. For example, directions to the coliseum and military camp are substituted for the directions to the airport or gas station. For each of the modern languages, Rosetta Stone seems to have "poured" a different set of sound bites and short, written statements, into the same series of visual multimedia files. That is, a series of four pane pictures and multiple choice questions. By "same", I mean exactly the same. Yes, there seem to be two slightly different series of photos and pictures, that appear in the various packages for different languages. However, the pictures play with the same set of quiz questions, with the minor exceptions for the ancient Latin version.
Rosetta Stone's use of the same set of pictures may not seem to be a barrier to learning. It may seem to be a insignificant point. Unfortunately, this approach makes learning very difficult, for several reasons.
To give one concrete example of why this approach is unsatisfactory, my copy of Rosetta Stone French does not even mention the numbers 21, 31, 41, 51, 61, 71, 81, 91. For English, this is not a significant omission, as numbers follow a very predictable pattern in their construction, and are not modified, based on case and gender. But for the French language, this is a serious oversight. With Rosetta Stone, how does anyone learn the unique treatment that the French language gives these numbers? (In French, these particular numbers are modified, depending on the grammatical gender of the noun.) Can anyone share, has this been corrected, in later editions of Rosetta Stone?
Further, Rosetta Stone offers NO explanations or help in the student's native language. This is a significant barrier to learning, in my opinion. Following are some examples, as to why I hold this opinion.
Nothing is mentioned in Rosetta Stone to explain differences between French formal and familiar pronouns. The student is expected to figure that out, from a series of still photos, French sound bites, and multiple-choice questions. This is quite overwhelming, as French idioms employ many more pronouns than English idioms. Rosetta Stone does not explain grammatical genders and cases, at all. For a student who is fluent only in American English, this makes learning French a rather challenging task, as English no longer uses the pronouns thee and thou, has no grammatical genders, and does not modify numbers, based on grammatical case and gender. In American English, the pronoun "it" serves to describe animals and inanimate objects. In French, people are occasionally called "it" while inanimate objects must be called "he" or "she" based on grammatical gender. More complicated, the French have many different words for "it". If not impossible, the Rosetta Stone method is very time consuming and frustrating. Is it really intended to be used by itself, as their advertising claims? Are other students making productive use of Rosetta Stone by combining it with help from a tutor? Or other textbooks?
Further, in learning any language, as an adult, idioms are a significant barrier. To give a simple example, in American English, we ask "How is the weather?" In German the question is asked in almost the same way, word for word. But the French idiom translates literally "What time is it making?" (This example is, as far as I can tell, not included in Rosetta Stone. But more complicated idioms are included, without explanation in the student's native or starting language.)
Strangely, a number of lessons in Rosetta Stone consist solely of old cartoons, which were published in English. These cartoons are one-pane drawings with a humorous comment. Anyone who has studied foreign languages for any length of time will understand that humor is very idiomatic, and does not translate very well. In many cases, it does not translate at all. The joke is often lost in translation. It would be much more productive for the student to study cartoons originally published in the target foreign language, to try to get some comprehension of the idioms. However, that approach usually requires some additional background explanation in the student's native language.
As best as I can understand, each student brings with him preconceptions about grammar and idioms, based on his native language. Almost every foreign language has some fairly significant quirks in idioms and grammar, which require additional explanation to help the student along. As a consequence, language teaching needs to be tailored to take into account BOTH the students native language, as well as the target foreign language, that is to be learned. Rosetta Stone ignores this reality, and takes the approach that one series of pictures and quiz questions can teach ANY student, regardless of the native language from which the student is starting. Further, Rosetta Stone offers no explanations or help, at all, in the student's native language. Somehow, the student is expected to learn by looking at photos, matched with short statements, all in the foreign language. (The short statements can be both displayed on the screen and played as audio sound bites.) Of course, this approach simplifies Rosetta Stone's task of writing the software.
It is my hunch that Rosetta Stone's approach of using computer multimedia to display a series of pictures originated with the old "photo book" method, often used to teach very basic English, as a second language, to people who are illiterate, even in their native language. If you have never heard of this method, see SIL.org for an explanation. As the writers at SIL.org explain, the "photo book" method is a good starting method, for the basics. However, it has significant limits, depending of the complexity of the foreign language to be learned, as well as the magnitude of the differences between the foreign language and the students' native language. But more important, the method does not use the pictures without some minimal level of help in the student's native language.
But worst of all, without additional explanation in the students native language, the "photo book" method will be able to explain only the most obvious concepts. That may possibly be why Rosetta Stone focuses on what some have described as silly sentences that have little use in plausibly useful conversations, such as "the boy is under the table", "the boy is on the table" and so on. More complicated expressions in past, present, and future tense, are not possible with static pictures. I do recall one frame in Rosetta Stone that uses a brief video clip to describe a bus arriving, leaving, and at a stop. But that video is the exception. Rosetta Stone is more than 95% static pictures or photos.
But an additional drawback of the "photo book" method is that if an idiom is significantly different from the expression in the student's native language, the new phrase will likely appear to be a string of untranslatable words. That is not to say that the student could necessarily figure an idiom out, if they could understand each word. Because Rosetta Stone uses the same set of pictures and questions, for every language, the method does not always build up a basic vocabulary in step by step manner. Based on the luck of the draw, the student may or may not be able to learn, because of the differences between his native, or starting language, and the foreign language. If his native language has idioms and sentence structure that is significantly different from the foreign language, insurmountable gaps will appear in the Rosetta Stone method.
It is my hypothesis, that for optimal learning by an adult beginner, some explanation about the structure and idioms of the foreign language is needed, in the student's native language. Of course, later drill should be solely in the foreign language, to avoid getting bogged down in memorizing rules of grammar that are little help in achieving fluency. Pimsleur seems to try to move in that direction, but is limited by their outdated audio CD media.
Rosetta Stone seems to hint that the protracted and puzzling study with their software will somehow be rewarded by better retention and better fluency. Has Rosetta Stone actually done the research that they hint at? I have doubts. I gotta' wonder why librarians across the U.S. are spending tax dollars to license the use of Rosetta Stone, online. It's gotta' be some kind of strange bandwagon effect, with no one actually evaluating these products. At WikiPedia.org, there is some appalling history on the fads in foreign language education. It is just one fad after another. If any research is being done, it probably is flawed, somehow, in order to produce conclusions to propel each method to temporary popularity. When I was a young student, we struggled with the old ALM, or Audio Lingual Materials method. Our teachers did not seem to know what to do with it, and we all went to the default method of trying to learn by translating word by word, ignoring idioms and differences in sentence structure. Yes, we learned a little. But it was an appalling waste of our time. Students deserve guidance towards more optimal learning methods, in my humble opinion.
The WikiPedia info can currently be found at:
http://en.wikipedia....guage_education
http://en.wikipedia....guage_education
Additional info about learning languages is at
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com
http://www.sil.org/
Anyone, please share your experiences with me. Many people have asked me about Rosetta Stone, as the company advertises intensively. Somehow, I am missing something. Possibly, are some students making productive use of Rosetta Stone with help from a tutor? Or perhaps, Rosetta Stone is a productive learning method for those students who are already multilingual, in several different languages, and intuitively grasp the complexities embedded in all those photos, short statements, and sound bites.
Please comment on what you believe should be in software, designed to actually help a student learn a foreign language.
Casey

[jangeroo]

the basic premise of ANY student being able to learn a language with rosetta stone is based on the fact that they teach the language relatively the same way that ANY person learns their own native language, that is by associating organized sounds (words) with images. from a psychological perspective, it is the most natural way to learn a language; when baby's start to learn their parents' language(s) they have no "native" language to translate into or to explain grammatical concepts; and yet having no native language to start from doesn't stop them from speaking the language far more fluently and correctly than the vast majority of adults learning a new language systematically and with explanations of the inner workings of the grammar. personally i'm a big fan of other methods as well, such as pimsleur, since i can easily throw it on my ipod and take it with me (also because they explain things, and since i'm a big grammar nerd, i love the nitty-gritty details of how languages tick), but for starting out, i'm also a huge advocate of rosetta stone's basic method, since it helps you build vocabulary in the most natural way possible. granted, i do agree they could use a make-over and use better/newer/culture-specific/etc. pictures, but the lack of translations and explanations in the learner's native language is precisely the point of their method. in theory, rosetta stone is an excellent idea; in practice, it works for some and doesn't work for others.

[4evermaat]

So who has actually USED v 3.0 at least beyond the core level? I have used v3 Spanish (latin) level 1 up to the pronunciation module and Chinese level 1 still on the core. I have several languages for v3 and the 27 language pack for v2.
I can say that the mac version certainly installs MUCH quicker than the Windows. It would take about 1/3-1/6 the time on mac per language pack vs windows xp. I never used v2 extensively, but v3's interface is much cleaner. Everything installs right on the computer desktop. As most mac users know by now, you cannot port over the cheap mics from windows. U either need a usb mic, or a preamp. Although ironically, the cheap mic was working fine in VMware fusion 2.0 beta 2. I had it connected to the line-in mic jack of the macbook. mac could barely recognize my voice in rosetta stone and then it was a complete no-show when using skype.
Anyway, just had to comment, primarily because I saw a lot of criticisms by people who haven't given v3 a real chance. one reviewer was relaying his/her experience over v2. Unless. it was in conjunction with comparing v3 usage, those comments were irrelevant.
As I use Rosetta Stone more, I will advise. and yes, I'm a transitioning windows xp user. Macbook 2.2ghz 2gb ram (about to be 4gb). for windows, I use VMWare 2.0 beta 2. yes, it runs well. But I try my best to run as many programs natively in mac as possible. Then only use windows for those that I cannot find in mac. VMWare is a great tool for transitioners.