Rosetta Stone

[Poronico]

Has anyone used this program to help with learning a new language, or freshening up on one that's already known?

 

[Wolfie]

Yes. Don't try learning Hebrew with it. Or Chinese, for that matter. Many languages are fine. Hebrew is an utter disaster. Of course, your mileage may vary.

The issue (so much as V2 is concerned) is that it defaults to a pseudo immersion mentality...so far as to set all the menu text to the target language. The result with Hebrew is an entirely new alphabet, describing menus you are unfamiliar with in entirely new words...that look like gobledegook. A combination of common sense and random clicking will get you going in the proper direction but ultimately, you'll still never know what many of the menu items actually said, nor the distinction between the characters in the alphabet. You'll learn the entire words based on sight and sound. For modern Hebrew this is perfectly fine until you are faced with unpointed text. Of course, since you don't know the alphabet, nor the pronunciation of each character...you'll lack even the remotest notion as to what to do.

Clearly, be aware that it's not aimed at mechanics or fluency so much as functionality. And at that, it excels.

 

[gahau]

I really liked that soft, I have used it for Spanish and Chinese (although I am Cantonese and the rosetta taught Mandarin, it was pretty good.)
If you are interested in it PM me I'll send you a free copy, I have a bunch laying around =)

 

[bimmer635csi]

This is an interesting post for me.

I work for a Japanese company and struggle at times to communicate with the Japanese staff.

I was considering this software, but based on this post, I might need to find a way to test drive it before buying it.

Thanks for the info.

 

[obmike]

Although I've never used Rosetta Stone, the Pimsleur full courses are pretty good.

 

[mjolnir01]

Yes. Don't try learning Hebrew with it. Or Chinese, for that matter. Many languages are fine. Hebrew is an utter disaster. Of course, your mileage may vary.

The issue (so much as V2 is concerned) is that it defaults to a pseudo immersion mentality...so far as to set all the menu text to the target language. The result with Hebrew is an entirely new alphabet, describing menus you are unfamiliar with in entirely new words...that look like gobledegook. A combination of common sense and random clicking will get you going in the proper direction but ultimately, you'll still never know what many of the menu items actually said, nor the distinction between the characters in the alphabet. You'll learn the entire words based on sight and sound. For modern Hebrew this is perfectly fine until you are faced with unpointed text. Of course, since you don't know the alphabet, nor the pronunciation of each character...you'll lack even the remotest notion as to what to do.

Clearly, be aware that it's not aimed at mechanics or fluency so much as functionality. And at that, it excels.

x2. It's great for a language that uses our alphabet. For anything else, it's a disaster.

 

[13Fox]

I've used it to learn Arabic and so far its been pretty good. I would agree that it tends to vary between languages, most likely because different programming and development teams write each language program.