Rosetta Stone, or other language software?

[steelyman]

I'd wondered about Rosetta Stone for a few years. I'd like to make a better showing for Americans when with my French-speaking friends.

Amazon dropped the price by $100 (I'd had it on my wish list, maybe there's a new release coming?), so I ordered and will give it a try.

 

[W2R]

I'd wondered about Rosetta Stone for a few years. I'd like to make a better showing for Americans when with my French-speaking friends.

Amazon dropped the price by $100 (I'd had it on my wish list, maybe there's a new release coming?), so I ordered and will give it a try.

I hope you follow up with a post about what you think of it!

I would like to learn Mexican Spanish, but to be brutally honest, right now I am not too interested in working very hard at it. Maybe your review will inspire me.

 

[steelyman]

I hope you follow up with a post about what you think of it!

I would like to learn Mexican Spanish, but to be brutally honest, right now I am not too interested in working very hard at it. Maybe your review will inspire me.

I will, but don't expect anything soon .

I was glad to find this thread still open, as it is a little old but still relevant.

I'd probably benefit more from learning Spanish in the real world too, but I chose French.

I'm appreciative of how forgiving people from other countries are with Americans who speak only English (in some areas of the US, even that's questionable too).

 

[W2R]

I will, but don't expect anything soon ��.

I was glad to find this thread still open, as it is a little old but still relevant.

I'd probably benefit more from learning Spanish in the real world too, but I chose French.

I'm appreciative of how forgiving people from other countries are with Americans who speak only English (in some areas of the US, even that's questionable too).

I am just curious to know what is being said in other languages! I guess curiousity is a major theme in my life.

I already know enough French to get by. That is convenient here, although the French spoken in south Louisiana is very long way from Parisian French. It's sort of like the pidgin English spoken in Hawaii, where I grew up; a combination of words from different languages, with an accent all its own. So, I can't really speak the local French dialect here but I can get the main idea of what is being said.

 

[Birdie Num Nums]

I was in my local Costco the other day and saw they had some software that supposedly compared well with Rosetta Stone but at a much, much cheaper price. I didn't note the name or see it offered online at Costco. You might want to look into that.

 

[steelyman]

Well, it's easy to say what I paid: $199 for French levels 1-5. No online subscription.

 

[W2R]

Well, it's easy to say what I paid: $199 for French levels 1-5. No online subscription.

Wow, that was a good price! Hope you enjoy studying French.

 

[steelyman]

Wow, that was a good price! Hope you enjoy studying French.

I already do a mean Pepe LePew. That kind of behavior would probably earn me a slap!

 

[Philliefan33]

I haven't read through the whole string, so forgive me if this was mentioned in 2009.

Last weekend I was poking around the website of our county library and saw a service called Mango. It runs on an app on my iPhone or iPad, and is an "audio" language class. It's free- I just needed to log in with my library card. I'm trying the Mexican Spanish class; I went through one chapter on my commute home today. (At least when I'm alone in the car I'm not embarrassed by how bad my accent is when I say buenas tardes)

It's definitely worth looking into the availability of Mango through your favorite library. The price is perfect!

( Not to hijack the thread, but I am amazed at the amount and quality of entertainment and educational possibilities that can be accessed for free with my library card, Kindle, and iPad.)

 

[anethum]

For those who would like to practice with a native speaker of another language, the following completely free website (hosted by Dickinson College) is excellent for finding partners for a language exchange via Skype:

The Mixxer - a free educational website for language exchanges via Skype | The Mixxer

There are huge numbers of folks out there who are eager to practice their English with a native speaker, so it's easy to find native speakers of other languages for an exchange.

 

[marko]

I bought Rosetta Stone online to learn Danish for work.

I found it very useful and effective, provided --like just about anything else--you apply yourself and practice every day. It gave me a fairly good basis for daily conversational use; however most Danes would switch to English which didn't help my practicing.

Ten years later, without having used Danish since, I still retain many phrases and words.

Not to get off track, but...funny story: I was in a store in Denmark buying something and a crazy/drunk man came into the store and started screaming something in Danish at anyone within earshot.

I was right next to him and, not really understanding what he was saying, I just looked at him blankly. He then went: "oh sorry" and started screaming in English!!

 

[sailor]

Not worth it IMHO. I have Rosetta Stone available for free at work.
If you have an internet connection, Duolingo is better (and free
Me and my 8 year old are learning Spanish, my 10 y.o. is learning Dutch.
https://www.duolingo.com/

 

[rodi]

Not to get off track, but...funny story: I was in a store in Denmark buying something and a crazy/drunk man came into the store and started screaming something in Danish at anyone within earshot.

I was right next to him and, not really understanding what he was saying, I just looked at him blankly. He then went: "oh sorry" and started screaming in English!!

That is too funny!

 

[steelyman]

...

There are huge numbers of folks out there who are eager to practice their English with a native speaker, so it's easy to find native speakers of other languages for an exchange.

That's true. If you live in/near a university, there are often people who meet informally over coffee (or something) to practice/share language skills. Foreign language department bulletin boards can help find out about them in addition to friends.

 

[FUEGO]

There are huge numbers of folks out there who are eager to practice their English with a native speaker, so it's easy to find native speakers of other languages for an exchange.

+1 Very helpful to gain (or re-gain) fluency. It's also helpful to get those comments like "eh, that's the textbook way of saying it but no one says it that way. Say it this way instead".

And it's free.

italki.com is another good source for online foreign language conversation partners. Basic access is still free I think.

 

[FUEGO]

Not worth it IMHO. I have Rosetta Stone available for free at work.
If you have an internet connection, Duolingo is better (and free
Me and my 8 year old are learning Spanish, my 10 y.o. is learning Dutch.
https://www.duolingo.com/

We're duolingoing too at our house. The 9 year old is at level 4 Spanish now (and has built-in conversation partners at school and among fluent friends).

So far I'm at 4 to 6 in German, French and Spanish although I dropped the practice for a few months (now back on a 15 day streak).

 

[FUEGO]

I haven't read through the whole string, so forgive me if this was mentioned in 2009.

Last weekend I was poking around the website of our county library and saw a service called Mango. It runs on an app on my iPhone or iPad, and is an "audio" language class. It's free- I just needed to log in with my library card. I'm trying the Mexican Spanish class; I went through one chapter on my commute home today. (At least when I'm alone in the car I'm not embarrassed by how bad my accent is when I say buenas tardes)

It's definitely worth looking into the availability of Mango through your favorite library. The price is perfect!

Our library offers "Transparent Language Online" for free and it looks really good though I haven't used it extensively. They have a lot more languages than duolingo. With so many free options, it's hard to pay hundreds for the premium options.

 

[zinger1457]

Not worth it IMHO. I have Rosetta Stone available for free at work.

I also had Rosetta Stone available for free back when I was working and based on my experience I wasn't impressed. I tried their Thai language course and found that when it advanced to speaking sentences it was very easy to interpret the pictures presented in different ways. It got very frustrating at times not really knowing for sure what they were trying to say and there is no option to see a translation. It was many years ago though and hopefully they have made some improvements and maybe some languages are better done than others.

 

[nuke_diver]

I'm going to try Duolingo to start as well for Spanish. It would be useful to pick up some spanish here I think. If it is going well I might try to brush up on my french as well...I was functionally fluent in grade 11 but I only remember how to count to 10 and all the good Quebecois cursing that my friends in Quebec taught me . I still use those extensively when using english swear words would be not appropriate