Our kid's become enamored of learning other languages, and like most teens she gravitates toward expensive tech as the ultimate solution (e.g, minimal personal effort). She's already taken the requisite two years of high-school Spanish, she watches TV & DVDs with Spanish subtitles, and she and my spouse practice their conversational Spanglish. She's even working on pidgin Russian with a Turkmenistan exchange student and reading library books on learning the Russian language. So she seems to have the motivation and the basic ability to learn the fundamentals. She's just casting about for a better way to learn.
Her "problem" is that she thinks Rosetta Stone is what everyone needs to make language as easy as learning to type. We have no idea how to assess its effectiveness and of course I'm skeptical, but it's not my problem. She's e-mailed my nephew the Army Ranger to ask if he's used the product for his Iraq deployment, but it may be a few weeks before he gets back to her. In the meantime she's run through Rosetta's demo DVD and, surprise surprise, it seems to perform miracles. We parents would be happy to help out at a gift occasion, but those are months away and the gimmes are burning a hole in her pocket. She has a part-time job and a student ID from a local community college so she's eventually going to come up with the money, which will probably result in a whole 'nother type of life lesson. But I might just be cynical.
Anyone here a Rosetta Stone user? More generally, anyone know a better way to "try before you buy" a language tool? If she decides it's worth her hours of paid labor, what's the best way to find a student or military discount?
Her "problem" is that she thinks Rosetta Stone is what everyone needs to make language as easy as learning to type. We have no idea how to assess its effectiveness and of course I'm skeptical, but it's not my problem. She's e-mailed my nephew the Army Ranger to ask if he's used the product for his Iraq deployment, but it may be a few weeks before he gets back to her. In the meantime she's run through Rosetta's demo DVD and, surprise surprise, it seems to perform miracles. We parents would be happy to help out at a gift occasion, but those are months away and the gimmes are burning a hole in her pocket. She has a part-time job and a student ID from a local community college so she's eventually going to come up with the money, which will probably result in a whole 'nother type of life lesson. But I might just be cynical.
Anyone here a Rosetta Stone user? More generally, anyone know a better way to "try before you buy" a language tool? If she decides it's worth her hours of paid labor, what's the best way to find a student or military discount?