No substitute for good teaching and life experience. (Rosetta Stone: Spanish (Level 1 & 2))

Member Name: Vandersar

Product:	Rosetta Stone: Spanish (Level 1 & 2)
Date:	27/08/09 (84 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Challenging and engaging.

Disadvantages: No long-term solution.

Rosetta Stone is one of many language programs which offers users the chance to learn and practice another language. As far as software goes, this is one of the most expensive and for a complete set of levels 1-3 in Spanish or another language, you are looking at the best part of £350 for the online version which may give you 40-60 hours of learning depending on your speed.

The program itself teaches a language by a technique called 'dynamic immersion'. I'll come back to this in a sec. Basically you are presented with 4 pictures at a time which contain different words (e.g Girl. Boy, Woman, Man). You then learn these words and are tested on what you remember by various methods. These methods include a speech-recognition tool which records you saying the words and helps with pronunciation, as well as more traditional methods like listening and selecting the correct picture or listening and writing down what you heard. As you progress you find things like verbs added so you get for example (the boy walks, the boy reads, the girl walks, the girl reads), moving onto plurals (the girls walk) and even tenses (the girls walked / the boys will walk). You are tested every so often to see how much you learnt and can go back and forward at your own will.

So, is it any good? Yes and No. If you were uninspired by Languages at school than this might be the breath of fresh air you need to get you back into learning Languages. The speech recognition software is handy for beginners wanting to have a go at practising the sounds. There is a lot of stuff to learn and plenty of challenge in the learning itself; particularly in the way you can monitor and track your progress. The presentation is also really well executed in an attractive and clear way so the user doesn't get confused or bored.

However... The whole concept of dynamic immersion is somewhat flawed. Basically the program claims to teach you a language the way you learnt it as a child with an emphasis on intuition rather than instruction (figuring things out for yourself instead of being told them). We're all fluent in our mother tongues so this seems a great idea on the face of things right? Well, not really I'm afraid. For a start Children spend 4-5 years and 12 hours a day becoming able to speak a Language with constant correction and attention from those around them. In this instance immersion is a word Rosetta Stone have used to mean ' No help in English' since the program works entirely on intuition from images and offers no explicit explanations of grammar or patterns. While this may seem ideal for anyone whose head dropped at the mention of tenses, plurals and other language jargon at school, it actually means the quality of learning is quite shallow and probably won't be effective. in the long run.

The speech recognition tool is quite innovative but again it's not without its flaws. Anyone wanting to learn Spanish from scratch will definitely benefit but the tool tends to be a little over zealous with some of its pronunciation help. Having tried it myself and having pronunciation corrected was slightly annoying for a native speaker but also worrying considering the £350+ my school paid for the software.

All in all this is a little expensive for something that doesn't really prepare you for a visit to Spain. The money would be much better spent on Language classes in a Language school where a good tutor will ensure you get structured, meaningful learning which can be remembered. There is unfortunately no substitute for a good teacher and real-life experience. Rosetta Stone isn't a bad piece of software, it just doesn't give value for money for those who really want to learn a language.

Summary: Too expensive for a Language course.

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