Rosetta Stone? Alternatives?

Question

I was thinking about language today, and coincidently, a Rosetta Stone advertisement came on the television. If I had enough money, I'd buy a Rosetta Stone thing since all that I've heard about them is "Yeah! They're great!"

I'm interested in learning a lot of languages, and spending a million dollars per language would be hard. I guess I'm interested in learning German, Arabic, Latin, French, the list could go on. I also should sharpen up on my Spanish.

I'm playing around with the demo of Rosetta Stone and it's pretty neat, but I don't have a lot of money.

Should I just save up the money and go with Rosetta Stone? Or do you know of anything cheaper that would actually teach me?

Answer 1

The best langauge programs are not going to be cheap. The two biggest (most used in homeschool) are Rosetta Stone and PowerGlide. You might check with your library about Rosetta Stone - I've heard of libraries having access to the materials that patrons can then use (from home) at no cost - not exactly sure how it works, but certainly worth checking into. From what I hear, once you have one set of Rosetta Stone materials, they work for all languages (not sure how THAT works, either).

PowerGlide attempts to use an intuitive immersion approach (the best method for learning a foreign language is immersion in that language, i.e. living where they speak it). We chose PowerGlide's i-Course (FWIW) because of the internet component (my son thinks he's playing on the computer!). However, PowerGlide has only a limited selection of languages available.

There's a lot more to it than just a great course. One thing I've discovered is that, if it doesn't work for you, even the best course is worthless. So you need to make sure it's packaged in a way that works for you (are you a visual learner? Auditory?)

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Rosetta Stone Alternatives

Answer 3

Rosetta Stone is fabulous! Short of hiring a native speaker of the language of choice as a tutor, and of course of actually living in a country where the language is spoken, I think it's the best tool out there. My whole family used the Thai set before moving to Thailand, and it helped us all immensely - especially my mom, who was much more dilligent than the rest of us. :=) I'd say go for it, but of course it's ultimately up to you.
Oh, but - as I said, the *best* way to learn languages is from a native speaker, so if you can find someone in your area, talk to them and see if they're open to tutoring you for a few hours a week.

Answer 4

Here is a link to free language software