How good is the Rosetta Stone language software?

Question

I am interested in buying the Chinese version, but I'm not sure if it really works. Anyone tried it?

Answer 1

I tried Rosetta Stone for Spanish. It was effective to learn basic words and sentences. The 4 pictures that you see in the demo is the main activity of Rosetta Stone, so it got really boring for me afet a while as I wanted more thant these pictures. Rosetta Stone does not have any grammar or conjugation instructions.
My college uses another software called TeLL me More, by Auralog. I found it more complete and less repetitive. It covers not only the basics, but also intermediate or advanced level. I am not sure what they offer for Chinese. It has a lot of different activities: picture/word association, videos, dialogues,..., includes also grammar and conjugation. It has also more content than Rosetta Stone as far as level and number of hours of learning. Their speech recogntion is great so you can have a dialogue with the computer. They have a free demo at http://www.auralog.com/.


The best way to learn a language would be through immersion, visiting these countries. Learning a language will require some time. In addition to software, you can have books which are useful as well. Audio CDs like Pimsleur for instance might help you out but you cannot get any feedback on your pronunciation so I did not like it so much.

Answer 2

Very good. I'm using it through the local library to learn Hebrew. Check with your local library to see if they've partnered with Rosetta Stone and you can get it for free!

Answer 3

Quite good. But it depends on what skills you want to acquire. I recommend pimsleur.com. They offer great audio courses.

Answer 4

standard of excellence. best you can buy. used by the us state department and many other branches of the government. i'd like one too.