Rosetta Stone

[Ringer]

Hello, all. First off, to the moderators - I'm not sure if there is a better place to start this thread, so please feel free to move if needed.

I'm curious if anybody has used Rosetta Stone, and whether they feel it's worth the hefty price tag? I'm dating a Polish girl that can read/write/talk fluent Polish as well as English, but it's a bit harder for her parents; I can tell that they prefer to speak in their native tongue. Since it's important to have the ability to talk to her parents in Polish in the event my girlfriend and I become serious, and because it's a long-term goal of mine is to learn another language, I'm looking into the efficancy of Rosetta Stone.

Anybody familiar with this software and can give me their input?

 

[FlyingTeaPot]

Yes, I have found it quite useful for learning German, although watching German movies after a while also helped tremendously.

 

[Skwim]

Take a look at Top LANGUAGE LEARNING SOFTWARE Reviews. Rosetta Stone ranks 4th.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

"El caballo esta saltando"

It's probably the most Spanish I got from Rosetta stone in a year.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I had to take it for French and Spanish... It's not really good, it doesn't teach you all of the words, or at least the one I took didn't.

 

[Katzpur]

I used it for Spanish. It was okay. Maybe even better than okay. I just lost interest after awhile. When learning a language, I prefer to learn about the grammar and sentence structure and actual rules governing them. Rosetta Stone just takes a completely opposite approach. It has it's good points, but is lacking in some areas.

 

[Otherright]

Hello, all. First off, to the moderators - I'm not sure if there is a better place to start this thread, so please feel free to move if needed.

I'm curious if anybody has used Rosetta Stone, and whether they feel it's worth the hefty price tag? I'm dating a Polish girl that can read/write/talk fluent Polish as well as English, but it's a bit harder for her parents; I can tell that they prefer to speak in their native tongue. Since it's important to have the ability to talk to her parents in Polish in the event my girlfriend and I become serious, and because it's a long-term goal of mine is to learn another language, I'm looking into the efficancy of Rosetta Stone.

Anybody familiar with this software and can give me their input?

Dynamic immersion does seem to work the best. I'm not sure I'd want to learn a language, especially one that isn't a key business language, just to get in good with the folks, but I've done worse to get in.

Hearing the language spoken is going to help you the most. Watch movies, news, TV, read newspapers, books whatever you can get your hands on. Don't rely on RS to build your vocab for you. Get a couple books for that. And talk to anyone and everyone you can in polish at every opportunity.

 

[McBell]

IMHO, Rosetta Stone is a good place to START learning a language, but it is far from being a be all end all language learning tool.

 

[McBell]

Hearing the language spoken is going to help you the most. Watch movies, news, TV, read newspapers, books whatever you can get your hands on. Don't rely on RS to build your vocab for you. Get a couple books for that. And talk to anyone and everyone you can in polish at every opportunity.

I completely agree.
The more exposure you get with the language being spoken by real people, especially those who are native to the language, the better.

 

[Otherright]

IMHO, Rosetta Stone is a good place to START learning a language, but it is far from being a be all end all language learning tool.

I agree completely.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Thank you for spamming an entire page...

 

[Klaufi_Wodensson]

It's good for what it is, but it doesn't actually teach you anything. It doesn't teach you the grammar techniques and such, it only shows you pictures and then a sentence explaining that picture. It is definitely not worth the price they have put on it, but it is pretty good if you want a very basic ability to have a conversation in the language of your choice. I still prefer a classroom with a teacher who can explain grammar rules and the rules with irregular verbs and conjugation. But I like to be thorough and I thoroughly enjoy languages. If you just want to be able to have a simple conversation without actually understanding the workings of the language (obviously you can understand vocab and such, but grammar and conjugation is not taught) then by all means go with Rosetta Stone.

 

[JonnyBG]

I think Rosetta Stone is over hyped. I like *edit* but that sadly does not have Polish