Singapore Expats

Has anyone tried learning a language using Rosetta Stone?

Just curious as my wife wants to learn a 3rd language and it could be an option.

In my experience, it is a decent supplemental option to a proper course with a proper teacher and frequent real-world practice. It'll basically help expand vocabulary. On it's own, you may learn some useful and most likely not so useful (It should be called 'The boy is drinking orange juice' in 27 languages, not Rosetta Stone) words and phrases.

Note that my experience was with Mandarin Chinese, and using the 3.x product. That was the last one that sold you a CD. All of the new versions are subscription-based and online.

I've known some folks who used that in Japan. Some were with the CD's and some with the web-based subscription format. None of them got very far and they all gave up. Seem to recall that the subscription fees were pretty substantial...

Now I can't say either way about such methodology for learning a language, other that to say it doesn't work for me. If you are George Malley (the movie Phenomenon) then it could be great. I found that taking some structured classes were a very good foundation and then living in the target culture really made it happen for me with Japanese. I'm hoping to work out something along those lines to learn some Mandarin in Singapore if I have time.

Good luck with the pursuit anyhow. It's a great thing to learn language!

David

Tanuki wrote: I'm hoping to work out something along those lines to learn some Mandarin in Singapore if I have time.

I had the same hope, but don't expect it to be too great in Singapore. I took classes in the US, and practice a lot on my own in various ways (videos, online, etc). I struggle when trying to talk to people in Singapore, unless they're recent PRC immigrants. I just cant understand quite a few Singaporeans speaking Mandarin. I'm told their pronunciation is very bad, akin to their English pronunciation, and that's the reason. I don't consider myself an expert enough to be able to make that same judgement against them, but I have zero troubles when I visit most places in mainland China.

zzm9980 wrote: I had the same hope, but don't expect it to be too great in Singapore. I took classes in the US, and practice a lot on my own in various ways (videos, online, etc). I struggle when trying to talk to people in Singapore, unless they're recent PRC immigrants. I just cant understand quite a few Singaporeans speaking Mandarin. I'm told their pronunciation is very bad, akin to their English pronunciation, and that's the reason. I don't consider myself an expert enough to be able to make that same judgement against them, but I have zero troubles when I visit most places in mainland China.

Haha, yes, I'm not getting my expectations up real high on it. I've heard the same comments from various folks about the "quality" of the Mandarin in Singapore. Kinda like what they call "zuu-zuu ben" in Japan which is along the lines of hillbilly style. The short-term goal is just to try to stammer out a bit to help shopping in places like the wet markets. After that we might just give up.

Cheers

David

Fortan wrote:Has anyone tried learning a language using Rosetta Stone?

Just curious as my wife wants to learn a 3rd language and it could be an option.

I'm a big fan of Rosetta Stone and have been using it with other tools to learn some spanish. I find memory work with Rosetta Stone is superior to other memory systems but it falls down when it comes to learning grammar, particularly in a language with verb conjugations (especially irregular ones).

I also use translate.google.com to sometimes look up words that aren't obvious (like is he hugging his mother or loving his mother - turns out loving)

For Spanish I used the following toolset:
Rosetta Stone
Brainscape (huge, huge fan of this)
MindSnacks Spanish (spelling game only)

Brian


Brian
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To the OP - you may want to try Spanishpod or Chinesepod.com. There used to be an Italianpod, but that site migrated to an open language site which I haven't used. On quick check it looks like there are a number of "insert language here"pod.com online teaching sites - I'm not sure if they're all like the Spanish, Chinese or Italianpod, but worth a look....

My sig other used Chinesepod.com combined with classes a number of years ago, and found it to be quite helpful. The classes are web based and have really good production value - basically you're listening to some funny, interesting people teach you the language using real world examples of what you need to know.

I'm right now using Pimsleur to learn Italian, but I'm thinking of switching to the (former) Italianpod.

Anyway, hope your wife finds a teaching tool that's helpful!

I tried using it, the korean version. It was damn hard to learn lor. They just read out the sounds and expect you to remember with the picture. I kinda need the pronunciation with it to learn. I gave up after 1 hour.