Rosetta Stone Free Online Trial

[Paula in MS]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but Rosetta Stone is offering a free 7 day trial of their Version 3 homeschool prior to release. Just go to Rosetta Stone and sign up. They will send you a password within 24 hours.

 

This will let you explore all components of Levels 1-3 for 7 days. If you have a microphone for your computer, you can even download the voice recognition software and try it as well. You can see how it works and what vocabulary is covered. You can also let your children try it to see if it appeals to them. My dd is 6, so I am looking for a program that has no formal grammar or reading, for that matter. This program will let you customize which features to use.

 

For everyone who has been debating Rosetta Stone (like me), this is your lucky day. Of course, it is one thing to like the program and quite another to shell out the $$.:eek:

 

Have Fun,

 

Paula

[Sasha]

I definitely recommend trying RS before you buy it. We have both Russian and Greek and we never use them.

[Paula in MS]

Can you tell me why your children did not like RS? Was it boring? Not interested in languages? Too many other things to do? This would really help me make a decision.

 

Paula

[Sasha]

They're very interested in languages, actually, and speak several. They also love computer play so I really thought that RS would be a hit with them.

 

Part of the problem was that there is no instruction on the alphabets. They know the Russian alphabet but dd (she is the one who requested that I order the Greek version) didn't know the Greek alphabet. The screen shows 4 pictures--say, a dog, a cat, a boy, and a girl, with the words written in that language beside the picture. Since she didn't know how to read Greek the words were meaningless to her.

 

There is also no instuction on putting the language to use. You can learn a decent amount of nouns--the ones I mentioned above, airplane, car, etc--but no verbs or adjectives. From what I've seen of RS it wouldn't be possible to go to another country and speak the language (or even get by, as I understand that fluency without immersion is so difficult to aquire) using this program.

 

There weren't, as far as I could tell, any games or anything to engage a child's interest. It was just the same thing, pictures over and over and you were supposed to click the mouse on the correct picture.

 

Perhaps others have been able to get more out of the RS program. I had high hopes with it and was disappointed. For us it was a big miss.

[cbollin]

We had a different experience with RS and found lots of verbs, adjectives, numbers, phrases etc. It helps to go beyond Unit 1 to see all of that. :)

 

I also recommend trying the online demos especially of version 3.

 

In version We really like the new conversation style of the program in Unit 5. We like the additions of various grammar points. It really addresses the alphabet things that Sasha brought up. In version 2 of RS you had to use the pull down menus in the writing options to get to the alphabet learning. My kids were learning Russian alphabet that way. But we also had a quick reference list of the alphabet.

 

One thing about the online demo.... you have to go through the "tutorial" section and then you get to the real demo where you can try it with multiple languages and get a real feel for the program.

 

Just my experience

[Sasha]

LOL, it probably would. My kids hated it so we put it away without exploring too much.