Problem with Rosetta Stone Spanish

[Reya]

I get access to RS for free, so I've used French, Mandarin, and Latin for me. I'm having my K-ers do RS Spanish as a part of Spanish class, and I discovered something disturbing when they moved to lesson 2.

 

RS uses an unnatural form for describing action in the present tense. They use present progressive instead of simple present. This is a weird as doing the reverse in English. If native English speakers were describing what people are doing, they'd naturally say, for example, "The girls are walking." It would be odd to describe things in simple present, as in, "The girls walk." (For example, in response to the questions, "What are the girls doing?") People just don't talk like that. The opposite is true in Spanish.

 

To put it another way, "Las muchachas caminan" would be translated in English more often as "The girls are walking" than "The girls walk" even though the "literal" meaning is the latter. It's just weird to use the form "Las muchachas estan caminando" the way we use the progressive in English. It isn't 100% WRONG, but it's not how native speakers use the language.

 

This is a big problem with Rosetta Stone. To miss something this fundamental to a very widely-spoken language is quite serious.

 

I think this is another mark against buying the software.

[GailV]

Thanks for pointing this out. My dd uses RS pretty much on her own, so I haven't paid that much attention. But every once in a while I walk by while she's doing it and think, "That's weird -- why are they using present progressive?"

[nmoira]

 

To put it another way, "Las muchachas caminan" would be translated in English more often as "The girls are walking" than "The girls walk" even though the "literal" meaning is the latter. It's just weird to use the form "Las muchachas estan caminando" the way we use the progressive in English. It isn't 100% WRONG, but it's not how native speakers use the language.

Rosetta Stone isn't the only program that does this, Learnables does too. Both programs have a pre-scripted sequence that gets adapted to each new language. I don't think it's a big deal because you see this at the earliest stage. The benefits of this method for those learning with no previous exposure is that you can recognize the verb every time. Eventually you'll see (at least in Learnables... I can't speak for Rosetta Stone) "Las muchachas estan caminando" followed by the same picture with "Las muchachas caminan," beginning the transition to using the more common form.

[Susie in CA]

This is very common in foreign language instruction. In fact, this is how I learned English. When I first came here I would say: "I go upstairs now." Nobody speaks that way and I pretty quickly adjusted to: " I am going upstairs now."

 

The reason, I believe anyway, it is done is simply because I am going upstairs is obviously a more complex sentence then I go upstairs. If you are first learning a language these nuances are quite difficult to grasp. This does not mean, though, that you never learn the form used most often. It just comes a bit later as Moira pointed out.

 

Anyway, this is not a problem with the software. It is really no big deal. :)

 

Susie

[Reya]

Rosetta Stone isn't the only program that does this, Learnables does too. Both programs have a pre-scripted sequence that gets adapted to each new language. I don't think it's a big deal because you see this at the earliest stage. The benefits of this method for those learning with no previous exposure is that you can recognize the verb every time. Eventually you'll see (at least in Learnables... I can't speak for Rosetta Stone) "Las muchachas estan caminando" followed by the same picture with "Las muchachas caminan," beginning the transition to using the more common form.

 

I don't know. I'll find out, I guess. It's really unnatural, though. I think it's an artifact of the ignorance of the people making the software. :-/

 

I do wish they had a short form of the guided exercise. I have a 4-year-old and 5-year-old doing it who really NEED to have the presentation before having to guess at the answer--otherwise they'll freeze up--but the repetition of that setting is mind-numbing to them. It's insane. I'm not sure WHO they though needed that many repetitions, but when kids that young are groaning and going eye-glazed, it's a bad thing.

 

I'm going to have to figure something out to modify it--that or risk turning their poor little brains to jelly.

[Quad Shot Academy]

I do wish they had a short form of the guided exercise.

 

The first time around, my kids click on the magnifying glass and it goes to a screen that shows all the answers. HTH!

[Reya]

The first time around, my kids click on the magnifying glass and it goes to a screen that shows all the answers. HTH!

 

Only the 5-y-o is a fluent reader! *sighs* Thanks, though! It'd be great if they had an audio preview, too.

[Quad Shot Academy]

Only the 5-y-o is a fluent reader! *sighs* Thanks, though! It'd be great if they had an audio preview, too.

 

On the magnifying glass screen, in the four corners of the pictures there are little speaker signs. You have to run your mouse over it to see it. I just told my non-reader to press each one a couple times. :)

[Reya]

On the magnifying glass screen, in the four corners of the pictures there are little speaker signs. You have to run your mouse over it to see it. I just told my non-reader to press each one a couple times. :)

 

Awesome! I missed this!