Alenee Posted May 24, 2011 Share Posted May 24, 2011 Dd wants to learn Spanish or French and it seems whenever I ask, either people don't know, direct me to a class outside the home, or say Rosetta Stone. Is that really the only home curriculum option? Not that it's bad...I really wouldn't know yet. I just don't want to limit myself if there's something else out there that's worth my time to look at. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest amyperusse Posted May 24, 2011 Share Posted May 24, 2011 Hi, I've been studying Spanish for Years now. I have Rosetta Stone. It is OK, but it lacks lessons that teach new Concepts in a memorable way. I love Pimsleur. It is really for auditory learners. Another Great FREE option is Spanishdict.com It has lessons, flashcards, writing & speaking Exercises. Hope you check them out & like them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquinas Academy Posted May 24, 2011 Share Posted May 24, 2011 How old is your DD? I'm pretty clueless about Spanish (although you could look at Spanish for Children and So You Really Want to Learn Spanish), but I know of several French curricula: L'Art de Lire So You Really Want to Learn French Le Français Facile First Start French Breaking the Barrier Power Speak (Power Glide) French in Action Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almondbutterandjelly Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 We won't be using Rosetta Stone. We tried the samples online, and my dd hated them. For Spanish, I have heard great things about BJU's Pasaporte el Espanol (I may have misspelled that) and intend to order that next spring. For French, I really like the looks of Skoldo French (on Galore Park's website -- could order it through Horriblebooks.com in US). Memoria Press makes First Start French, but, sadly, it's kind of boring visually (I have a VSL). I owned it and sold it. So... no... Rosetta Stone isn't your only option. Figure out what kind of learner you have, and then you can more easily figure out what curriculum to get for a modern foreign language. There are lots of options. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luckymama Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 Would you have time to work alongside your dd? Or does the curriculum need to be totally independent? My dd11 and I are learning French together using Galore Park's So You Really Want to Learn French. The combination of the text with the audio cd has helped this former German student to speak another language, something I didn't think possible. We are learning vocabulary, grammar and conversation at the same time :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorbackmama Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 My ds will be using Visual Link Spanish next year. Honestly I haven't heard much good about Rosetta Stone. We'll use that for vocabulary supplementation only since I can get it free through our charter school. But his main Spanish program will be Visual Link. He also takes a Spanish class through his charter school, but that's only one day a week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amira Posted May 25, 2011 Share Posted May 25, 2011 No, it's not the only way, and it's an expensive and limited option. Rosetta Stone can be an effective part of language learning, but it's far from being enough on its own. There are so many other resources for Spanish and French that I wouldn't even consider Rosetta Stone unless I either could either find an incredible deal on it, or if I had unlimited money to spend on homeschooling. We used RS for Farsi in the past, because 5 years ago there was nothing else that was suitable for children in that language. But even in Farsi that isn't the case anymore. I'm not a big fan of Pimsleur for children either. My boys are using it now to help them with Russian, but it's not teaching them much that's useful for their situation. They can bargain for a taxi and tell the driver where they live, or get a good deal on cucumbers, but they're not learning anything that kids need to know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdarling Posted June 11, 2011 Share Posted June 11, 2011 There is curriculem called easy french and easy spanish. It is a very good curriculem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingersmom Posted June 11, 2011 Share Posted June 11, 2011 Oklahoma State University has an online spanish program that is quite good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LearningGrace Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 the other day too. So glad to hear you ladies give us other options. Didn't know there were others either! Thanks for asking this question! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeanne in MN Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 Lot's of info. on the high school boards on foreign language as well. Here were the intriguing ones for me that we'll be using: Visual-Link Spanish. Seems to be favored over Rosetta Stone and much cheaper. Getting Started With Spanish. Looks awesome and there's a Latin one too. :) So You Really Want To Learn Spanish by Galore Park. This is on my wish list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngieW in Texas Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 I have no idea what to use for French. I've tried Rosetta Stone, Tell Me More (Auralog), and Visual Link for Spanish. Visual Link is the only one that has worked here. They have a fantastic return policy. You can return for a full refund within 6 months. My 15yo finished level 1 and is working in level 2 now. She'll start taking Spanish at the cc in the fall. http://www.spanishprograms.com/spanish_course_guarantee.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Bay Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 Dd wants to learn Spanish or French and it seems whenever I ask, either people don't know, direct me to a class outside the home, or say Rosetta Stone. Is that really the only home curriculum option? Not that it's bad...I really wouldn't know yet. I just don't want to limit myself if there's something else out there that's worth my time to look at. Thanks! No, it's not the only way, and it's an expensive and limited option. Rosetta Stone can be an effective part of language learning, but it's far from being enough on its own. . We have 2 RS courses, v 2 & v 3 homechooling (German for the first, Spanish for the second.) I wouldn't do it unless I got the homeschool version becuase it has all of the worksheets, includes the headset with microphone, etc (version 3 does; version 2 didn't have the headset & you had to buy extra workbooks; now you can print as many copies as you like from the disk or buy a workbook separately; we're printing the sheets.) I have supplemented the German with a separate grammar book that wasn't expensive. I won't be doing that with Spanish, since it's for a dd who is going to ps next year and will be taking Honours Spanish 1 there. I want to augment what they do there. I will say that I bought the Spanish when it was on sale this spring (not sure if it's still one sale) and decided to just buy level 1 for now, rather than one of the multi-level sets. I have found the money worthwhile because a. my dc like RS, and that says a lot (my dd did not want to try anything else for Spanish) & b. it gets done. There are other reasons, of course. Ultimately no home course is going to be enough to really learn a language fluently; you need regular conversation with native speakers, etc, and ideally some immersion in the language. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chirowife Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 We tried Rosetta Stone and both my girls hated it. The company was very good and issued me a FULL refund after 5 months of trying to make it work for us! Now I am looking for a good foreign language curriculum and am thankful for all the great suggestions here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kate CA Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 No, not at all. Have you seen Tell Me More? http://www.tellmemore.com/homeschool I think it is better in many ways than RS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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