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Does Rosetta Stone work?


tdbates78
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I would like my girls to begin taking German in the fall. How is Rosetta Stone? Do your children retain the information well? And can it be done independently? I took four semesters of German in university but its rusty to say the least, so I'm not going to be much help.

 

Can anyone compare the boxed program vs the online program? Or give thoughts on either?

 

Thanks!

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My son, who was maybe 7 at the time, used RS Spanish and he liked it for a while, then things got to a critical point and he could no longer progress.  He didn't learn anything.

 

Because I apparently didn't learn anything from this experience, a few years later, I got RS German to use with this same son.  And the same thing happened.

 

The best way to learn a language (other than full immersion), as far as I can tell, is in a live classroom or, even better, one-on-one with intensive tutoring.

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We used the Spanish with my son. I gave a years credit because of the time he put in. He can't speak Spanish. 

 

My youngest two did Alpha Omega Spanish and attended a year-long coop class, and they can't speak Spanish either.

 

I took French from 5th grade through my first year in college. Every year. Can't speak French.

 

This is why Latin and Greek are so great, BTW. You can feel somewhat successful and you don't need to speak it. :)

 

 

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I don't think it stands alone.  

 

I would NOT purchase Rosetta Stone when Duolingo is free and equally effective.  

 

We use duolingo.  The kids do 1 new lesson and 2 review lessons each day.  However, this is in addition to a German tutor 2x a week for 45 minutes plus German lessons with dad 5x week for 20 minutes.  AND, we live in a country where we hear German at least somewhat regularly.  

 

There really isn't an easy way to learn a language without putting in huge amounts of time.  I use duolingo with the kids for a few reasons:  exposure, review, entertainment value, ease of use (I don't speak German).  They really like the "competition/game" aspect.  

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I am so glad this question was asked. I noticed rainbowresource had rosetta on sale and was contemplating it. My kids want to learn Korean and duolingo does not have a Korean option. I am somewhat at a loss. I love living language programs but they are not right for a child. Meh...back to the drawing board...

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Because there isn't a "Getting Started with German", you might check out Essential German to pair with Duolingo.

http://www.german-latin-english.com/Germain.htm

German is new to me and I work through the lessons slowly with my dc.

We also like to listen to YouTube Lesemaus videos like this one:

 

I can't see the ages of your girls on my phone, but my dc are 8, 12, and 12 (and then there is me). I think you are at a great advantage having studied the language in the past!

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We bought Rosetta Stone a couple of years ago. My boys easily learned how to game the system. I'm sure it's a good program if you want to learn a bit of conversational Spanish for a trip or something, but as far as really learning a language.... meh.

 

 

This is why Latin and Greek are so great, BTW. You can feel somewhat successful and you don't need to speak it. :)

. I like this!!😀
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Thanks everyone. Guess we will give it a pass.

 

Okay so, at the risk of sounding like an idiot, can someone explain the point of learning Greek or Latin? Is it to help with language arts?

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One of the main points is to be able to read source materials in the original language. Only a very small fraction of material has been translated into English. Or, if you want to appreciate the nuance, you read important documents in the original language. Translation is always going to be an art, and something is always going to get lost in the translation. Having that familiarity with how the original reads is going to give you nuance that your translator might not have been able to preserve.

 

Latin and Greek are going to be most important in situations where a person is involved in history and theology. The language of scholars was Latin, so up until the late 19th century, you had many scholars/scientists/historians writing their works in Latin, instead of English/French/German/Romanian/Italian/whatever to ensure the widest possible audience for their findings. Latin and Greek are also very important in Bible studies and patristics (early Christian writings). 

 

I once had a friend who was majoring in Classics, and they said, "The only reason to major in Classics is to become a Classics professor." I have no doubts they were correct!

 

So--- if the individual has a genuine interest in history or theology, acquiring a fluency in Latin or Greek is going to be helpful in opening up many resources that would otherwise be closed off to them. If they're not really interested in acquiring fluency, they might be better served with a more modern language. It can be helpful for recognizing root words and things like that in modern language, but it can also be difficult for a student to keep things separate when they have too many languages that are too closely related to each other. For example, I did four years of Spanish in high school, and then went on to take Latin... and it took me ages to stop trying to decline my Latin nouns with Spanish verb endings. :) Someone with more of a knack for language will not have that sort of problem, but that's what I encountered myself.

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My 8 year old uses RS Spanish, but only because we can get the online version free through a homeschool partnership.  Also, we use it as one facet of his Spanish program.  He also uses various other resources to target other aspects of the language.  To prevent him gaming the system, I sit with him for about half of his RS lessons.

 

I would never consider RS for older students, or as a stand alone curricula, but it is improving DS's speaking and listening skills quite a bit.

 

Wendy

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I am so glad this question was asked. I noticed rainbowresource had rosetta on sale and was contemplating it. My kids want to learn Korean and duolingo does not have a Korean option. I am somewhat at a loss. I love living language programs but they are not right for a child. Meh...back to the drawing board...

Do your kids have a reason or family member who speaks Korean? It's not an easy language to learn at all. I think there is a sweet spot where RS might make sense in the 6-8 year old years, but I would not use RS for a non-FIGS language.

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I've never used Rosetta Stone so can't comment on that. Our family does use Pimsleur in several languages (we're dabblers in foreign languages 😊) If you're wanting an initial exposure to a language and have the goal to be able to SPEAK it, Pimsleur is an excellent program. There is lots of repetition and review built in, but not in a drill-and-kill kind of way. It is only an oral program though, so no textbook, reading or grammar instruction. It's also geared towards adults. If you don't want your kids learning how to order alcohol in German you probably don't want to use Pimsleur 😊

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I can't speak to Rosetta Stone but just wanted to say I had in person language lessons in a language for several years and I now remember very little.

 

Our brains prune what we don't use regularly and I think this is the issue with languages. If we don't find a purpose for it that lets us use it we will lose it.

 

One thing I've seen some language programs trialling is chat systems where you chat with native speakers online who are trying to learn your language. You speak on theirs and they speak in yours.

 

Another option as someone pointed out is getting to a point where you can enjoy the literature or films of another country.

 

If you can create purpose I think you have more success. I also think practice has to be daily or at least several times a week to achieve progress.

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RS is good but kinda pricey.  As long as they keep speaking it, hearing it and writing it, they will retain it.  I am 100% fluent in the second language I am teaching my kids, but when I forget to use it, they forget too.  :D

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  • 3 weeks later...

Do your kids have a reason or family member who speaks Korean? It's not an easy language to learn at all. I think there is a sweet spot where RS might make sense in the 6-8 year old years, but I would not use RS for a non-FIGS language.

 

 

Not sure I should still comment on this, since it's a few weeks old now, but...

 

I think RS is fine for Indo-European languages that use the Latin script, not just FIGS (French, Italian, German, Spanish). My RS Russian is a little buggy in ways that aren't terrible, but I can't recommend it (the text is sometimes too big, so that it doesn't fit in the area it's supposed to fit into, so you can't see it all - this is only occasionally the case, so it's not a big deal, but for something that costs $150+, it's not okay - they also don't have as many of the online games for Russian as they did for Spanish (I don't quite remember if they had all of them for Dutch)).

 

Also, I wouldn't recommend RS for 6yos (or even 7yos) unless they're pretty advanced - there are plenty of polysyllabic words to read and write (I eventually just stopped making my kids do the writing while we were in NL for a month because I wanted to get through the program faster, and haven't gotten around to going back and restarting the writing) and a lot of scenes require deducing what's going on from pictures which require a basic knowledge of the world, for example:

 

- Pictures with an old phone and a new phone, neither of which looks like the phones we use (we have cell phones) - even my wife accidentally clicked on the 1990s-style phone before realizing that oh, the alternative is a rotary phone. 

- Pictures with stuff like "it's hot in Rome in the summer"... where it would not necessarily be obvious which picture is Rome (easy to deduce, because the only other picture showing 'hot' showed pyramids in Egypt, but still - the "it's cold in winter" options were NY and Moscow, and those would probably be harder to tell apart for a little kid).

 

Also, this may or may not be age related, but my kids sometimes get quite upset when they get stuff wrong, especially if they get it wrong more than once. 

 

So, anyway... I completed all 5 levels (20 units) of Spanish, and I found them to be helpful - they were just enough to get me to a point where I could watch some Mexican soaps on Netflix with a dictionary next to me (and soon didn't need the dictionary much anymore, because they kept using the same words in that soap, lol). 

I've almost finished unit 5 (the first unit of level 2) of Russian, and I wouldn't recommend it because of aforementioned bugginess, but otherwise, it's okay. It does make it a lot more noticeable how hard it sometimes is to deduce what's going on by looking at the pictures - in Spanish, it was a lot easier to follow because Spanish is similar to French and Latin, both of which I had prior experience with.

My 9yo is in unit 6 of RS Dutch, and my 6yo is in unit 7 of RS Dutch (so, both in level 2). It's going okay, but they don't love it (youngest loved it at first, but it's gotten harder, and not as novel, and now he doesn't love it anymore). I occasionally have to help them, especially if they can't get the pronunciation right and I have to sit and go through the hard words slowly with them (yes, it has something that does that in the program, but it's not the same, especially since it won't do a single word or part of a single word at a time). Also, I sometimes make them pause it when the program counts a pronunciation as correct that really is not.

I think my wife is at unit 5 (level 2) for Dutch, but I'm not sure... she hasn't touched it in quite a while (we bought it 2.5 years ago or something, when oldest was 7 I think, but with his speech issues (he gets speech therapy) it was too frustrating for him back then, so we didn't really start it until about a year ago now, when oldest was almost 9 and youngest was 5.5). 

 

Final comment - if I were just picking a random language for fun or w/e, I'd try to only choose RS programs that have all 5 levels, as I felt that with Spanish there was a big difference between having finished 3 and 5 levels... 5 really is a minimum jumping off point. We have Dutch, which only has 3 levels, because it's my native language and there aren't that many Dutch programs out there. 

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Not sure I should still comment on this, since it's a few weeks old now, but...

 

I think RS is fine for Indo-European languages that use the Latin script, not just FIGS (French, Italian, German, Spanish). My RS Russian is a little buggy in ways that aren't terrible, but I can't recommend it (the text is sometimes too big, so that it doesn't fit in the area it's supposed to fit into, so you can't see it all - this is only occasionally the case, so it's not a big deal, but for something that costs $150+, it's not okay - they also don't have as many of the online games for Russian as they did for Spanish (I don't quite remember if they had all of them for Dutch)).

 

Also, I wouldn't recommend RS for 6yos (or even 7yos) unless they're pretty advanced - there are plenty of polysyllabic words to read and write (I eventually just stopped making my kids do the writing while we were in NL for a month because I wanted to get through the program faster, and haven't gotten around to going back and restarting the writing) and a lot of scenes require deducing what's going on from pictures which require a basic knowledge of the world, for example:

 

- Pictures with an old phone and a new phone, neither of which looks like the phones we use (we have cell phones) - even my wife accidentally clicked on the 1990s-style phone before realizing that oh, the alternative is a rotary phone.

- Pictures with stuff like "it's hot in Rome in the summer"... where it would not necessarily be obvious which picture is Rome (easy to deduce, because the only other picture showing 'hot' showed pyramids in Egypt, but still - the "it's cold in winter" options were NY and Moscow, and those would probably be harder to tell apart for a little kid).

 

Also, this may or may not be age related, but my kids sometimes get quite upset when they get stuff wrong, especially if they get it wrong more than once.

 

So, anyway... I completed all 5 levels (20 units) of Spanish, and I found them to be helpful - they were just enough to get me to a point where I could watch some Mexican soaps on Netflix with a dictionary next to me (and soon didn't need the dictionary much anymore, because they kept using the same words in that soap, lol).

I've almost finished unit 5 (the first unit of level 2) of Russian, and I wouldn't recommend it because of aforementioned bugginess, but otherwise, it's okay. It does make it a lot more noticeable how hard it sometimes is to deduce what's going on by looking at the pictures - in Spanish, it was a lot easier to follow because Spanish is similar to French and Latin, both of which I had prior experience with.

My 9yo is in unit 6 of RS Dutch, and my 6yo is in unit 7 of RS Dutch (so, both in level 2). It's going okay, but they don't love it (youngest loved it at first, but it's gotten harder, and not as novel, and now he doesn't love it anymore). I occasionally have to help them, especially if they can't get the pronunciation right and I have to sit and go through the hard words slowly with them (yes, it has something that does that in the program, but it's not the same, especially since it won't do a single word or part of a single word at a time). Also, I sometimes make them pause it when the program counts a pronunciation as correct that really is not.

I think my wife is at unit 5 (level 2) for Dutch, but I'm not sure... she hasn't touched it in quite a while (we bought it 2.5 years ago or something, when oldest was 7 I think, but with his speech issues (he gets speech therapy) it was too frustrating for him back then, so we didn't really start it until about a year ago now, when oldest was almost 9 and youngest was 5.5).

 

Final comment - if I were just picking a random language for fun or w/e, I'd try to only choose RS programs that have all 5 levels, as I felt that with Spanish there was a big difference between having finished 3 and 5 levels... 5 really is a minimum jumping off point. We have Dutch, which only has 3 levels, because it's my native language and there aren't that many Dutch programs out there.

I am so glad you added your thoughts. This is incredibly helpful. I am really torn...christianbooks has Korean level 1-3 homeschool version on sale for 119 dollars which is cheap. Korean is the only language my kids want to learn (besides their Latin studies). After reading these posts I didn't originally purchase it and looked into other options. I looked at other language programs but most are geared towards adults. I looked into a language tutor but there isn't any in our area that works with kids. I speak some and can read it. I can easily teach the alphabet as I find it to be one or the most intuitive and easy to learn alphabets. I also have taken Japanese and 3 years of ancient Greek so compared to those Korean was a breeze. However, the language itself is tricky. Pronunciation wise it is more challenging than Japanese by far. My daughter has picked up a number of phrases through Korean television and is highly motivated but she won't be 8 until the fall. She reads at a 4th grade level and spells at a 3rd grade level. I am wondering if I should just bite the bullet on RS and if it is a fail...well...I was warned :)

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My daughter has picked up a number of phrases through Korean television and is highly motivated but she won't be 8 until the fall. She reads at a 4th grade level and spells at a 3rd grade level. I am wondering if I should just bite the bullet on RS and if it is a fail...well...I was warned :)

 

 

I really don't know what your alternatives are, but $119 is definitely a decent price. That said, RS was originally aimed at adults also, and while I haven't tried any of the homeschool versions, it's my understanding that they're pretty much the same as the original... (I could be wrong, of course). Academically, imo and ime reading at 4th grade and spelling at 3rd grade level will be good enough - I wasn't saying that you have to be 8 to do it (my youngest started it at 5.5yo), just that there is reading and writing involved, so that there are quite a number of 6 and 7yos who would struggle because of that (though you can easily skip the writing, and you can technically skip the reading, but I wouldn't skip the reading unless you really had to). For the record, I've typed out the writing sections we did and had the kids practice copying them on paper, before then doing the writing section on the computer. For Spanish, I could just do the writing sections on the computer without practice and get good scores, but for Russian I occasionally get a passing score but mostly get "not quite good enough" scores, so the writing sections are hard, imo, depending on the language (and I'm an adult who has dabbled in/learned quite a number of different languages). 

 

If you're okay with spending $119 and then deciding that it's not going the way you hoped, or that you want to put it away for a year or more, or w/e, then why not? 

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I really don't know what your alternatives are, but $119 is definitely a decent price. That said, RS was originally aimed at adults also, and while I haven't tried any of the homeschool versions, it's my understanding that they're pretty much the same as the original... (I could be wrong, of course). Academically, imo and ime reading at 4th grade and spelling at 3rd grade level will be good enough - I wasn't saying that you have to be 8 to do it (my youngest started it at 5.5yo), just that there is reading and writing involved, so that there are quite a number of 6 and 7yos who would struggle because of that (though you can easily skip the writing, and you can technically skip the reading, but I wouldn't skip the reading unless you really had to). For the record, I've typed out the writing sections we did and had the kids practice copying them on paper, before then doing the writing section on the computer. For Spanish, I could just do the writing sections on the computer without practice and get good scores, but for Russian I occasionally get a passing score but mostly get "not quite good enough" scores, so the writing sections are hard, imo, depending on the language (and I'm an adult who has dabbled in/learned quite a number of different languages).

 

If you're okay with spending $119 and then deciding that it's not going the way you hoped, or that you want to put it away for a year or more, or w/e, then why not?

Thank you! Really helpful!

 

For that price it is as good of a sale as I have seen so at the very least if it isn't working for my kids then I will use it myself. Or like you said, it can be put away for a bit and we could revisit in a year or two.

 

Just fyi...for anyone thinking about RS they all appear to be on sale at CBS and with no tax (and a free shipping code for any orders over 35 dollars) it is an awesome price!

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I'm fluently bilingual (German is my first language) and I've been looking for curricula to teach my kids German. They've only spoken English their entire lives. I always had the intention to teach German to them some day, but not to have a bilingual home from the start.

 

The very best resource I've come across is the book "Fluent Forever". It describes a step-by-step process that is easy to follow, with minimal cost investment, that I know will really work to get far in a language. You don't need full immersion or one-on-one tutoring, but it can help once you are already pretty advanced. You can get far with a simple program that you can set up yourself based on the book. I highly recommend it. I have a friend with her masters in Linguistics who is bilingual in Japanese, and the advice she gave me is very similar to what's laid out in "Fluent Forever". 

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