Rosetta Stone Review

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The purpose of this entry is to give unbiased feedback regarding my personal experience with Rosetta Stone. In no way am I trying to encourage or discourage anyone from using Rosetta Stone.

Background:
I recently had the opportunity to try Rosetta Stone for free. I signed up for a “session” beginning mid-February and my subscription will end mid-June. Obviously I was delighted to take part, since I am moving to Brazil in June; I signed up for the Brazilian Portuguese session. The session I signed up for with Rosetta Stone is completely online, but has the option to add an Audio Companion, which is a set of CDs containing matching lessons to the online lessons (for an extra fee of $50). The actual price of an online subscription is $199.95 for six months of access.

Software/Hardware Needed:
• Internet Browser
• Microphone (Not necessary for all of the lessons, but is needed for speaking and pronunciation.)
• Internet Connection
• Rosetta Stone Software (downloaded from site)

The Setup:
The software is setup with three different Levels and within the Levels are four separate Units. Each Unit has four separate Lessons; each Lesson has a Core Lesson and consequent mini-lessons consisting of activities such as: Pronunciation, Vocabulary, Grammar, Writing, Listening, and Speaking. One interesting aspect of these Lessons is they build on each other and use what you have learned in the previous Lesson(s). Also, the Lessons are not cut and dry, so to speak. Lesson 1 will have the Core Lesson, Pronunciation, Vocabulary, and Grammar, the user then moves on to Lesson 2. Mixed within Lesson 2 are writing and speaking from Lesson 1. The Lessons proceed this way through Lesson 4, which has activities from Lessons 2 and 3 mixed within it. The easiest way to show this is with the following chart: (Keeping in mind each Unit within each Level has 4 Lessons.)

Click on the chart for a larger image!

If one so desires, the settings can be changed to allow the user to go through all of Lesson 1 together, then move on to all of Lesson 2, etc….

Level 1 consists of the following Units: Language Basics, Greetings and Introductions, Work and School, and Shopping.

Level 2 consists of the following Units: Travel, Past and Future, Friends and Social Life, Dining and Vacation.

Level 3 consists of the following Units: Home and Health, Life and World, Everyday Things, Places and Events.

Break Down of Lessons:
Core Lesson: The Core Lessons consist of 30 some-odd screens. Generally they contain a mix of all the other mini-lessons. As with all the lessons/screens, Rosetta tracks the number you have correct and incorrect throughout; a percentage correct pops up after you have completed the screen and allows you to go to the next lesson.

Pronunciation: For this feature of the software, you must have a microphone hooked up to your computer. The Pronunciation mini-lesson ranges from the pronunciation of individual phonemes and morphemes to the pronunciation of entire sentences. The voice recognition from Rosetta Stone indicates whether or not you pronounced the sound/word/sentence correctly. Another feature on these screens is a “help” button, which brings up a secondary screen containing sound waves of both the native speaker and your own. I believe the idea is to get your own voice and intonation to match that of the native speaker. I, however, have never been able to accomplish this. The first screen indicates I pronounce the prompt correctly, but if I should click on the secondary screen, my sound waves and the native speakers’ never matched.

Vocabulary: Exactly as it sounds, the Vocabulary Lesson teaches vocabulary. An interesting note: Rosetta Stone does not have any translations or instructions. It consists only of pictures and the foreign language for all lessons.

Grammar: The grammar instructions go against everything I live and breathe as an English teacher. Grammar is not taught explicitly but with examples. This concept I found to be the most difficult as some of the connections were very hard to make with why the wording was a certain way. Even though I survived the lessons, I get the strange feeling I am missing a large part of being able to speak on my own.

Writing: The Writing Lessons were useful as the activities made me actually remember how to spell the words. The most difficult aspect of this activity was remembering where the accent marks went. A concept that is extremely foreign to native English speakers!

Listening: Of all the lessons, I consider this to be the most beneficial. The screens consist of pictures but no words. The user has to listen to the speaker and determine which picture is the answer. This, of course, is more like real life. When people are having conversations, the written word is not accompanying the dialogue!

Speaking: Like Listening, I found the Speaking Lesson to be of great help. Many times the user must deliver an answer to the native speaker without the benefit of having the words written out. There was one frustrating aspect to this lesson. In real life, there are many ways to answer a question; in Rosetta Stone, there is only one answer. Sometimes the software wants a simple “Yes” or “No” answer and sometimes it was a complete sentence answer. I still have not figured out any clues as to which it wants and when, other than trial and error.

Reviews: There are two types of reviews on Rosetta Stone. The first is within the lessons and the second comes along as you are completing subsequent lessons and units. The reviews within lessons are valuable tools to see what, if anything, you are retaining as you go along. Every so often, the software prompts “Adaptive Recall” activities; this the second type of review. In my opinion, the name is a little misleading. I assumed these “Adaptive Recalls” were based on which questions/activities I answered incorrectly and therefore, needed help with. I still have not figured out exactly how the software decides to put activities into the recall sections. Many of the sections in the recall, I received 100% during the lesson, while others I received decidedly less and were not included in the recall activities. Also, it felt like the recall activities were always the same; this became extremely boring and repetitive when I wanted to just learn something new. I found the “Adaptive Recall” to be more annoying than anything and decided to skip them most of the time.

Milestone: The Milestones are probably the highlight of Rosetta Stone. At the end of each Unit, a Milestone activity is completed. The activities are setup so that it feels like the user is in the situation at hand. For example, one Milestone is a camping trip. The pictures scroll through the screen and the people in the pictures ask the user questions and have conversations. This activity felt more “real world” than any other. Though, I have a similar complaint to that of the Speaking Lesson: Rosetta Stone recognizes one answer and one answer only.

Pros:
Rosetta Stone is extremely user friendly. No instructions are needed; users just click and begin. The lessons are self-explanatory and allow users to learn from the very first screen. Also, the software allows users to skip around between lessons, units, and levels. Getting a low percentage on one lesson does not stop the user from continuing on. The user always has the option of repeating any lessons, units, or levels he or she so desires. To test the ease of use factor, I let my 7 year-old have at it. The result was encouraging; even she could navigate through the lessons and get most items correct.

One of my favorite aspects of Rosetta Stone was the lack of translations. Nothing was translated into English. I found this to be useful as I was required to actually think and process through each and every lesson and screen. In my experience (and I believe research agrees), students learning English do much better without constantly translating into their native language. Also, I found myself processing many of the words and pictures in Portuguese. For example, if a picture of a fish was on the screen, my mind would come up with peixe and not fish.

The pictures and graphics Rosetta Stone uses are certainly a plus. With the exception of pronunciation, each screen has from one to several pictures on it. As mentioned previously, users click on the correct picture when asked a question. Some screens worked the opposite and users have to click on the correct wording for each picture. For the most part, learning Portuguese was relatively pain-free thanks to the innovative pictures used. I often found myself wondering just how they came up with some of the pictures.

Cons:
While trying to remain as unbiased as possible, I do have to point out some of the downfalls of Rosetta Stone. The first and most glaring omission is grammar. Although, I previously mentioned this, I feel the need to expound on this subject. Language rules are extremely complicated. After being married to a Brazilian for 7 years, listening to him speak, and having very, very basic comprehension of Portuguese, I still felt the need to ask for help on the grammar rules many times over. In a perfect world, we would see and hear a word used and understand the implications right away. Obviously, learners are less than perfect and may not make one of many connections needed to truly understand the grammar rule being used. Another reason I bring this point up is the fact that I did start with some vocabulary and structural knowledge of Portuguese; I can only imagine how confusing some of the rules must be for someone with zero knowledge of the language being learned.

Rosetta Stone uses a “one size fits all” approach. Some of the lessons I could have theoretically skipped entirely and been none the worse; Rosetta Stone makes no allowances for previous knowledge and/or experience with language. Sometimes this approach is nice in that it makes sure each and every user receives the same language fundamentals, but in my opinion, it is mostly annoying. If I already know what “Sim” means, I really do not need to go through twenty lessons about Yes and No. True, users have the option of skipping lessons, but users won’t know what the lesson is until he or she goes through it!

The price of Rosetta Stone is a big setback, in my opinion. As mentioned earlier, I tried Rosetta Stone free (through my employer) and did not have to foot the $199.95 bill. This may have deeply affected my opinion. If I had paid the $199.95, I am sure I would not consider it a wise investment. There are many free language learning sites and software around and $200 seems extremely steep for this product.

My Opinion:
I am grateful I was able to experience Rosetta Stone; no doubt it has given me a multitude of vocabulary and language fundamentals I did not have when I began. In my world though, everything comes down to $. With all the resources of the web, it would seem that one only has to put a little legwork into researching language learning sites to find the necessary lessons. Rosetta Stone has a good foundation, and for the price of free, it was a bargain.

My next endeavor: enter the free interactive world of Livemocha.