#fluentin3months

I tried Rosetta Stone a few months ago, and this is my blog entry reviewing the product. As a language teacher, I think it is important to keep prospective language learners informed. Below is my unabashed opinion.

Rosetta Stone software is touted as one of the fastest and easiest ways to learn a language, but, although they do a pretty decent job, they charge a pretty penny. There’s no reason, though, for people to have to pay for foreign language knowledge when there are hosts of websites that offer similar services for free.

Also,

 I have a few issues with Rosetta Stone, like:

They charge for what should be a free service.

I teach English as a Second Language, so I know for a fact that knowing and speaking English fluently is a valuable skill. That means there are people learning English who want to get in touch with people who speak it. All of these people are native speakers of valuable foreign languages. You don’t want or need to pay to connect with each other when you have similar goals and there are free platforms.

It’s great that Rosetta Stone gives its clients a chance to connect with native speakers and test their pronunciation against a pretty accurate pronunciation meter, but a similar service can be found on free sites like Duo Lingo and Conversation Exchange.

The “see it say it” model is ineffective for some languages. While Rosetta Stone software is great for teaching pronunciation (which, I’ve already pointed out is a service that can be accessed for free), it is actually pretty bad at teaching grammar, sentence structure, word meaning, and pretty much the whole language outside of the basics. It never progresses past the “see it say it” model and expects you to be able to guess other aspects of the language intuitively. This approach may work for simple, albeit not the most effectively, for Latin-based languages like French, Spanish, and Italian, but it is ineffective for lesser-taught languages like Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese.Most English speakers aren’t going to pick up the alphabet and grammar of these languages intuitively; Rosetta Stone appears to fail to take this into account.

It is SUPER SLOW! Rosetta Stone’s main strategy for reinforcing learning is repetition, repetition, repetition.  It never branches out and tries anything more fluid with the learner. There are no reading and translation or story activities, no interesting facts about the language, no complex reading and translation activities (which a learner should be able to do after a certain number of lessons). Nope, the whole program from level one to three treats the learner like it’s his or her first encounter with the language. The most we get to enjoy are small sentences reinforced with pictures and repeated ad nauseum. Language reinforces itself. If this software really taught people like they learned their first language, it would give them context to build off of, but, sadly, it doesn’t. 

The whole “children can learn languages faster than adults” is a myth anyway.

Past a certain point where they are just learning their first languages, children are no better at language learning than adults. Actually they’re probably worse. We adults understand complex grammar rules (which, by the way, are intuitive, not complicated like the language learning “experts” who sell the software would have you believe) and are therefore better able to learn and master sentence structure, reading and decoding, and other complex aspects of a language as easily as listening and speaking.

If you are considering downloading Rosetta Stone, try this first. It’s not that “see it say it” programs don’t have their place in language learning, but Rosetta Stone promises a lot but delivers very little. Instead of forking over $300 for three or four levels of downloadable software (which may also make your computer run super slow), invest in a high school language textbook, practice on Duo Lingo and similar sites for free, and search the various, also free, language exchange sites around the web for a face-to-face conversation partner. Believe it or not, many people want to learn English as badly as you want to learn the language you want to learn. A native speaker can break down his or her language better than a piece of software. Taking the time to do a language exchange is about like having your own private tutor, and it is an hour or two a week well spent. If you don’t feel confident enough to participate in a language exchange, work your way up by completing the exercises in the textbook, practicing on free “see it-say it” programs, corresponding with an online foreign language pen pal, and watching foreign language television with the foreign language captions on. Download the transcripts, if they are available, and translate sentence by sentence. At first, this process is a bit slow, but your brain will start to automatically recognize words and phrases after a while. You can also use foreign language audio books. It is strongly recommended that you start practicing with a conversation partner as soon as possible, however. Speaking and being spoken to in the language you are trying to learn is the most effective way and fastest way to learn it.

What are you waiting for?

Head Above Water And Thoughts On Hacking Mandarin

It’s been almost a week since we left the states and I think I finally feel like I’m no longer drowning. I think… For now anyway… We’re still in a haze of homeless unsettled-ness as the house hunt continues, but we’ve seen some promising places and I’ve finally committed a map of the city districts to memory (easier said than done!) I’ve also had a few wins in the past couple of days: I…

Was Googling how to get an old high school friend's updates back in my news feed. And then looking at her profile, I started crying and feeling like shit. Comparing myself and feeling like her life is so much better, etc, ETC. So I stopped Googling and left it as it is. Had a moment there but then realised/reminded myself again why I block them out. It's a reminder of where I wanted to be and how I didn't get there.

So luckily I had this page open: http://www.fluentin3months.com/life-lessons/