Has anyone here used Rosetta Stone to learn a new language?

[JoeB131]

I'm interested in learning how to speak Mandarin. Has anyone tried Rosetta Stone and did they have any success with it?

 

[MisterBeale]

Nope, not interested. Though, a friend and I were sorta, kinda interested in all the advertising and hype associated with the different platforms one night, so we looked into it. . .

lol.

Babbel vs Rosetta Stone

We do a side-by-side comparison of the language learning courses from Rosetta Stone and Babbel to see which is better.

testprepinsight.com

Rosetta Stone Vs Babbel: All Language Resources' Opinion

I like Babbel much more than Rosetta Stone but I'm not a huge fan of either. For almost all languages, there are better alternatives available.

www.alllanguageresources.com

Duolingo vs Rosetta Stone vs Babbel

We tried the language apps from Rosetta Stone, Duolingo and Babbel for more than a month each. Here is what we found.

testprepinsight.com

Duolingo vs. Rosetta Stone: How to choose the best language-learning app

Does Rosetta Stone's language legacy give it the edge over newcomer Duolingo?

www.cnet.com

 

[Baron Von Murderpaws]

Seriously though...............I've wondered if these "easy learning" programs are worth it.

I've never met anyone thats used them though, so I have no feedback on them what so ever.

I'd like to at least learn the basics of a few other languages. But I'm not going to waste money I don't have, on something that "might" work.

 

[fncceo]

There is only one, tried and true, method for quickly learning a foreign language ...

 

[skye]

No.

I have not.

 

[katsteve2012]

I'm interested in learning how to speak Mandarin. Has anyone tried Rosetta Stone and did they have any success with it?

I hired a mandarin language tutor for my granddaughter last year during the summer and she has also used this program in addition to her lessons. She says it's better than Babbel and Rosetta Stone.

Start Free Trial | Learn a New Language Now

Learn a New Language Now

offers.pimsleur.com

 

[candycorn]

I'm interested in learning how to speak Mandarin. Has anyone tried Rosetta Stone and did they have any success with it?

We had an enterprise version of it. Very easy to use. The problem is that if you don't continue to speak it; you quickly forget how to speak it.

 

[jotathought]

I'm interested in learning how to speak Mandarin. Has anyone tried Rosetta Stone and did they have any success with it?

Yes .. I used Rosetta Stone to learn Hindi so I could have some common ground with the Hindi speaking, IT resources my organization was bringing on board. The version of Rosetta Stone I was using in 2009 used visual queues for word association, and provided online tutors to measure progress. I ended up learning basic conversation skills with about 500 words, and 800 words is considered proficient for conversation.

 

[JoeB131]

Nope, not interested. Though, a friend and I were sorta, kinda interested in all the advertising and hype associated with the different platforms one night, so we looked into it. . .

lol.

Babbel doesn't offer Mandarin so not really an option.

I hired a mandarin language tutor for my granddaughter last year during the summer and she has also used this program in addition to her lessons. She says it's better than Babbel and Rosetta Stone.

I will look into it.

Yes .. I used Rosetta Stone to learn Hindi so I could have some common ground with the Hindi speaking, IT resources my organization was bringing on board. The version of Rosetta Stone I was using in 2009 used visual queues for word association, and provided online tutors to measure progress. I ended up learning basic conversation skills with about 500 words, and 800 words is considered proficient for conversation.

That's helpful. Thank you.

 

[Michelle420]

Yes, I did download the app. I wanted to learn Spanish and it was neat but you need to be devoted it starts at very basic levels.

Also, you can check your local library to see if they offer it there for free.

 

[frigidweirdo]

I'm interested in learning how to speak Mandarin. Has anyone tried Rosetta Stone and did they have any success with it?

Mandarin.... hard, especially if you're not an audio learner.
I've been learning it on and off for 12 years.... still can't understand much.

Saying that, there are lots of resources on the internet, the biggest problem is knowing whether what you're saying is right.

For example x and sh both make a sound similar to "sh" in English, but x is different.

The tones are even worse, for non-audio learners. I struggle to tell the difference between the tones. You can imagine that 按时 ànshí and 暗示 ànshì sound the same to me. There's context, however it does make things that much more difficult. And here there are only two possibilities.
One of the worst things is they'll take a word, split it in half to one character and just use that one character, and you're expected to know what the hell it means.
There's an app though, called "hellotalk" which, if you're chatty and like talking a foreign language over the phone, you can talk to Chinese people in China, and help them with their English.
I learned with the HSK books, they were very useful, I don't like the apps like Rosetta Stone much.
Any help needed, just let me know.

 

[JoeB131]

Mandarin.... hard, especially if you're not an audio learner.
I've been learning it on and off for 12 years.... still can't understand much.

Saying that, there are lots of resources on the internet, the biggest problem is knowing whether what you're saying is right.

For example x and sh both make a sound similar to "sh" in English, but x is different.

The tones are even worse, for non-audio learners. I struggle to tell the difference between the tones. You can imagine that 按时 ànshí and 暗示 ànshì sound the same to me. There's context, however it does make things that much more difficult. And here there are only two possibilities.
One of the worst things is they'll take a word, split it in half to one character and just use that one character, and you're expected to know what the hell it means.
There's an app though, called "hellotalk" which, if you're chatty and like talking a foreign language over the phone, you can talk to Chinese people in China, and help them with their English.
I learned with the HSK books, they were very useful, I don't like the apps like Rosetta Stone much.

My Lady Friend and I use Google Translate and WeChat to communicate. Sometimes they come up with translations that are kind of wonky. It doesn't help that she has a Sichuan accent and Google translate is set for the Beijing accent.

 

[frigidweirdo]

My Lady Friend and I use Google Translate and WeChat to communicate. Sometimes they come up with translations that are kind of wonky. It doesn't help that she has a Sichuan accent and Google translate is set for the Beijing accent.

Ah, Sichuan hua, I know a little. Sometimes I get Sichuan hua guides. And it all depends on where in Sichuan she's from anyway. Ironically most of Sichuan doesn't speak Sichuan hua (in terms of geography, rather than number of people) and there are many different dialects of Sichuan hua.

I'd say, download Pleco on your phone. The best dictionary out there.
You can save words, and put them into files, then you can test yourself on those words, and choose what you are learning, so you can choose to hear the word, and then see the characters, or see the characters and see the English etc etc.

MDBG English to Chinese dictionary

English to Chinese dictionary with Mandarin Pinyin & Handwriting Recognition - learn Chinese faster with MDBG!

www.mdbg.net

Is an okay one too. You can put the stuff in, and then you can go through each different part of what she's saying (same with Pleco) and then figure it out a little better.

I'd suggest starting to learn to read too, it does help with differentiating things (I'm visual, so it helps me). Learn to write too.

The HSK3 book. This is from amazon UK, just what came up on my search engine. However you should be able to buy it. It has text in Chinese characters and then separately (rather than underneath) the pinyin. This is much better because you are forced to read the character.

Amazon product
Also what I do is write the Pinyin word down in a notebook, and the character and the English Then I cover the character and the pinyin and write the characters in order. If I get one wrong, go back and start again. Then do it day after day, if you give it a break, you lose it, if you do it daily (says someone who's not done it for three months) it'll come quickly.
I also have a book that someone gave me which is about how to remember characters. Quite interesting.

You need to create stories.

Take this. 树 this is shù or tree.

The first part of the character is 木Mù meaning wood. It's an important character. I see it as a tree. However I saw a few others as trees.

和hé also has a tree looking thing, but this is rice. 禾hé

There's also 抱bào which has fingers (or hand) 扌shǒu
So if you learn a little way of memorizing them, it becomes "easier" or less freaking difficult.