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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #114 in Software
• Brand: Rosetta Stone
• Released on: 2008-12-11
• Platforms: Mac OS X, Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Format: Closed-captioned

Amazon.co.uk Review
Rosetta Stone Personal Edition contains everything you need to give the voice inside of you a new language. The method used recreates the natural way you learned your first language, revealing skills that you already have. This approach has won numerous awards, and has been adopted by countless organizations, schools and millions of users around the world. Join the language revolution today. Only with Rosetta Stone.

The comprehensive language-learning solution that fits your life.

Learn Naturally
Learn your next language the same way you learned your first language. Dynamic Immersion empowers you to see, hear and comprehend without translating or memorizing. You already have this ability. Rosetta Stone simply unlocks it.

Engage Interactively
Get feedback to move forward. You learn best by doing, and you'll apply what you've learned to get to the next step. Rosetta Stone adapts to your individual needs and skills, because you drive the program with your progress.

Speak Confidently
Start speaking immediately. From the very first lesson, you'll speak. You'll begin with essential basics, which form the building blocks of the language. Soon you'll create new sentences on your own, using words you've learned.

Have Fun
Best of all, Rosetta Stone is addictive. With every entertaining activity, you'll feel success. You'll want to use Rosetta Stone to have that next moment, that next breakthrough. So you'll keep using it, and you'll learn more!

That's language-learning success.
That's Rosetta Stone.

No translation or memorization required.

The most effective way to learn a new language is to be surrounded by it. When you were an infant, your parents taught you this way, by intuitively associating words with images. That's the ultimate language lab, but most language-learning programs completely ignore this.

Think about all of the ways you've tried to learn a language: classes at school, tapes and cassettes, even software that uses your native language as a base for your next one. What do they all have in common? Translation and memorization.

Instead of taking a "direct flight" from your brain to your new language, translation and memorization connects you to your old language. You always have to "fly" from your brain, to your native tongue ... and then translate what you've memorized to communicate.

That might work for a few words, but what happens when you get to a sentence or phrase? When you have to change tenses? You're going to make a lot of "connecting flights." That's why those other methods are so frustrating ... and why they fail.

Enter Dynamic Immersion.
This method encourages you to think like a baby. You'll pair words with vivid, real-life images and make connections between things you know and the new language. Soon, you'll be thinking in a new language, stringing words together into phrases that you create.

Innovative technology.
Rosetta Stone places this Dynamic Immersion method at the core of a suite of software that works with you to develop your skills. The simple, intuitive interface helps to keep you engaged in the solution, while advanced speech recognition technology makes certain that you're speaking correctly and accurately. Best of all, Rosetta Stone never leaves you behind. You'll only move forward when you're ready, when you've become comfortable and confident.

Communicate and connect with the world: Level 1, 2 & 3 Set.
Rosetta Stone Level 1, 2 & 3 Set will take you on a journey from the basics to a whole new level of sophistication. You'll build a foundation of fundamental vocabulary and essential language structure. You'll quickly gain the confidence to engage in social interactions. Say "hello" and "goodbye," arrange travel, order food, go shopping and more! From there, you'll share your ideas and opinions, express feelings and talk about your life, your interests and more. You'll discover a voice. In a new language.

Audio Companion
With Audio Companion, you'll enhance the Rosetta Stone experience wherever you go. You'll learn new skills on the computer, and then reinforce what you've learned with Audio Companion. Simply play the CDs on a stereo or download them to a MP3 Player. Each Audio Companion activity corresponds to a lesson in the Rosetta Stone software, so you can turn your travel time into productive language-learning time.

Inside the box, you'll find:

• Version 3 Personal Edition CD-ROM software for Levels 1, 2 & 3 (Windows/Mac)
• Headset microphone
• User's guide
• Audio Companion, a multiple-CD set to play or download to your MP3 player

Manufacturer's Description
Foreign language learning with Rosetta Stone Levels 1, 2 & 3 you connect with the world around you. With level one you begin learning fundamental vocabulary and essential language structure, from greetings and introductions to simple questions and their answers. Gain the confidence and enter the intermediate level where you will be able to talk about your environment; give and get directions, tell time, dine out with self-reliance, shop and enjoy basic social interactions. Taking what you’ve learned in Levels 1 and 2, we help you reach an advanced level of competence. This competence allows you to connect with the world around you. You will learn to share your ideas and opinions, express your feelings and talk about everyday life; your work, current events and much more. Now Rosetta Stone with Audio Companion allows the learner to take Rosetta Stone anywhere: in the car, the gym or on-the-go! What is Audio Companion? Audio Companion CDs are activities that correspond to the Rosetta Stone CD-ROM software lessons. The learner can listen to Audio Companion and practice what they’ve been learning on the computer, turning travel time into productive language learning time. Audio Companion lets the student access the power of Rosetta Stone lessons whenever and wherever they want, they can play the CD’s on a stereo, or download them to a MP3 player. It empowers the student and helps reinforce the lessons in any busy lifestyle!

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Customer Reviews

Rosetta Stone French - Product Review
Firstly, Rosetta Stone is expensive - very expensive! Therefore, before committing both time and money, you need to be sure that this is the right method that will enable you to achieve whatever your goal is with regards to the language that you wish to learn.

If you want to learn a foreign language (French in my case) and are unable to attend regular classes (at least 3 times per week) then the Rosetta Stone method may be the next best solution.

In my view, no learning tool, especially when it comes to languages, can ever really compete with the live environment of the classroom and interacting with other students. However, language-learning requires daily practice and it is usually not possible for adults with other responsibilities to attend class daily.

I did not learn French at school and have a mind more attuned to science and maths, so languages are not my strongest area. I have tried a number of methods to learn French, usually in the form of tapes, CD's, online language services and even the classroom. The results and motivation to continue have always been very poor - with the result that after several years my ability to communicate in French remained dismally poor.

The Rosetta Stone method has changed this. I am now really motivated and find the learning process both stimulating and rewarding. I have now managed to find 2 hours a day to use the Rosetta Stone method and am for the first time making real progress. Later this year I will be going to France for an extended period and am, for the first time, confident that my language skills in French will be adequate to enable me to communicate at a reasonable level.

J.

review of rosetta stone french
I am studying to become an interpreter and decided to use Rosetta stone french as my stepping stone to the learning the french language. I must say that it is very stimulating and motivating with the pictorals and the voices which pronounce every word as you go along.

I have learnt a foreign language in the past and in your first few lessons you usually learn to say things like hello, how are you, my name is etc etc. its not like this with rosetta stone. You are thrown right away into learning sentences with verbs which are already conjugated. so its like going with the flow.

I am a bit disappointed in that rosetta stone does not explain anything about the verb rules and conjugations. It sort of leaves you hanging and wondering if you are ever going to master the complex verb conjugations,tenses etc. I have bought a book called French Demystified from Amazon to supplement my learning of French on rosetta stone. Without the book, I cannot just rely on rosetta stone to teach me everything I need to know about french. So I can conclude that rosetta stone is over rated and cannot be wholly relied upon to learn and master a foreign language.

A Very Good Compromise
My review is based on the same product, but on a 3 month OnLine Subscription to the course, (but without the extra audio companion CD's, which are designed to reinforce learning, of which I therefore can't comment upon)

Positives

1. The pace of the course is certainly motivating, with many varied lessons, all at manageable length, focussing on listening reading, writing, speaking, pronunciation and grammar. This approach did keep me attentive and interested in the learning process.
2. Very easy to study in short chunks, or however long you wish to commit. It is very easy to resume study where you leave off, as you are automatically taken to the point where you left the previous lesson.
3. For individual study, compared to other courses, I felt that this was probably the best for "speaking" the language, as with the voice recognition element, it provides instantaneous feedback on correct pronunciation, and gives plenty of practice.
4. A software driven revision process takes you automatically back to previous lessons, called by Rosetta, "Adaptive Recall", and even gives you a date when the software will repeat this process.
5. Definitely keeps you focussed on study and keeping going!
6. Excellent service from the technical side at Rosetta. I had a problem for a while using the speech recognition aspect. I must praise customer support/software experts who eventually sorted out my specific difficulty.



Negatives

1. A total lack of introduction to French culture, which I found a bit baffling. No insight into everyday life in France whilst studying this course. All of the visuals seem to have been taken in the USA, which gave a very cosmopolitan, multi-cultural edge to it, resulting in a sterile presentation, which could have been based in any country. In fact by the end of the course I became increasingly irritated by this lack of attention to the real lives of native speakers in the French-speaking world. It would have been easy to introduce some "movie" element to the course in this respect, to get a proper flavour of the language and culture, as after all that is a major aim of many people wishing to study a language.
2. The assessment elements at the end of each level of the course, (1,2, and 3, called "Milestones") I felt were time-consuming, and largely a waste of time, and did not properly assess what I had learned, the milestone for Level 3 in particular, I felt was totally weird in my view.
3. No explanation of grammar at all, which I feel is a major fault on the course. There are lessons called "grammar" but they don't explain the nuts-and-bolts of the language, but rely on the "immersion" principle for the student to get the right answer. In other words, you get the right answer by just having a "feel" for what is the right answer, which is not what learning grammar is about. Even the subjunctive mood is introduced,(albeit limitedly) which makes it even more important to get to grips with the mechanics of the language. However, this can be easily addressed with another more academic course if taken in tandem with Rosetta. Those gaps can be filled pretty easily with far cheaper courses.


I bought the subscription course for 3 months, which comes to just under £100 - (I think only a 6 month or 12 month course is available now). I felt this was very good value for money. I would have been disappointed though if I had paid the full amount to buy the actual course, as I feel this is too expensive, and I actually finished the 3 courses in 1 month without too much stress. I admit that I did study French to GCSE level, but that was 37 years ago! If I had bought it, I would give it a "3 Star" because of the financial outlay. It is not a course I feel I would want to go over again, so I am glad that I do not actually "own" it, as I doubt I would revisit it, but move on to something a bit more traditional. No language course can cater for all individuals, but I think overall I would recommend it to people, especially if you are a student that can start to flag with study after a few months, and are an absolute beginner. This course does have a natural impetus that keeps interest up, and is quite enjoyable, with the constant movement forward. For individual study, I reckon this is the best for acquiring a reasonable accent, and ability to cope with basic, everyday conversations.