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Beestie · 04-20-2006, 04:22 AM

The Rosetta Stone software is just unbelievable. Best software I have ever seen for anything. I hesitated for a long time because its not cheap but now I see why.

I've been using the Chinese CD/DVD and it is just excellent. The most difficult thing about Chinese is the inflection - one word can have completely different meanings depending on where the inflection is placed. The software has a module where you can speak the word into a microphone connected to your sound card ($15 bucks), and see a graphic representation of how you pronounce it next to a graphic representation of how it is supposed to be pronounced. And you can slow down the sample pronounciation slower and slower to pick up the subleties. You can keep saying it over and over till you get it exactly right. That's the big advantage over books and classes. I take my kids to Chinese class once a week - its an immersion class and almost no English is spoken and I come away feeling like I missed about 80% of what was conveyed. And books are worthless for Chinese - maybe not so much for Spanish, though.

Rather than what seems to be the traditional way to teach language, the software just starts right off with sentences. You learn some sentences then you are immediately tested by having to choose which of four pictures represents the sentence "spoken" by the software. Somehow, when you learn it that way it just sticks - probably because of the strong visual association it creates.

I can't recommend that software strongly enough - you'll be speaking the language you are studying correctly in no time. Its hard learning a new language at this point but its not frustrating because playing a CD and picking pictures is kind of fun and its nice to take note of how your score keeps getting better on the drills.

04-20-2006, 04:22 AM	#13
Beestie -◊\|≡·∙■·∙≡\|◊- Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Parts unknown. Posts: 4,081	The Rosetta Stone software is just unbelievable. Best software I have ever seen for anything. I hesitated for a long time because its not cheap but now I see why. I've been using the Chinese CD/DVD and it is just excellent. The most difficult thing about Chinese is the inflection - one word can have completely different meanings depending on where the inflection is placed. The software has a module where you can speak the word into a microphone connected to your sound card ($15 bucks), and see a graphic representation of how you pronounce it next to a graphic representation of how it is supposed to be pronounced. And you can slow down the sample pronounciation slower and slower to pick up the subleties. You can keep saying it over and over till you get it exactly right. That's the big advantage over books and classes. I take my kids to Chinese class once a week - its an immersion class and almost no English is spoken and I come away feeling like I missed about 80% of what was conveyed. And books are worthless for Chinese - maybe not so much for Spanish, though. Rather than what seems to be the traditional way to teach language, the software just starts right off with sentences. You learn some sentences then you are immediately tested by having to choose which of four pictures represents the sentence "spoken" by the software. Somehow, when you learn it that way it just sticks - probably because of the strong visual association it creates. I can't recommend that software strongly enough - you'll be speaking the language you are studying correctly in no time. Its hard learning a new language at this point but its not frustrating because playing a CD and picking pictures is kind of fun and its nice to take note of how your score keeps getting better on the drills. __________________ ♠ ♥ ♣ ♦