Rosetta Stone: Learn Languages 4+

My adult daughter purchased a family subscription to DuoLingo so that she, her teenage daughter, and myself could all learn French together. Since I live distantly, this would be a fun way to learn AND have something that just the women of the family did. After almost a year of daily use of the application, I had a book of handwritten notes, three different French-English dictionaries ( one is in order of word most used which is really cool), print outs of verb conjugations….get the picture? I was frustrated that I still did not feel comfortable approaching a fluent speaker of French at work. I had no confidence in spending, writing, or in any way USING the language I was putting so much time and energy into!
Then, my wonderful husband, who has been present for the majority of my D.L. Lessons, gave me a subscription to Rosetta Stone for my recent birthday. He lived in LaRochelle, France as a child and I truly believe he had forgotten less of the language than I had up to that point learned.
After three weeks with only five days a week classes that are at MY pace, I am using French! I have posted on social media using French. Had a rudementary exchange at work en Français. Have to correct text and typed words for American versus French spelling. I am retaining the phrases because they are applicable to daily life.
I hope I am offered the opportunity to leave a review again…I’ll include some of the crazy phases DL had me practice.

As a teacher, and polyglot or multingual speaker, I am very happy with this program and the manner it goes about teaching languages. You are not learning by lists or memorization, per se, but by being immersed in the language and learning through association. I used to teach several subjects to gifted and talented children and they learn information best in this manner, as do all children.
My husband and best friend are learning Italian for a trip we are all taking to Italy in the further. I learned Italianan as a child much in the way this program teaches, I am working on learning the formal italian so I will not appear rude by giving the familiar when I should be addressing people formally; I am doing this because otherwise Italians think I am just a rude Italian. Italians (and people of other cultures) are very forgiving when they know you are a non-native speaker and are trying to speak their language, so my husband and friend will be treated well when we go.
Don’t worry about being perfect, just do your best, and you can always do the lessons over to become more proficient.
I’m very happy that I am going to get to improve my language skills and perhaps even learn a bit of a few new languages as we finally travel since we retired.
Remember, that you are above the curve of most people, because you are actually trying and working on a language to improve.

I’ve used Rosetta Stone off and on for years now. When I first traveled to China, I had powered through level 1 mandarin a few months before the trip and everyone I met said my accident was SO good, even though my vocabulary was still at beginner level. Still, I had the skills and confidence to try living and socializing in China. I attribute Rosetta Stone with this early success. Since then, I’ve gone on to study mandarin in graduate school and in a semester in China, and I still use mandarin level 4-5 to brush up on my skills. The combination of engaging visuals, plus authentic chinese audio and the option to use real Chinese characters plus pinyin (written Chinese for English speakers) also gave me confidence jumping into the wild world of written characters.

Once you get to advanced language levels, you will definitely want to supplement Rosetta Stone with advanced book learning (think formal classroom textbooks) and plenty of conversation with real speakers, but even then Rosetta is still useful for brushing up on key vocabulary with good visuals. Especially for the beginner and intermediate learner, I can’t speak highly enough if Rosetta Stone. If I could suggest one improvement, bring back the games and make more of them!! This was a fun way to keep learning the language when maybe I was too brain-drained after work to do a full lesson.