rosetta stone arrived

[walkitout]

And is taking a disturbing amount of time and making a lot of drive noise while starting up. Hmmm.

_Tinker Belles_ is really, really good.

Comments

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

Do post about Rosetta Stone sometime, if you have a chance. I tried the trial version and found it not structured enough for me (and boringly repetitive), but I'd be interested to see how you feel about it after using it for a while.

after one day using Rosetta Stone

[walkitout]

You _can_ start using this thing straight out of the box without reading _anything_ about how to use it. Which is actually sort of impressive. However, it is worth reading some of the help pages to improve one's experience. Logging in (so that one's scores are saved) isn't necessarily obvious, but definitely worth doing. Also, I didn't realize they didn't mean for me to do _all_ the exercises, and my brain was going numb by the time I read that bit. Ah.

Anyway. There are several ways to move through the lessons (well, more than several). Each way has associated tests, except the "speaking" path. At no point is any language other than the target language used (not counting the help pages, of course!) -- I mean, there are no this word in the target language means this word in your native (or some other) language options/lists/buttons/etc. It really is immersive.

People online complained about the lack of grammar (noting that the languages that have level 3 have some grammar, maybe? But Dutch doesn't have a level 3), which may or may not have been part of the lack of structure issue for you. I already know enough Dutch grammar, because I went through the Hugo _Dutch in Three Months_ course and I have another Dutch grammar book around here and I've taken an unknown number of years of German, which is another verb-in-the-second-position language (both languages shove stuff to the end of the sentence also, but in different ways). Right now, Rosetta is functioning great for me as a revision exercise. I'll post later if further in it actually teaches me something I didn't know already (other than more vocabulary).

Speaking of vocabulary, Transparent Languages website has a Lite version of their Before You Know It product, which is basically electronic flash cards. Hear it in target/see it in both; hear it in target, see it in target guess it in native; hear it in tar get, see it in target, type it in native; see it in native, type it in target is the progression for that product. It is also a frighteningly sticky way to learn vocabulary (just _try_ to forget something you learned that way. I dare you.). That's a free download, and they also have some word search games.

Once I realized that I wasn't supposed to be doing all the Rosetta Stone exercises, it ceased to be boringly reptitive, altho it is still EXTREMELY repetitive. But I've have a lot of respect for repetitive when learning a language and find it somewhat enjoyable. I should probably remember that the next time I'm railing about the uselessness of rote memorization. I certainly find it useful sometimes. :(

It is worth noting that I already know enough Dutch to stumble through a magazine or newspaper article (the whole thing would exhaust me) with the assistance of a Dutch-Dutch dictionary aimed at elementary school kids (with pictures), and have spent a few weeks in country (not saying much, mind you -- just getting into museums and in and out of grocery stores and so on). Definitely a YMMV situation.

Re: after one day using Rosetta Stone

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

Lack of grammar is definitely part of the issue. I've taken enough language that I know a lot of grammar and how it works in different languages, and so I learn new languages better when I have a grammatical structure to hang the learning on (so to speak).

The Transparent Languages stuff looks cool - will download when I've finished migrating to the new computer and check it out.