Rosetta Stone: Espanol

Rosetta Stone is an enormous waste of money. It's glorified flash cards. Even the theory behind their "learn like a baby" approach, or whatever it's called, is pretty much bullshit in my opinion. If you go through the whole program you'll have a tourist-level understanding of basic Spanish vocabulary, but you won't be able to really be creative with the language and truly speak it to express yourself in anything more difficult than extremely common, everyday situations. Don't get me wrong, for some people all they need is to be able to navigate their way through tourist traps for a couple weeks. But there's no reason to pay $400 for it.

There are numerous, better ways to learn a language. Especially Spanish, considering the immense amount of resources available to English speakers.

*edit* I just noticed:

goal: fluent by September

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I won't say that's impossible, but it's an extremely ambitious goal. Do you speak any other foreign languages? Which ones? Have you had any experience learning Spanish before? It also depends on your definition of "fluent". What do you plan on doing with the language? Traveling? Working? Studying abroad? Using it in your current job? All of these require different levels of fluency. If you are really serious about learning Spanish, my advice is to set a more concrete goal that clearly defines why you're learning the language.

Also, and I can't stress this enough, start getting exposed to the real language as much as possible. If you have Spanish-speaking friends, start talking to them as soon as possible, even if you can only say a handful of words. Use Skype and start chatting with people, even if it's only via text at first.

It can be a good supplement to something else, like having a friend to practice the language with, but it is not enough by itself. It doesn't really teach you grammar or to think for yourself.

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This is the main thing about Rosetta Stone. Like I said, it's basically just super expensive flash cards. That's fine as a supplement, but you will not reach any sort of conversational fluency with Rosetta Stone as your only tool.

I don't think its even possible to be fluent by Sept. Even with full immersion it would be a tough goal to hit. Just relying on Rosetta Stone I'd say no way in hell. Like said above Rosetta stone is a nice foundation for learning a language but its just a foundation. Basic one at that. Even the advanced classes are still pretty weak and you'll have issue trying to express yourself.

The best way to learn a language is to get a small base and immerse yourself fully with it. Just like a child go through your day with a native speaker and boost your vocabulary of nouns and verbs working on tenses and sentence usage. Learning a new language is easier for some than others but is never a simple task. There is a big difference between being fluent and just getting by.

I found Duolingo to work quiet well, although it won't make you fluent either, it does teach you a lot of grammar basics.
When I finish the whole program on gold, I figure I will start reading some books in spanish and work my way from there.

Every one of those suggestions is completely idealistic and utterly impractical.

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How the hell are any of those "idealistic and utterly impractical"? All of them are just different variations on language partners, which is an extremely tried-and-true method of learning a language. You speak English and, guess what, millions of Hispanics in the USA want to learn it and practice their speaking. It's not a matter of "bouncing grammar off of" native speakers, it's getting practice hearing real speech and producing it yourself. Your belief that Rosetta Stone and Spanish novels will give better results than conversing with native speakers is just plain wrong. Sorry.

I spent 4 years learning Russian in traditional university courses, but I learned exponentially more in one year of chatting with native speakers on the Russian version of MSN Messenger. I started doing this between my 3rd and 4th year of university, and I absolutely catapulted ahead of my classmates who were relying on traditional book learning.

Communication iskeyto becoming fluent in a language. All the reading and Rosetta Stone in the world won't match some simple, casual conversations with native speakers. Using programs and books for supplementation is great, and even necessary in my opinion, but the core of language learning should be based on communication. There's a reason that people leave high school/college language classes and still can't hold a prolonged conversation with native speakers.

Azeth_sl said:

Did i say that? or did I say that it'd be more efficient?

Do you idealists have day jobs, or just ample time and money to "immerse yourselves in other cultures"?

I'm calling you and Toe idealists because you're completely disregarding probably 80% of the reason why 99% of RS purchasers bought it in the first place:convenience.

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Are you really that busy that you can post on forums yet you can't have Skype or some other random Spanish chatroom open to chat with people in? You can't write an e-mail to a Spanish penpal a couple times a week? Really? That's absurd.

Voice is ideal, but you don't have to limit yourself to only voice/video chatting. Even just typing to someone will help you improve your fluency.

*edit* Also, your planned method won't be more efficient because you'll learn far less in a far greater amount of time.

Also, the idea that people buy Rosetta Stone primarily for convenience is absurd as well. How is it more convenient than any other flashcard/audio program? There are tons of them nowadays designed for computer, smartphone and mp3 player. The only thing that makes Rosetta Stone special is the price.

You don't need moving to another country as a reason to learn Spanish. I'd love to be able, in a way he understands, to tell the guy to mow my grass better.

Azeth_sl said:

Goal: Fluent by September.

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Good luck, but if you pull it off try not to end up acting like that prick from the commercials who rattles off some shit in French with that smug look on his face like he's Charles fuckin' de Gaulle.

Has anyone been able to get the voice recognition to work properly? Even in my native language (Swedish) it gives me like a 30% fail rate. Imo i think rosetta stone is a decent way to build vocabulary as well as a way to learn how Spanish is written. If you goal is to have conversations in Spanish though i would look in to additional exercises...

Woffer_sl said:

Has anyone been able to get the voice recognition to work properly? Even in my native language (Swedish) it gives me like a 30% fail rate. Imo i think rosetta stone is a decent way to build vocabulary as well as a way to learn how Spanish is written. If you goal is to have conversations in Spanish though i would look in to additional exercises...

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I've always had terrible luck as well with the voice recognition. Each time I used Rosetta Stone I ended up just disabling it.

Although in the latest version there is apparently the ability to chat with live people in a Skype-like situation, which could be very useful. I don't know much about it because I've never used a non-pirated version.