Rosetta Stone

[Richard Robin]

Margaret Gonglewski and I reviewed Rosetta Stone in Russian and German about
two years ago. In general, it's a disaster for someone who really wants to
learn the language (it gives non-contextualized language, non-authentic
content, etc. etc.).  It's very good at "feel good." Users get a lot of not
very useful language fast. But I can't see that the program could lead to
nothing but Novice Mid -- maybe novice high proficiency before someone would
quit. The funniest part was the phonetic feedback. I tried speaking with
almost no accent, a heavy accent and close to gibberish in a number of
different voices. Feedback results were all over the board.

Is Rosetta Stone worth it? It depends on how much face-to-face instruction
costs you. The level 1 package costs $220. That's probably worth the
equivalent in mediocre teaching. But the full Rosetta Stone package costs
$500 and give a description that's close to Intermedite High.

I don't believe it. On the other hand if Novice High proficiency is worth
$500, then it's an okay deal.

On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 12:26 PM, eric r laursen <eric.laursen at m.cc.utah.edu>
wrote:

> A colleague has asked me about the Russian version of Rosetta Stone.  Any
> opinions out there?  Thanks, Eric Laursen
>
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-- 
Richard M. Robin, Ph.D.
Director Russian Language Program
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
202-994-7081
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Russkiy tekst v UTF-8

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