Rosetta Stone dot com

[lcumberl at indiana.edu]

Bob,

A few years back when I was at the AAA conference in Toronto doing a poster
session on our Institute's software, there was a Rosetta Stone exhibit at the
same time and I had a chance to go through their demonstration.  My impression
was that, as far as indigenous langauges go, - and I emphasize that this is not
current information -- they were largely style over substance. Their program was
a template that they used for any and all languages, very colorful, lots of nice
photos, and two voice print bars across the top of the screen that showed the
native speaker's wave form and then yours, so you could compare your effort to
the native speaker's.  Watching other people play around with the program, I
observed that virtually no one knew what to do with the wave forms (surprise,
surprise!).  The capacity for vocabulary is very limited, and as far as I could
see, there was no grammar at all.  Later, at a Stabilizing Indigenous Languages
conference, I spoke with some members of a Seminole band from Florida who had
used them and were unhappy with the results.  And, as you observe, the expense.
 Rosetta Stone was not a turnkey operation, it turns out.  In addition to
providing the speakers, the tribe had to provide a suitable recording
environment, some of the recording equipment, and a few other things that I
can't recall now, all at their own (additional) expense.

I should point out that my reservations about Rosetta Stone have nothing to do
with the fact that we do software development here -- ours are not commercial
products and we are not in competition with Rosetta Stone.  It just seemed to me
that the product didn't have much depth and cost an awful lot of money for what
it was.

Linda


Quoting "Rankin, Robert L" <rankin at ku.edu>:

> Does any of you know anything about the company that uses the name
> RosettaStone.com?  There is some interest among some members of the
> tribal government in Kaw City, OK in contracting with this commercial
> language teaching outfit for putting together Kaw Language
> internet-accessible courses.  I know nothing about them, but I have
> trouble seeing just what they would do for the rather large fees they
> ask.  If any of you has had experience with this company or knows anyone
> who has, I'd like to hear about it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bob
>
>
>