Originally published at: Rosetta Stone is considered the gold standard of language learning software and it's on sale at almost half off | Boing Boing
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Never heard language acquisition experts do anything other than deride Rosetta Stone…change my mind!
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We increases the price by 100% and now have it “ON SALE” for half off!
Rosetta Stone is available [for free] from your local library.
You’re welcome.
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Before you say something is the “gold standard” you should talk to some specialists. In this case, I’d listen to language educators before PCMag. Everyone has heard of Rosetta Stone because they have a huge marketing budget. It isn’t really that great for learning a language. Here’s a couple downsides from a language learning website:
- Doesn’t prepare you well enough for understanding real-life Spanish speakers
- Will help you build foundations, but not great for preparing for real life interactions
Not what I’d call ringing endorsements.
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DuoLingo is free(mium).
And, interestingly enough, many universities accept Duolingo ESL testing as evidence of English competency.
How much is the real Rosetta stone, by the way?
I’ve used Rosetta Stone. Not bad for increasing one’s vocabulary. Quite poor for teaching grammar. And useless for pronunciation, as when I pronounced words in a way acceptable to my real life teachers, Rosetta Stone said I was doing it wrong. I figured out a way to pronounce certain words that RS would accept, but this was not the way real people taught me to speak, so basically, it was teaching me to pronounce in a way very different from native speakers,
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