How good is Rosetta Stone for language Learning?

Vytenis   Wed Dec 12, 2007 10:42 am GMT
That was not bad at all, considering the limited vocabulary that Pimsleur program gives. The point is I can understand what you say, regardless some mistakes that undoubtedly are there. After all this is better than no knowledge of Russian at all. :) It will not teach you to read Dostoyevski or Tolstoi of course, but some very frequent and highly useful words and phrases that Pimsleur lets sink your head are after all what most people need to get around... I myself am learning Egyptian Arabic with pimsleur and can say that the resuts are not bad at all:

Sabah el kheir. Ismak eh? Ana esmi Vytenis. Izayyak? Quayyis? Ana quayyis awy, shokran. Ana batkallim shwayyia shwayya arabi lekin mish kitir w ana mish faehim masri aarabi quayyis. Inda btitkalim ingilizi? Ana batkallim ingilizi quayyis awy.

:)))
Of course, I did not bother to learn Arabic script (yet), so my spelling might look a bit funny :)
Guest   Wed Dec 12, 2007 11:12 am GMT
It's just memorising strings of sounds, no grammar.
Vytenis   Wed Dec 12, 2007 1:30 pm GMT
If grammar is so important to you, go buy a thick grammar book and study abstract grammar rules every night before sleep :D After reading it 5 times I am sure you will speak the language like a native speaker. LOL
Vytenis   Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:00 pm GMT
Look, to learn to drive a car or to ride a bicycle you don't have to study the laws physics and motion. You just have to master them by practicing practicing practicing. Even if you study all the physocs books describing all the mechanics and laws of motion involved, you will still have to practice anyway. Practice the REAL THING. In the same way, even if you learn by heart all the grammar books available, you will still not be able to speak a language without sufficient practice (mind you - not of grammar rules but of REAL LANGUAGE AND REAL COMMUNICATION). Besides, there are much easier ways to master the grammar points than studying them in the abstract way from the theoretical language description (which grammar is). For me the Pimsleur method helped realize the grammatical points quite easily without much effort and conscious memorization of declensions, tenses, tables and charts. It is absurd to say that Pimsleur lessons just ask to memorize "sound strings". Maybe Berlitz does, but NOT Pimsleur. Anyway, even if this were true memorizing abstract rules would not be of much more usef than memoriozing bare phrases without any grammatical analysis. At least when you know a phrase, you can use it right away in REAL LIFE, but when you know a bunch of tables and declensions, what use in real life that woul be pray tell. Unless you are a grammar nut (no offence meant here - I mean just a sort of person who enjoys stuff like that: solving crosswords and charades, studying grammar and so on) it is much more useful to start learning the language ITSELF, rather than some abstract description of it. Boy, I remember these silly language classes at school when they forced us (10-year-olds) to memorize some strange and way too abstract things for the minds of ten-year-olds (like present indefinite, present continuous, present perfect etc.) instead of just teaching us things like "Hi, how are you, what's up".
Guest   Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:23 pm GMT
I studied grammar books complemented by some cassetes to learn pronunciation when I was 12 years old and that's how I speak very good English now. I think that It depends on how your mind works. If it prefers formal things, study grammar, if it's better for you to practize, forget thick grammar books and watch movies with subtitles, songs and that stuff. Anyway I think that after you practize a lot, it's not bad to reinforce what you have achieved with a formal frame based on abstract grammar. If you are not totally inmersed in an English speaking environment, all the things you learned practizing will become a big mess after months withouth some practize, while on the other hand if you study grammar you mind arranges what you learned so you will not forget it so easily.
Vytenis   Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:23 pm GMT
I mean don't get me wrong: grammar is useful and at some point of language learning it is really helpful to understand the relavant grammar points. However, the attitude that "Pimsleur or Rosetta or whatever is bad because it does not dish out to us all the cases and declensions before we even learn hi, how are you" is indeed medieval...
Vytenis   Thu Dec 13, 2007 10:44 am GMT
Pimsleur is useful for busy people who have no time or will to regularly attend language classes or study textbooks. Like in my case I learn Egyptian Arabic by driving my car every day and as long as I need just spoken language it is ideal for me. It is definitely much better and more effective than audio phrasebooks like Berlitz and the like. where you just hear phrases repeated once. At least Pimsleur does attempt to let the language and its grammatical system sink into your mind without resorting to too much a-priori explicit explanation of grammar theory. Thats what I love about Pimsleur. It is only a shame that they teach such a limited vocabulary. I believe they should do more courses based on the same principle. But even after listening 30-lesson course I could get aropund in the a market in Cairo.