What will you do?
Rosetta Stone costs about 540 dollars for all three levels (internet source). If you were given that amount of money and could only use it for languages, would you:
a. Spend it on Rosetta Stone on the language of your choice
b. Spend part of it on Rosetta Stone, partly on other materials
c. Take classes instead
d Use various DYI books, private teachers
e. Use an internet service like LingQ, Livemocha, Lang-8, I-talki
f. Spend it on a bunch of languages.
h. Other (specify) Fantasy
h. debauchery
Though, if it's any consolation, I would at least attempt to involve native speakers of the language I'm learning.
Spend money on Rosetta Stone? LOL! Thanks to bittorrent/emule and the likes I "purchased" all the Rosetta Stone available (tens of gigabytes of languages that I will never learn) much, much more cheaply than 540 dollars. Even so I don't think is worth the money I spent on electricity while downloading it!
c. or d. are the best options IMHO.
Sorry, DYI should be DIY (Do it Yourself).
They started selling Rosetta Stone in a mall I visited-in one of those kiosques in the middle. I wanted to go up to the guy selling them and ask if he had used the program, but I was in a hurry.
You can do it yourself without the need to spend $500!
If you got internet connection you can can meet native speakers on skype that can help you learn your chosen language for free.
2) I would recommend using Hugo, Teach Yourself book in 3 months. This will give you a basic understanding of your chosen language in just 3 months. Once you have done that, I would start by reading online newspapers of your chosen language online. Or read watch Dvd's in the language that you would like to study. Always have a dictionary with you to look up new words that you discover.
3) Once you feel confident in that language, meet friends on skype that you can practise with or even go and visit a country that speaks your chosen language.
4) In my opinion, Rosetta Stone is good but not worth the $500, when you can do it yourself.
John,
I have one Hugo book (Three months)-I haven't used it much yet (I bought it to resell.) I've usually used Colloquial/Living Language or Teach Yourself. I'd love to hear why you prefer Hugo. Also, I'm interested in hearing about your Skype experience.
Thanks for the other opinions, keep them coming.
h. I would save the money for when I got good and then I'd spend it all on novels and other reading material intended for natives.
Depends on the language, really. If the language was Mandarin or Arabic, I'd probably go with a reputed one-stop shop like Rosetta Stone. For Spanish (which I'm currently trying to master) and German (which I studied when I was in college) I'd probably go with the DIY approach.