I’ve been mulling it over a bit since then. Was I fair to the program, and why is it so popular?

Well, in terms of being fair to it, I think I labeled my opinions pretty clearly. What program someone will find the most helpful for learning Spanish is partly a matter of personal taste, just like shoes or food. You like chicken, he likes steak, she goes for vegetarian fare.

But even allowing for personal tastes, I have a significant beef with Rosetta Stone. It makes perfect sense to me to use English to understand another language. For example, I  mostly speak Spanish with one of my friends here in Mexico, a bilingual Mexican woman. If I don’t know a word or phrase, she can usually explain it in Spanish. But quite often it’s most effective for her to just give me the English equivalent.

In fact, contemporary research into learning languages indicates that adults and teenagers learn additional languages best by making use of their native tongue and by being able to analyze with their minds.

Rosetta Stone Spanish doesn’t allow for any of this. And for that reason, I’m not a major fan.

As for why it is so popular, well… the company does do effective marketing. And clearly not everyone shares my opinion. Hey, that’s no shock!

If you have used any level of Rosetta Stone Spanish, please add your comments below.

And to see what people who’ve used it say at Amazon, go here: Rosetta Stone Spanish, Latin American, Level One.

Rosetta Stone Spanish is a post from: Learn Spanish Rapidly: The Blog.

The computer had Latin American Spanish, Level 3. She hadn’t started using it, and hadn’t even set up the microphone. I opened the program, and chose Unit 1, Lesson 1, which was pronunciation. Immediately, Rosetta Stone Spanish guided me through setting up my friend’s headset microphone. It went very smoothly. I liked that I had a choice of  whether to use the speech recognition software or not, and then that I had a choice of what level of difficulty to select. I chose the highest level.

The first lesson in Unit 1 consisted of a series of pictures with sentences above them. “Es fácil arreglar esta bicicleta” was the first one, and a man’s voice pronounced it. (Both men and women spoke during the lesson.) Then I said it, and as I spoke the words appeared. The sentence was pronounced again by the program, and we were on to the next one, “Es difícil arreglar esta computadora.”

So I decided to play around a bit. I said nothing for a long time, and a message came up asking me if I needed help with the microphone. I clicked on no, and we continued. But instead of saying that second sentence correctly, I said, “Es fácil…” and immediately noticed that the program couldn’t be tricked like that. In the line where my words were appearing, I only saw “Es.” The program had recognized that I said the wrong word. Pretty cool.

Next I tried saying a sentence very slowly, with a lot of pauses between the words. Again, the program wouldn’t accept that, though maybe it would have if I had indicated a lower level of speaking skill when I set up the program. It’s easy to change those settings if you need to. I behaved myself for a while and continued saying the sentences.

The next part of Lesson 1 was a vocabulary unit. Now somebody who had already done earlier levels of Rosetta Stone Spanish would have known what to do, but I couldn’t figure it out! There were two pictures of fences and one picture that just looked gray on the screen. Above all three it said “una cerca,” which means (obviously) a fence.  Each picture had an icon for a speaker, so I clicked them in order. A woman said “una cerca,” so I did too.  But the program didn’t care what I said at this point.

Aha! when I got to the third picture, where it also said “una cerca” above it but was grayed out, I noticed three little pictures above, of a fence, a garden, and a swimming pool. So I clicked on the picture of the fence and a large green check mark appeared over my large picture.

Next it was the same drill but with sentences and pictures. I had to choose pictures:  in which one was a man was throwing a ball and in which one was a boy was jumping off a table? The sentences were in Spanish. And so it went, and then there were some where I had to choose the right words to go with a picture.  Got some wrong by not really paying close enough attention. Hmm, just like school.

All this was pretty interesting and useful. On to the last bit of Lesson I, grammar. Here there would be a sentence like “La nina se sube __ la mesa,” and I would choose betwen a, de, or en. I thought this was a good drill. I did get a bit impatient when  I clicked the right answer sooner than I was evidently supposed to and had to re-click to be recognized. I also noticed that by this stage of Rosetta Stone Spanish, some of the questions were reasonably advanced — subjunctive instead of present tense, or different reflexive pronouns.

My Review of Rosetta Stone Spanish

You never get any information in English, which I found rather irritating. It’s handy for the company, as they can sell the same program to people all over the world without having to have different versions for English-speakers, French-speakers, etc.

You could learn Spanish from Rosetta Stone, I am more sure after this little exercise. But it does not seem to be geared for travelers, and it is quite expensive. As I mentioned on my page about Rosetta Stone Spanish on my website, it states that it teaches you by immersion, the way a child would learn. I have read quite a bit on current research into how adults learn languages, and we do not learn like children. Explanation in our own languages helps us. So for several reasons, I suggest you skip on Rosetta Stone and take a look at my comparison chart of Spanish language programs to see what would appeal to you.

But we are all different and maybe you’d like to give Rosetta Stone a try. If you’re still curious, here is a link to the first level of the  program at Amazon.com.

Rosetta Stone Spanish: A Review is a post from: Learn Spanish Rapidly: The Blog.

Fluenz Spanish is a relatively new company. Chances are you haven’t heard of it.

If you are considering a computer program to help you learn Spanish, these two are the best. But how do you choose between the “tried and true” Rosetta Stone Spanish and the “innovative, research-based” Fluenz Spanish?

First, let me say that you can learn a lot of Spanish with either program. The most striking difference between the two approaches is that Fluenz helps you to learn Spanish by using English where Rosetta Stone makes a point of never using any language but Spanish.

Back when Rosetta Stone got started, people had observed that young children learned their native language by simply absorbing it from everything going on around them. So Rosetta Stone created language courses based on this observation. These weren’t computer programs then… this was before we had computers. Now Rosetta Stone has migrated to computers, keeping the same philosophy. They use pictures and Spanish words.

One American friend of mine here in Mexico, where I live, is a huge fan of Rosetta Stone.” I’m a very visual learner,” she explained. “I love all the pictures.” On the other hand, many people who have tried Rosetta Stone have gotten frustrated with this approach.I did myself.

Fluenz Spanish got started quite recently, by a group of Harvard and Cornell graduates who researched what has been learned about how people learn languages.

They discovered that in learning a foreign language, adults and teens use logic and comparison with their native tongue. So Fluenz Spanish explains things in English. Every single Spanish word in the program is translated into English.

There are a number of other differences between the two programs. Fluenz is designed for learning to speak the kind of Spanish you will need if you are a tourist or business person in a Spanish-speaking country. They have sessions created for the purposes of to helping you to:

• Ask directions
• Order a meal
• Make hotel reservations
• Give instructions to a taxi driver

Rosetta Stone gives you a more general introduction to the language, not focusing so much on Spanish for the traveler. For more about these programs, go to my Rosetta Stone Spanish review, or my Fluenz Spanish review. Whatever you decide, do take action and get going on learning to speak Spanish!

Rosetta Stone or Fluenz Spanish? Comparing the Best Programs is a post from: Learn Spanish Rapidly: The Blog.