Rosetta Stone V3: German, Level 1 & 2

List Price: $359.00

Features:

• Rosetta Stone helps you understand everyday language through our proficiency-based listening and reading activities
• You will pronounce words correctly after practicing with our proprietary speech recognition and analysis tools
• In no time you will speak without a script, Rosetta Stone's Contextual Formation™ makes sure you have the confidence and the cues you need to get the words out on the spot
• With Rosetta Stone Milestone activities you quickly gain confidence to engage in real-life conversations
• Track your progress to reinforce your strengths and revisit needs with our Adaptive Recall™ Language feature

Customer Reviews:

a software note [Posted on 2007-12-27]
This product is sold as licensed software. Users will NOT be able to load it onto more than one computer. This aspect of the product is not clear from the blurbing on the Rosetta Stone website. It is a "single-user" product.
Don't think that you can share this with friends, or that it is appropriate for a lending collection.

For once advertising is true [Posted on 2008-06-09]
I have been trying to learn German for years. Even when living in Germany I did not learn much. I took a German class last fall and walked out disappointed at the end.

Now after 1 month, I know and REMEMBER more words than I have ever have before. I feel confident that soon I will be able to put those words in a meaningful sentence.

Good product [Posted on 2008-07-17]
I wish I would have had this before I moved to Germany! It has been very helpful and enjoyable as well.

it works [Posted on 2008-10-13]
writing in a new language is hard but i can read it now... that was my goal.

Great Language Software [Posted on 2008-11-29]
I bought Rosetta Stone, Levels 1 and 2, to relearn German. I had lost a lot of my vocabulary and could no longer construct sentences. I've now gotten through one set of lessons. So ...

Starting out the program seems difficult to use. There is none of the traditional vocabulary lists, or translation you might expect. RS uses a total immerssion concept where all you get is the language. You learn vocabulary by associating pictures with words. You learn sentence construction from examples. So, right off you are presented with a picture and asked to match it to a word. Be sure to read the manual that comes with it before you start.

The German 1 course is gouped into 4 major groups, each of which is grouped into 4-6 lessons with each lesson composed of 10 to 45 segments. Each segment and lesson builds upon the previous ones and there are built in review points. Lessons are grouped into vocabulary, reading, writing, speaking. In some places you play a matching game to match a picture with the word. In other places you are asked to complete sentences. Elsewhere you have to pronounce the word or speak a sentence. The program has speech recognition built in and also has a speech analyzer to match your spoken word against that of a native speaker. I do not find that as useful.

The program defines a curriculum for you and takes you through that. It rates each of your lesson points and gives you a final score at the completion of each unit. You can return to any unit you wish to refresh or retry it. The program does seem to skip over some units; perhaps if it feels you already show mastery of that piece. You can, however, go back over those items by looking at the main menu instead of the course track.

There are several negatives on this software. It's expensive. It cannot be resold if you decide you no longer have a need for it. It's difficult to decide how much of the course to buy (German comes in 3 pieces. I got 1 and 2 thinking that would probably get me back to conversation. I may need to get part 3 later but that is a large investment). I find the need to recertify the microphone each time to be tedious. I also find that it annoying that it requires you to identify which user to use when there is only one user defined. And I find it annoying that it does not start where you left off (if you have multiple levels installed, it will ask which level to use even if you are the only user and you stopped at level 1, lesson 1 ... it does keep track of which unit you are on).

Bottom line, I think I am learning, so the software appears to do what it's supposed to do; teach you a language. If you can afford it, if you have the dedication to set aside regular time to use the software and to learn a language, then RS will likely work for you.

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