Rosetta stone how much per day

Persian Farsi. Portuguese Brazil. Spanish Spain. For Enterprise. For Schools. The Basics. Free Trial. Pricing and Returns. Does it work? What will I be able to do? I leave for my trip in two weeks. Is it too late to start using Rosetta Stone?

Use it to access essential phrases and words and get instant feedback on your accent. Next, download a few units so you can knock them out on the plane. Scared of disturbing a sleeping seatmate? You can temporarily turn off the speaking component. Trying the language out in the real world is just as important as trying it out on the app. So be bold! I will state from the outset however that I agree with most that the program is indeed outrageously expensive.

With the rise and popularity of subscription payment options for many products and services online, RS has made a move in the same direction. There are now 4 purchase options all of which depend on the length of time you subscribe for Rosetta Stone:.

Just to give you an idea, these are just a few other things this kind of money could get you:. Or at a slightly higher price though much lower than Rosetta Stone the audio component of the Rocket Languages series mentioned above is outstanding. You can select a language here to sample it and compare the pricing with Rosetta Stone:. For those of you who do have RS or are planning to get it anyway despite the cost, keep reading!

BTW: Contrast this with other programs like Innovative or Rocket which allow you to download the entire course for offline use in other words, you own it forever even if you cancel. The major criticism of the RS method is that no explicit explanations or translations are given. Rosetta Stone prides itself on being an immersion tool that never uses L1 translations or explanations, forcing the user to rely solely on their own intuition while gradually acquiring the language content necessary for the next level.

People treat information the same way they treat food these days. There are plenty of Rosetta Stone reviews out there but I wanted to embed one video review here that was put up recently about the Arabic version as the no explanation issue was one of the main criticisms that the reviewer had and also to share her other points for the sake of balance.

She explains how she drove across town to get a translation for something that she almost certainly would have inferred on her own with a little patience.

Just to give you an example, I can recall one lesson where vocabulary for death , birth and marriage were introduced along with sentence structures to describe how long ago a person was born, got married, died, etc. The pictures gave a good enough indication of what was going on but there was quite a lot of unfamiliar content too.

A child speaking to or about their grandparents would use a respectful style of speech that they would never use to their friends in the playground for example. The problem with Rosetta Stone Korean and I suspect the same is true of Japanese is that it does a poor job at demonstrating this.

The Arabic edition also teaches conversational MSA the dialect used for formal and written occasions rather than a spoken dialect which would be far more practical and realistic. If you have experience with another language version, please share whether or not you found similar issues with formality and inappropriate styles of speech when you used it. Two other frequent concerns with Rosetta Stone are that the images are culturally irrelevant and that essential language content is introduced too late or not at all.

What would be nice however is if each language contained units with food, etiquette, cash and cultural expressions that are unique to each specific language.

What I think is absolutely brilliant about the speaking component is the way in which it forces the user to attempt to accurately recall the language while under pressure. The Rosetta Stone speaking component does a decent job at breaking people out of that habit.

The speech recognition software is far from perfect but the role it plays in forcing you to recall dialogue is really beneficial. As I said above, sentence structures are introduced gradually by the program in a linear progression, beginning with very clear structures e. Occasionally the program will highlight the grammar point to make clear what the user should be focused on:.

There are about 3 or 4 other sequences of images that follow this one with a similar scenario — a picture of a person looking expectant followed by them looking either delighted or disappointed. Rosetta Stone does a very good job at progressively introducing these patterns with images that clearly reflect their meaning.

Rosetta Stone kindly took the time to respond in detail to some of my important questions for this review. Our approach is immersive in the sense that we use the target language as much as possible to encourage an immersive experience for the learner and to maximize input. Our focus on production distinguishes us from our competitors, and recent research shows that production is critical to language learning. Boiteau, T. Interference between conversation and a concurrent visuomotor task.

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 1 , — Hopman, E. Production practice during language learning improves comprehension. Psychological Science, 29 6 : Available at Roediger, H.

Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17, — We have added translation to English glosses for the earliest course content in our most popular languages and are continuing to expand translation availability across learning and languages. By design, translations are not available in the Grammar or Review activities.

Also, tutoring content was modified to support shorter and more frequent sessions so learners can have more regular exposure to a live native speaker. Embedded Translations — In response to user feedback, Rosetta Stone has added embedded translations.

Perfect for travelers, Phrasebook features native speakers saying everyday phrases that are useful in common situations, such as meeting people, dining out, and staying in a hotel. Phrasebook uses translation to provide meaning and speech recognition to provide speaking practice, in order to provide a quick-start for learners looking to engage in some real world situations quickly before devoting time to more extended study. Additionally, the online application makes it easier to schedule tutoring sessions on web, with mobile to follow soon and to access the longer form texts in Stories.

For example, Rosetta Stone teaches normalized business English for U. South America. In all of our language solutions, we try to teach conversational language that real people use in real situations. We choose to teach the formal register first and primarily, believing that this will provide our learners with a foundation that will serve them well over their language-learning journey.

As we continue to add new, situational content, we are focusing on practical language using whatever register is appropriate for those interactions. For nearly all of the languages that Rosetta Stone provides, there are excellent free and inexpensive alternative materials available online. I always say that variety is key and you should never rely solely on any program or book. Even though Rosetta Stone is designed to work on its own, I suggest using it in conjunction with other listening and reading material, and most importantly regular practise with native speakers.

One thing that has caught my attention recently is the Rosetta Stone Endangered Language Program which according to the website currently covers 6 Native American languages. I know from my experience back home that the Australian aboriginal communities in particular would benefit from a project like this given the lack of resources available for most of them.

Sadly, as I mentioned a while back , the software still has its astronomical price tag even for the endangered language programs which is just going to create another deterrent for indigenous people wanting to help their own language.

Please share your thoughts and experience positive or negative about Rosetta Stone in the comment section below and make sure to visit my Essential Language Learning Tools page for more useful resources. It's interesting to hear how Rosetta Stone is being used to revitalize endangered languages, I'm curious to see how this works out I have tried Rosetta Stone for Japanese but I think it suffers from many of its problems you mentioned for Korean as well.

Just not my thing I'm afraid, and the fact that it costs so much is another reason to deter people from using it. I also know that they recently lost their contract with the U. Anyways, great and balanced review, it's nice to get a clear analysis of a somewhat controversial program like this so thanks for taking the time to review it in such detail. I recently used Rosetta Stone to dabble with Japanese before I felt like I was spreading myself too thin and decided to just focus on Mandarin.

I think it is outrageously expensive but yet what most reviews fail to mention is that the core product is essentially quite good. It gives you several similar sentences save for one bit of different vocabulary and also allows you to listen to the sentences ad nauseum with the click of a button.

Essentially it is just allowing you to drill yourself on the fundamental building blocks of the language. If you know how to do that. I found that in order to really get the language to sink in I would have to read the example sentences and click the listen button a lot more than I think most people are doing.

I did find the lack of explanation annoying sometimes but if its important its quite easy just to google it. After all you are already sitting at a computer. If you've got a lot of money and very little time to spend trying to find out what works for you researching, trying different things, etc. Otherwise, no. It's good for people who are really busy and who can easily afford it, that's about it. That's a very specific, relatively small, niche.

Nice article. The 2 most important things: To start and To keep going. Any method is good. No method is near enough. I agrre with you on using different alternatives. Live in that language. You can live in different languages. Rosetta Stone exagerates its importance, is all. All them do. The best. I'm glad I found your review on Rosetta. I have heard so many commercials for it and wondered if it's all it's portrayed to be. Your suggestions of using it as a supplemental resource and getting it second-hand rather than buying it new are good ones.

Thanks for a nice review, it is always refreshing to read something other than an obvious marketing attack I have only tried their demo and disliked the no explanation approach.

I am the kind of learner who benefits from a good explanation much more than from trying to reinvent the wheel. Of course I use lots of examples and input but the explanation is the core. I am learning my fourth foreign language now so I don't need or want to be handhold for that long before things finally start to make sense. Sure, getting a list of sentences with audio is a great thing, especially when learning a smaller language with few resources.

But for much lower price. And that endangered language program for the same prices, that is just part of their marketing and perhaps an attempt to give the US governement more reasons to pay. Have you noticed that RS spends six times more money on marketing than development every year? There is certainly a lot of space either for catching the bugs or for lowering the price. Another thing I find disturbing is the lack of information on what to expect from the course on the official website: 1.

They don't use the CEFR scale to describe their levels even though they are clearly interested in the european market as well. Every serious course published in the EU after a certain year does have a note with the desired end level on its cover. And many courses published elsewhere and sold here have it too.

The RS doesn't. The content description is too vague. I'd expect to be told much more about a product I am asked to pay over dollars for. No true success stories. None of those excited people in the promotional video is shown speaking the language. And they are very vague when describing their results. Great review Donovan. I've tried Rosetta Stone myself and wrote a review on it myself and I found that there were definitely advantages and disadvantages to the Rosetta Stone system.

Unfortunately the lack of choice in chosing relevant content and reading made me move to other systems. I did however like the voice recognition technology and they are doing a lot of new things like introducing 1-on-1 conversation practice and the ability to study on a mobile device.

It'll be great to see how Rosetta Stone progresses given all the new competition out there - maybe a drop in prices? He said - I cannot understand when it is word or sentence, just all kinds of shch, sch, czch, After month - I can diferenciate words. I do not understand things at all but suddenly I hear language After two months - I can sometimes understand the topic "what is going on" and probably meaning of some words.

At the beginning thay barely understood each other :. He could nicely order meal in restaurant answering confirmation questions etc. All with near to perfect gramary - some folks will know that Czech gram is very tough to learn. After two years he speaks very good - and this is the point when I would recommend him to go and learn how to write by looking a bit to grammar.

Not vice versa like many other classes, softwares, books, etc. I will probably belong to the group of those who like the RS style. I enjoy the fact that without learning grammar you somehow start understand what and how to use it. Like my 2 years old son who is now correctly using past, conditional and future without knowing the "math" behind.

When my american friend started learning Czech I told him - " forgot books and grammar". Just start watching TV whith repetitive content news, forecast, stupig tivoli games, things for kids, etc. I wanted to reach out to you from Rosetta Stone.

We appreciate the enthusiasm about our product. We also have a free traveler app, offered in several languages, which we'd like you to try, review, and incorporate into your post. This mobile app includes the option to include translation if you would like.

We appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you. Listening to bloggers and customers is important to us. If you're interested in reaching out to me, I can be contacted directly at dlaplante rosettastone. I've been using RS Russian for about 3 months now. Bicycle and one of the speakers' accents being the only two negatives on that. I also like the shorter, step by step sections. I've had to use numerous outside sources to figure it out. I was curious about the Rosetta Stone process but wouldn't dare to buy it mainly because of the price.

I have heard that they use images and speech recognition system to correct the learner pronunciation, - just like a little child would learn their first language. So, I thought the focus was on the spoken language only leaving the reading and writing part out of the learning process. But based on the images you posted I can see now that reading and writing are also part of their method. I learned German the old fashioned way, immersion in Germany, with a state sponsored class, 5 days a week, pm everyday.

For 2. As an adult learner, you are fighting your mother tongue - the intuitive understanding of grammar, we saw and heard this day after day in our class. Learning about the process and how our brain translates provides a very valuable insight into how a fluent mother-tongue speaker absorbs a new language. I cannot understand how you can pick up a foreign language without the cornerstone of grammar.

Therefore I have a mixed opinion about Rosetta Stone's methodology. Thanks for a very interesting article - you are right in your analysis of the strengths of RS and, as a languages teacher, I agree with your recommendation to use a variety of resources. Personally, I use Skype with native speaker friends, originally contacted through the excellent old LiveMocha. I'd be very interested to read your comments on the "new" LiveMocha which is encountering widespread hostility from LM users because of its limited options, design, instability, quality of lessons and pay-to-learn model.

There appears to be an exodus from the site. I think your balanced approach is just what's needed on this new product. I'd be interested in discussing some of the features which caused me to leave after 3 great, productive years. I found the review open and considered. I am personally studying to teach ESL, and thought that the least I could do was attempt to learn a second language myself.

Let me say that I chose Spanish, since it is prevalent in my area, and I found that those years of high school Latin I took so long ago helped make the program more relevant to me. The grammar and conjugations of the verbs started to fall into place, clearly displaying their reliance on Latin roots.

Sometimes I have to think more than others to understand the meaning of the sentence or conversation, but that actually seems fair to me. I believe that there is probably a place for learning some vocabulary in addition to the program, to be able to get more out of the training in a shorter amount of time, but that doesn't diminish the fact that this form of immersion is very like going to a country without learning the language, and trying to pick up the key vocabulary based on need.

My only criticism of Rosetta Stone is that there is not way to prioritize the vocabulary that YOU feel is important. I consider that a mild aggravation, not a condemnation of the program. Not too bad. At that price, I can play around with it for quite a while and get my money's worth. I am hoping to get good enough to be able to converse with the students I tutor, sharing the difficulties of learning a second language and creating a rapport - it is no easier for me than for them.

I just have the advantage of not being totally dependent on learning the second language to function in every day life. Well I am one of those learners that has done really great with Rosetta Stone. I do know that learning a new language takes commitment of time and practice practice practice. The other thing learning a language takes is some responsibility to do some extra activities in conjunction with the primary program.

I purchased a grammar book to hone in on the rules for example. I joined a chat program where I speak with native speakers at least once a week. I utilize all the perks of Rosetta Stone Totale, the group Studio lessons, the games, the reading exercises and private Studio sessions. I am 53 years old and I can carry on a decent conversation in Italian which is my new second language and only after using Rosetta Stone for one year.

My speaking is considered an A2, which is pretty good having no prior experience in Italian. This is the one thing that I know. There are many types of learning styles and everyone has a unique style. If you are visual and enjoy figuring things out then Rosetta Stone is a great choice.

If you are lazy and don't want to commit to speaking, practicing, doing exercises then yeah, Rosetta Stone is not a good investment for you. For me, it is the best program and I have tried many I found RS to be rather poor in learning Japanese. I actually got up to level 3 before moving to Japan but once I came here, I realized that it was almost completely useless.

It definitely does not explain the differences in politeness as mentioned in the article. As I found out, most people do not speak in the way RS teaches you. Also, grammatical intricacies like habitual action versus non-habitual is not explained and is a very important part of Japanese.

All in all, RS falls short in my opinion. I have tried my friend's Rosetta Stone to review my French and Spanish. The Rosetta Stone language programs lack verb conjucations. Thanks Donovan. Your review came across as both unbiased and comprehensive. My problem with RS is it's games policy. After 3 months the games are deactivated and you have to pay for reactivation.

The games enhance the learning experience and should be a permanent fixture to a very expensive program especially if one has paid full price for all 5 levels. I've sent in my concerns to RS a few times but have yet to receive a reply though it's stated on website that someone would contact me within 72 hours To me rote memorization is the hardest learning, and the slowest. Avoiding teaching grammar makes things tedious.

Then again, if it is only vocal and not written input, you might not even figure out where words start and end and that -o and -nun were endings.

But if you first teach me the above structure in 1 minute then have me memorize 15 nouns and 10 verbs, I will know how to make thousands of sentences. And when I hear sentences, I'll be looking for "nun, o, ida" which will help me separate out the other words, both ones I know and new ones. Learning vocabulary require memorization, so is a great place for interactive repetitive games like selecting pictures to match.

Just now I tried RE's free demo of the learning process. I always got the answer right I picked which student is drinking tea but had no clue what part of each syllable phrase I was picking was "tea", "drink" so couldn't memorize individual words, and had no interest in memorizing whole sentences that meant vaguely "child drinking tea" without knowing which words are what. But the intro claimed that after each lesson I'd be practicing the things I'd learned with live other folks online.

Really liked this review, I felt like a lot of reviews online are unfairly against it and as someone who started Rosetta Stone Mandarin a month ago but had previous experience with the language studied abroad in college for a semester and ended up taking 15 hours of Mandarin by graduation , I find a lot of the complaints laughable, particularly the "no explanation" complaints. There have been a few times where a word seems unclear to me, and yes, if you wanted to you could probably get through the whole course without learning much for example, not understand why you're clicking a picture except you heard the word for "man" and there is only one picture with a man.

However, if you're going to spend the money on Rosetta Stone I bought all 5 levels of Totale Mandarin for as part of their Christmas special , I would assume you would WANT to know what was actually being said and it wouldn't take too much inquisitiveness on your own part to either use google or a chinese dictionary app to clear up any confusion.

The Totale components are a bit gimmicky, particularly the online games because nobody is ever online available to compete against, but the live tutoring sessions are pretty useful in my opinion even though they are a bit too-structured I've found that if I'm the only one in the session, the teacher will go off script pretty often which is nice. If nothing else, you are being forced to comprehend a native speaker and produce a response on your own. There is no substitute for that besides living in the country of the language you are learning.

I've also felt a bit of a boost in motivation after finishing a session, regardless of how useful the session might have been. Not too be a Rosetta Stone ad, I do find some things rather annoying. For example, the order at which they decide to teach you some of the words or phrases doesn't make a lot of sense sometimes.

This is definitely a program aimed at someone who is in it for the long haul and has a lot of time to devote to the language, not for someone wanting to quickly learn some useful phrases for a vacation you may never get too them! I also think the speech recognition is quite faulty, particularly on Chinese where tones are so important.

All in all, Rosetta Stone is my favorite purchase so far Rocket French, Pimsleur Mandarin if nothing else because it is fun and makes me want to come back and keep "playing" if you will, because it does feel a bit like a game. And after all, if you aren't motivated or sticking with it, it doesn't matter how scientifically effective your program is.

Have you reviewed other online language learning systems - or just RS? What about Mango Languages? I learned formal Japanese first and, when I went to Japan and stayed with a family, I was told my Japanese was very "polite". I quickly picked up casual speech from listening to the family but I would not have wanted to wander around on my own, speaking rudely to clerks and train personnel. I would rather be too polite than not polite enough. If I were teaching very young children up through 6th grade , I would concentrate on casual speech but anyone above that age should be speaking at the average level of speech which is what you speak with people outside your 'in-group' in Japan.

I agree with Ethan on a major factor that is: it is fun. It makes me want to come back day after day and learn more. Not to say RS doesn't have its pitfalls, but it keeps me motivated to keep learning.

It is a very good review. However, the price issue is over emphasized. The RS program is not ideal, but it is the best of all similar products. I liked this review. Currently I looking for alternative French teaching tools. Firstly, the price I paid was discounted, but still high. However, if it taught me French, then it's worth every penny. In any case, when I indicated to RS that the software was not suitable for me, they quickly and efficiently returned the money as per their 30 day policy.

The part of determining the exact meaning of a word can almost be determined after a few pictures. In my case, being inpatient or if I had doubts, I looked it up on an online dictionary. I'm using it to learn, so I don't mind using supplemental material. Overall the style and way RS reinforces words I think is good. The reason I eventually returned it, was the pronunciation and to a lesser extent the speech recognition.

The pronunciation is performed by native french speakers, pronounced very fast, with accents and the habit of missing or running words together. Two of the speakers were intelligible, the third barely Repeating the sentence as I heard it was a complete miss on the speech recognition software, but speaking as it was written was more successful, but not always. While this is probably good for understanding local speakers, I don't believe its good for teaching beginners..

After 2 weeks of heavy use, this frustration grew to the point of returning the software. So, in my opinion its worth trying for yourself, if its a style that works for you great, if not, return it. I think many of the very negative reviews are written by people that think it or other software will magically teach them French.

All of these tools will require lots of work, patience and probably some boredom. Regrettably, I am not one of those people that appear to be a natural at languages. I saved up my measly minimum wage paychecks so I could try to learn Russian for someone I love very much. The sales person said that was all I'd ever have to pay so very reluctantly I purchased it.

This seems so sleazy and intentionally malicious and after putting such a high price on your product it seems completely unreasonable. I now view it as almost a personal goal or vendetta to make sure as many potential buyers of your product are aware of this as possible because there is no logical economic explanation for this greed after such a high initial product price.

But after all the units, you would still not feel ready for the vast majority of conversations you are likely to have. If you compare it to easing yourself into cold water, the amount you would learn in the whole system is equal to dipping a toe in. My preferred strategy for language learning is speaking from day one. You get the unpleasant part over with quicker since it's going to happen anyway. If you are a fan of Krashen's research then you will love Rosetta Stone. I agree with a lot of what Krashen says, but think that most people take it too far.

The same is true for all the packages. One of my first questions to them, when we talked, was about the price tag. Why does Rosetta Stone cost so much? From Rosetta Stone's perspective, the price tag does indeed make sense. It's the investment they put into it. Rosetta Stone has spent a fortune on linguistic research, cognitive scientists, PhDs, neuroscientists and more.

This research is incorporated into every single aspect of the Rosetta Stone software. From the positive reinforcement of sound effects that I turned off right away , to the meticulously planned photos which I also had an issue with, described below. Rosetta Stone has led a team of people from all such aspects of learning, all focused on producing a great language learning system.

It would be logical to presume that it would lead to the best system in the world. But I disagree here. The research is tailored more to how can we make a product that sells well and is scalable.

But it should be how can we ensure people definitely learn this language as efficiently as possible. As you can imagine, Rosetta Stone disagrees with this. But the problem is all this scientific research has led to a sterile language learning experience. Another reason to justify the higher price is how much research has gone into developing their speech recognition from the ground up. When you speak, it analyses your recording and approves it or requests that you try again based on how you did.

While I like the idea, since it gets you speaking to the program and gives you feedback, I found several problems with it. One time, it registered a sneeze as a correct answer. But luckily, the reading exercises are spoken by natives.

So you will learn more from listening to the pronunciation, anyway. You can also get a more detailed pronunciation guide for the alphabet within the help menu of the program. The teachers are friendly, patient, and very professional. When I looked at the time slots available, there were plenty of times without much wait. I could have scheduled an appointment today, in a couple of hours if I wanted to. When I took this course a few years back, my first ever experience speaking Dutch was within the Rosetta Stone environment!

My teacher was so patient and refused to switch to English consistent with the program philosophy. But a wise decision for the learner's benefits. In my first two sessions, I found each session to be incredibly useful. This is all part of the master plan of the program, which is fair enough, but I would have preferred to just chat with the teacher. The justification I received for this is that the program teaches you particular vocabulary before the session.

It would not make sense to ask you random questions since you wouldn't be prepared to answer them. Again, that goes back to creating a stress-free environment, rather than a realistic one. Luckily they were patient with me if I went off on tangents, so you can be somewhat flexible if you have the right teacher. To me, this was the greatest justification of a higher price than the reasons listed above. You can hire teachers to get online lessons much cheaper elsewhere.

But it would be hard to find people so integrated into such a complex system like this. And I did honestly find each spoken session to be very helpful. This was my most favourite part of the whole application and what I got the most value out of. Without this to work towards, I would have given up on using the program due to frustrations at the slow pace of learning. Users can pick from multiple languages broken up into short lessons.

When you sign up for either service, the app asks you why you want to learn the new language and what level you're starting at. You also don't have to choose between the two. Try them both out for free. So the question is -- which one to try first?

As a regular Duolingo user, I enjoy the app's simple, colorful interface and short, game-like exercises. The app doesn't restrict how many languages you can try to learn at the same time personally, I think two is a good maximum if you want to retain anything , or how many lessons you can complete in one day, even on the free version.

I use Duolingo to keep up with Spanish and German. It's an easy app to test the metaphorical waters because it doesn't require you to create an account right away. For example, even if you start with little to no understanding of Spanish, the lessons are pretty gentle. You'll choose which picture -- paired with the Spanish translation -- accurately describes basic phrases and words.

Duolingo translates from English to Spanish and back again. Most questions let you tap or click on the Spanish word to translate it in case you get stuck.

The app offers additional learning resources if you click the lightbulb icon, as well as the ability to fast-track your lessons if you click the key icon.