Rosetta Stone Spanish Reviewer's Comments

Rosetta Stone has earned our "TopTenREVIEWS Bronze Award" because it makes the Spanish education process so easy. You may have noticed in our side-by-side comparison that Rosetta Stone doesn't have nearly as many checkmarks as the #1 product, or even the #5 product. But Rosetta Stone is still able to retain the top-3 ranking because it has simplified learning Spanish to the point where it does not require all the extra features that other programs have.

Rosetta Stone, by Fairfield Language Technologies, makes the task of learning Spanish both simple and entertaining by teaching you Spanish in the same way that you learned English—image and word association. It's much like the immersion technique, but taken a step farther.There is no English words or phrases in the lessons; you simply learn through associating Spanish words you don't know with pictures of things you do know. For instance, you may not know what the word "gato" means, but you know the picture next to it is a picture of a cat.

Rosetta Stone also helps you learn to speak through the use of a sophisticated speech recognition system. You can practice reading and saying words correctly and get immediate feedback. These simple tools are all it takes to learn Spanish, all without hearing a single word of English.

Rosetta Stone isn't perfect though. The Level 1 program costs as much as the complete beginner to advanced programs of other companies. Rosetta Stone doesn't have a compatible version for mobile devices and MP3 players either, and the lessons don't offer much in the way of cultural information. But despite all this, Rosetta Stone remains an incredibly simple program that allows you to progress quickly through your Spanish education.

Rosetta Stone Spanish Screenshots. Click for more
       


Features:  

Rosetta Stone has a very thorough system for tracking your progress and showing your scores on individual exercises. This can help you identify if you are struggling more in pronunciation or writing or some other category and focus more on that. Each lesson is accessible at any time, so you can focus on certain activities or even start in the middle of the course if you have some previous Spanish experience.

The only thing Rosetta Stone lacks is a version for portable devices such as MP3 players and PocketPCs. Many other programs are offering this option, which makes it easy to learn on the go.

Fundamentals:  

Rosetta Stone has the fundamentals down to a science. Vocabulary is gradually introduced through picture and word association. Then grammar is introduced by further associating the words and phrases with other pictures. It doesn’t sound simple, but the process is so intuitive you may find yourself doing it without thinking, which we find to be much more enjoyable than studying vocabulary lists and grammar rules.

During all of this, Rosetta Stone also works on pronunciation and conversation skills through the use of their speech recognition system. Sometimes you must listen to words and phrases and right them, then later you practice saying them and get immediate feedback on your accent and pronunciation. Rosetta Stone even focuses on the fundamental sounds common to Spanish words so that you can improve your pronunciation of many words at once.

Ease of Use:  

Rosetta Stone is exceptionally easy to use. The program is so simple and the interactive lessons are very intuitive. It is also easy to tel between right and wrong answers and figure out the point of different activities. In fact, Rosetta Stone is so easy that they don't provide any initial information about how to navigate the program; we had no problems without any instructions. If you get lost, there is help available that can explain how to use the program.

Rosetta Stone offers an online version of the program, too. This can be very convenient because you can access it from anywhere and you don't have to install anything. 

Teaching Tools:  

The basic program begins by showing you four images at once; you listen to a Spanish pronunciation and then pick the corresponding picture. Rosetta Stone has included thousands of pictures in their database to represent a broad Spanish vocabulary selection. All the basics are covered and more.

But if you get bored with this learning angle, you can toss in some variety: read the word then choose the right image; listing to a word and select the right image; hear the Spanish words and then write the correct answer. The combination of variety and reiteration allows you to build and test your skills backward and forward, so that you can become proficient in not just comprehension, but speaking, reading and writing too.

The writing program is simple to use. You can either type the word, letter by letter, or for long phrases you can select words from a list. Rosetta Stone allows you to modify the program to be either strict or lenient when judging your writing attempts-a plus for the novice who needs a confidence boost.

Also, if you misspell a word, the program highlights the exact letter that is incorrect and allows you an opportunity to fix your mistake. To add common Spanish accent marks to written words, the program offers a keyboard representation on the screen-all you have to do is click the right accent.

There are a few different modes you can use to run Rosetta Stone. Delay mode allows you to see or hear the word, then after a brief delay four pictures appear to choose from. The Timer mode allows you a few seconds to select the correct answer, and Test mode keeps track of how many exercises you get correct and how many you miss. After you finish, your statistics are displayed; the program tracks all of your progress so that you can see which lessons you have completed as well as what you scored for each lesson.

The speech recognition software for Rosetta Stone is good. Additionally, this is one of the few programs that differentiates between Latin America Spanish and Spain Spanish.

Word Tools:  

Rosetta Stone doesn't provide much in the way of dictionaries and translators, mostly because you are intended to retain and translate the Spanish yourself. We found that the Rosetta Stone method is effective enough that we didn't need the word tools that other programs provide. There is a simple index of the Spanish words used in the program in the order they are introduced if your would like to review the lessons later.

Help/Support:  

The support for Rosetta Stone Spanish is very helpful. The FAQ, user manual and tutorials can answer most of the basic questions you may have about the program. If you have more technical problems, you can also get technical support via email or phone.

Summary:  

Rosetta Stone is so easy and simple that it sounds too good to be true, but it's not. If you want Spanish dictionaries and grammar rules, this isn't the program for you. If you want a program that teaches Spanish intuitively and makes retention easy, Rosetta Stone is what you want.