Rosetta Stone German Review

Review summary

Good points

Bad points

Our verdict

Rosetta Stone's picture and word association learning method is highly effective. Some of the routines can be laborious and the use of heavy repetition tiring. For those who have different learning styles, this software could seem a bit too strict.

Full review

Rosetta Stone is probably the most well know brand in language learning world and if you haven't heard of them, you will almost have certainly seen one of their adverts on television. Rosetta Stone was one of the first companies to offer a viable alternative to books, tapes and videos - a language learning course that was fully interactive.

Getting started

In the level 1 package you will receive 1 x CD, 1 x headset with microphone and 4 x audio CD's. Rosetta Stone provides five different levels.

Once you've installed the software, it feels like quite a slow start, however learning the basics of a language are critical.

Teaching approach

The company was started by a group of language enthiasts who believed the best way to learn a language was by immersion. When you start using the software you'll realise very quickly there is no use of English (apart from the interface and help files). It does It does not offer any translations - everything is represented in photos, audio and text.

Level 1 covers German basics such as greetings, introductions, directions, locations and asking simple questions.

Alot of unanswered questions.

Teaching tools

Practice sessions with native German speaking tutors.

Rosetta Stone primarily relies on picture-word association to teach German, a method that has been proven highly effective for many students over recent years. Rosetta Stone uses picture descriptions, speaking and spelling lessons to reinforce the new language concepts, with a heavy emphasis on building vocabulary.

Rosetta Stone includes speech-recognition technologies to simulate real world conversations. The speech recognisiton system is one of the best available. You speak into the microphone, it analyses your prononciation and then it either apprroves it or asks you to try again. You can look at the wave analyser to see the differenece between your own and native speakers speech patterns.

Rosetta Stone includes an audio companion so you can listen on your MP3 player or iPod.

Games

Progress tracking

Rosetta Stone has a feature called "Adaptive Recall".

Value for money

One of the criticsms often aimed at Rosetta Stone is it's price, particularly as this particular version doesn't even include intermediate or advanced levels. In Rosetta's defence it does have a very well developed and polished product. Several other learn german software is poorly produced (particualrly audio or video items).

The most obvious expense of a native German tutor, but less obvious is the investment the company have made developing its teaching methodology which has included PhDs, scientists and researchers.

Ease of use

Rosetta Stone has the best user interface of all the learn german software suites we have reviewed to date. The features and options are simple to locate, understand and control, despite the enormous amount of built-in flexibility that Rosetta Stone provides. There are plenty of tutorials and previews for you to explore, enabling users to become familiar with goals and lessons.

Help & support

Rosetta Stone includes a great knowledge base, which is well organized and context sensitive. Every screen includes a help button as well as a guided tutorial.

Telephone, email and online help is also available.

Overall

Rosetta Stone will give you a solid foundation in the language, however it doesn't come with intermediate or advanced levels - something we feel should be included for the price. There are sadly no cultural tips. Having said that, we still feel this software is a dependable choice for learning a new language.

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Overall
Setup
Teaching approach
Teaching tools
Progress tracking
Ease of use
Help & support