Rosetta Stone French Level 1-5 Set

by Rosetta Stone

• Interactive language software with proprietary speech-recognition technology
• Develop your command of the language--read, write, speak, and understand
• Build vocabulary; negotiate complex situations; share ideas and opinions
• Enhance your learning on-the-go with Rosetta Stone mobile apps for the Kindle Fire HD, iPad and iPhone .  Access included with purchase.
• Language-enhancing games; live online lessons; includes headset with microphone

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: 1608299988
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: September 14, 2010
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #211 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #1 in Software > Language & Travel > Foreign Languages > French
  • #3 in Software > Language & Travel > Foreign Languages > Universal Translator
  • #18 in Software > Education & Reference

Product Description

Platform: PC/Mac

Amazon.com

Develop your command of the language. From the simple to the complex, gain the confidence to share your ideas and opinions in your new language. Develop the conversational skills to plan adventures, care for your health and move abroad. Talk about government, work, movies, family, and more. Includes everything you need to learn at home and on the go.

What Will I Learn

 

This level will help you:

• Build your vocabulary and language abilities
• Read, write, speak and understand your new language
• Speak without a script
• Retain what you've learned
• Practice unscripted conversations in your new language
• Negotiate complex situations with confidence and accuracy

Sample topics include:

• The basics, such as age and family relations
• Questions, greetings, introductions
• Telling time, calendar terms, the weather
• Directions, locations, dining out
• Emotions, opinions, ideas
• Political, media, business terms
• Arranging home repairs
• Planning to move abroad
• Discussing the arts and tourism
• Careers and conducting interviews
• Problem-solving and commercial transactions

What Do I Get?

Interactive Software

Our award-wining version, complete with proprietary speech recognition technology.

Audio Companion

For your CD or MP3 player so you can review while on the go.

Headset with Microphone

For use with our state-of- the-art speech-recognition software.

Live Online Lessons

Practice sessions led by native speaking tutors.

Games & Community

Language-enhancing games move you towards real-world proficiency.

Mobile Companion

Learning application for your iPhone or iPod Touch device.

Our Method

Recreate the natural way you learned your first language and reveal skills that you already have using Dynamic Immersion. This award-winning method has been adopted by countless organizations, schools and millions of users around the world.

Learn Naturally: Discover how to speak, read, write, and understand--all without translating or memorizing. Our award-winning solution recreates how you learned your first language, unlocking your natural abilities.

Speak Confidently: Perfect your pronunciation with speech-recognition technology. Gain the confidence in your new voice as you practice with other learners in our exclusive online community and participate in online sessions coached by native tutors.

Immerse Yourself: Be surrounded by your new language. From core lessons to online sessions, Rosetta Stone gets you engaged and interacting with others.

Stay Motivated: Experience accomplishment with each moment of achievement; with dedicated success agents you will never lose sight of your language-learning goals.

Your Natural Ability. Awakened.

Natural Discovery

Learning your first language is as natural as smiling. Effortless. Rewarding. Every step in Rosetta Stone feels like that. Clear, compelling images appear precisely, in juxtaposition, conveying meaning. Intuitively, you just know what it means.

• Our puzzle-like environments--a systematic presentation of sounds, images, and text--help learners absorb meaning intuitively.

Rosetta Stone's award-winning software, where you will interact by speaking, clicking, selecting phrases and writing.

Speech Activation

Rosetta Stone's proprietary speech-recognition technology provides immediate and ongoing feedback.

Build your confidence and polish your pronunciation skills with state-of-the-art speech-recognition technologies and success-filled dialogues.

• Our software provides immediate and ongoing assessments of your speech through Actionable Feedback, which helps you pronounce syllables, words and sentences correctly and easily.

• Based on a collection of literally millions of speech samples, our proprietary speech-recognition algorithms and speech models were engineered with a singular purpose--to help you communicate with accuracy, confidence and ease.

Native Socialization

Language-learning games will keep you motivated along the way.

Practice with native speakers in our live interactive sessions and our online community. Every conversation gives you the confidence to communicate in your new language.

• For many, traditional language-learning fails because it lacks real conversation. With Rosetta Stone you'll play games and chat with native speakers and other learners in our online language community.

• Hundreds of native-speaking tutors trained in the Rosetta Stone method are ready to help reinforce the language you're learning through live, online conversations. From Day One you'll be speaking your new language with confidence and ease.

Product Description

Develop your command of the language. From the simple to the complex, gain the confidence to share your ideas and opinions. Develop conversational skills to plan adventures, care for your health, and move abroad. Talk about government, work, movies, and citizenship. Discuss family and traditions, and celebrate success.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

288 of 301 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic program but not without its quirks September 6, 2010

By SMXSteve TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Platform for Display:PC/Mac|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Rosetta Stone Totale French

Once you get the application installed and working, it is a lot of fun. I actually look forward to learning the language. It gives no English interpretation but shows an image with each phrase. They call it Dynamic Immersion. You hear, see, say and even type the phrase. The program goes over learned material and also breaks down pronunciations. It's colorful and not only fun to use but to look at as well.

It is a fantastic program but not without its quirks.

Problem 1 - license agreement.
We rarely read license agreements but I have started to look them over. This is one that I was tempted to decline - too many lawyers got into this one. Stuff like you don't own it, this is a license to use, etc. Because of the license agreement I was hesitant to signup for the online features for fear I am walking into additional charges I will have trouble getting out of. But I did and will definitely update if that happens.

Installation
Installation went ok on my desktop (Windows 7) except for the headset. First thing starting the application it asks to setup the microphone but the headset wasn't listed. I tried support (see below). The instructions say to plug in the headset prior to installation. But after unplugging and reconnecting the headset after installation my computer found it. But then you have to go to your sound settings on the Control Panel and set it to default in order for this application to use it- every single time. They should have taken care of that step programmatically.

Installation on a Netbook
My netbook (with Windows XP) doesn't have a CD player. With all other applications I put the CD (or DVD) into my desktop and connect to it. But it didn't' work with this installation. I happened to have a CD player that I can connect via USB and that worked fine. As with my desktop I always have to choose the headset in Control Panel every single time.

Support
For support I tried the online chat. But it turns out support isn't familiar with Totale yet. The Knowledge Base was also lacking information on this particular version. Being a computer guy I was able to get everything working but still you should be able to install an application and run it with little difficulty, especially in this price range.

Getting Started
This is where the program really fails. While the screen is colorful and pretty nothing tells you what to do, what it's about, or how it works. There are tiny little icons on the upper right of the screen where you can eventually find this information. But when you start an application you should be guided right away. There is an arrow to continue but it took several screens before I was beginning to understand how to use this application.

Connecting online was worse. It kept asking me to signup so I finally did. But then it says I can't use it until certain things are completed. After looking at the online screens I later received an email that said I was scheduled to do something online which I had no idea what it was or why. When I clicked on the link it took me to a system check to tell me my speech recognition doesn't work and to download the update. Nothing about schedules but of course my headset worked. Then the next day I received an email saying they were sorry they missed me.

So many discs
With this version there are six application and language CDs and about 20 audio CDs. It would really help to include a DVD with everything on it and a install to copy all the audio so that it can easily be played on an mp3 player or ipod.

Problems Ripping Audio for MP3 Player
I used Windows Media Player (Windows 7) to rip the CDs to mp3s. Because there are so many I was just swapping discs when they were complete. Turns out some were overwritten and naming was not consistent making for a disaster figuring out what was transferred. I don't know where the fault lies but they better get with Microsoft to clear this up.

Adding Languages/Levels
This is one of the better features. All you need is the additional language/level disc (and activation code) and it adds it in a couple of clicks. But when using a computer like a netbook without a CD it currently will not work over the network.

Voice Recognition
This is a fantastic feature to be able to say the phrase and have the computer verify it. However, it is far from perfect and isn't that precise. It works about 95% of the time but occasionally I have trouble getting it to recognize what I said. And sometimes I wonder if what I said really was correct.

Performance
This is not something you will load up quickly and start using. It takes a long while to get into the application. Once into the lesson it can take a long time to get back to the home page. There is no hour glass or any indicator so if you try to quit sometimes Windows will come up and tell you the application is not responding and ask if you want to kill it. But if you wait a while it returns and you can close the application.

Navigation
It is very difficult to get around the lessons for instance if you want to start over or just go to a specific section. It tries to be intuitive and constantly asks if you want to continue where you left off even if you chose to reset everything. And sometimes it doesn't get that correct.

Scoring
It keeps score through your lessons. I have no idea why because you always have to choose the correct choice. And sometimes they are simply accidental clicks. The score really gives me no clue as to how I am doing. What tells me how I am doing is what I remember which is why I like to restart and go through it again.

Conclusion
Once you get by the quirks this application makes learning a lot of fun. I look forward to learning a new language using this application. I think the process works even though you don't get the English translation. Online it says you can legally install it on two computers. While that is a convenience, I do prefer using it on my netbook so I can use it just about anywhere. For what it is supposed to do - teach you a language, I think it is a great application and for that I would give it 5 stars. But for the price it should no way have so many issues. I only deducted one star as I can work around the issues. Others may find them more annoying than I did.

775 of 843 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Be wary before investing in this system! December 30, 2010

By Holidaybackhome

Platform for Display:PC/Mac

Think twice before investing a lot of money in these systems. You can only install it twice, then it shuts you down. My hard drive crashed, then weeks later my computer. I try to put it on my new laptop, and it won't let me. So technically my $600 is then wasted. Great system, huh?

I call them up and have spent hours pleading my case. They told me that because I bought it through an amazon vendor, it's a pirated copy. Nowhere on their website or any of their advertising do they caution you about this. I told them they were punishing me for buying something for $600 in good faith. I spent 3 hours talking to different people about this, being dismissed repeatedly. Their customer service is absolutely terrible.

In short, be very very wary before you get into the same situation I did. Computers and laptops are never reliable for long. Two strikes, then you have to trust that they'll honor your large cash outlay, and let you continue to use something you've paid a lot of money for! I am totally disillusioned with this very bad company.

I told the customer "help"line that because of their attitude, I would tell everyone I could and warn them about this situation. They said they didn't care. So here I am, warning all of you good people out there. Go with a different language learning company who actually values their purchasers.

196 of 213 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible customer service! December 31, 2010

By Tim Palmer

Platform for Display:PC/Mac

Don't expect much help when it comes to their helplines. They only allow you to install your very expensive software twice. If your hard drive crashes multiple times, as mine did, you're in trouble. Like another person here, I bought from an amazon vendor and was told it was pirated, so they wouldn't give me a new activation code. Basically, they punish their customers because they want to control their revenue streams -- instead of going after the vendors actively selling Rosetta Stone on this site, they refuse to allow you, the buyer, to use what you've paid for!

Beware this unethical company!