Rosetta Stone German Level 1

by Rosetta Stone

• Interactive language software with proprietary speech-recognition technology
• Build a foundation of fundamental vocabulary and essential language structure
• Master basic conversational skills; receive immediate and ongoing speech assessments
• 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: 1617160040
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: September 14, 2010
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #572 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #2 in Software > Language & Travel > Foreign Languages > German
  • #15 in Software > Language & Travel > Foreign Languages > Universal Translator
  • #88 in Software > Education & Reference

Product Description

Platform: PC/Mac

Amazon.com

Build a foundation of fundamental vocabulary and essential language structure. Begin to learn and speak with confidence. Master basic conversational skills, including greetings and introductions, simple questions and answers, shopping and much more.

What Will I Learn

 

This level will help you:

• Build vocabulary and language basics
• Spell and write accurately
• Speak without a script
• Retain what you've learned
• Read and understand in your new language

Sample topics include:

• Age, family relations, household items
• Introductions and greetings
• Times of day and calendar terms
• Buying and selling

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

Build a foundation of fundamental vocabulary and essential language structure. Gain the confidence to master basic conversational skills, including greetings and introductions, simple questions and answers, shopping, and much more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 60 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars I love it, but it has its frustrations. July 5, 2011

By Cassius Clay Rae

Platform for Display:PC/Mac

I am a native English speaker and I bought the Rosetta Stone German Level 1-5. I am currently learning Level 1 so I see it only fair to review this. The sequential software will come when I have completed each one of them.

The hardware was fine and the headset isn't flimsy. It's much better than any headphone or headset I bought for myself, but that doesn't mean it can't break or get glitches. My only (tiny) hardware irk is that all the Audio companions is on a DVD data disc so I had to burn CDs in order to listen to this in my car. (My iPod is barely used and stays at home.)

I had no problems installing the software or getting my computer to recognize the headset.
To quote myself in another comment:
"I own a 64-bit Windows Vista and I have separate speakers and headset apart from the headset. The only issue that I ran into is that when I installed the the Rosetta Stone software, it automatically defaults ALL sounds through the headset. I didn't realize this until I started playing my music and trying to video chat. This can be adjusted through Control Panel > Hardware & Sounds > Sound (Right-click this icon and create a shortcut onto your desktop!). In the sound control panel, there will be a "Playback" tab and a "Recording" tab. (Sorry XP, Win7, Snow Leopard, and all Mac users. Hopefully you get the gist.)"

Rosetta Stone works; but I am the type of learner where complete immersion, repetition, and activities work. If you have access to Rosetta Online, I recommend the Bingo game and going through the stories. When using Stories, first listen to it and try to visualize every said detail, then read it. Doing this paired with the Audio has helped me tremendously.

I do find problems with pronunciation.... Some of my pronunciation errors are right, but there are a few (e.g. alt, Jahre, Bruder, Englisch) that I have to over-exaggerate certain (wrong sounding) noises to get it to accept. That is REALLY frustrating because I don't hear what I'm incorrectly saying. What's also frustrating is that it'll accept many other words that I'm nowhere near to pronouncing correctly. "Uuuuuuh..." is sometimes accepted! The pronunciation quirks pester me the most when using this program, but I can't say I run into them too much where it deters me from wanting to continue through the lessons.

The Milestones at the end the four units are a bit intimidating especially if you don't use the online resources. I am usually at a lost for what to say. It's not obvious all the time. In this situation, just remain silent. The program will think there's an error with the microphone. When you have formed the sentence in your mind, continue with the activity.

I never use this program without Google Translate opened next to it. I don't use it to decipher whole sentences or phrases, just a couple words here and there.
I don't lean too hard on Google for interpretation because after a while, a learner will see that German words do not correlate to just one meaning. "Sie" can mean she, you, they, it and so on. The meaning depends on the overall sentence. So it's important to try to think German and try not to interpret every word directly to English. Rosetta Stone does a good job of giving visuals to let you think in German, but it does not explain any of the Grammar or word rules. This is why I'm shopping for a German grammar book on Amazon.

EXAMPLE: The more I research, the more I see how important it is to when to use "sie" and "du". Both mean "you," but one is formal and good for strangers and the other is used among friends and family. And my understanding is that depending on what "you" we use makes a difference on the spelling of other words in the same sentence.

As someone has mentioned, there's no glossary of words in Rosetta Stone. So when I want to double-check my spelling or the words I'm using, I have to use Google Translate.
****CORRECTION UPDATE**** There is a document of words and phrases learned. It's located on the CD under "Documentation". ****July 12****

Overall, I am very pleased with this program and the progress that I am making. The price is fair to me because it cost less than taking a semester course at my local college and I can access this as many times as I want... whenever I want. Rosetta Stone isn't totally complete with everything you need; and that's why I pair it with Google and other books and tools. However, that doesn't mean that this doesn't work or isn't worth your investment. If you understand that learning a language takes constant work and you are determined to teach yourself, buy this. This software is like a teacher. And since I'm a student, it is up to me to do my homework. Read more ›

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Using Rosetta Stone to learn German February 7, 2011

By Susan L. Stamberger

Platform for Display:PC/Mac|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am very pleased with Rosetta Stone V4 TOTAle German Level One, and the approach that is taken to teaching a foreign language. There is no English used in any of the lessons; it is only the German language associated with pictures, and the reinforcement of my pronunciation through the voice recognition software. It is a non-stressful way to learn a language -- and it's fun!..

33 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Love Rosetta Stone November 18, 2010

By Aurealia Durrance

Platform for Display:PC/Mac|Amazon Verified Purchase

I don't know how or why Rosetta Stone works as well as it does, but it is magic. After years of struggling through conventional language programs my son is flying through German and his best friend is zooming through Spanish and both boys are showing real facility with the process and the verbal responses. I have never seen students expressing themselves so quickly or more confidently in a foreign language. Hats off!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars At first I thought it was a rip-off. Now I love it. May 28, 2011

By Ray E. Smith, Jr.

Platform for Display:PC/Mac

It worked fine for a couple days, then the microphone stopped working. I tried a different microphone - it still doesn't work. I googled the problem and I see that it is widespread - on Windows, Linux, and Apple. I haven't been able to find a solution.

I have ordered Tell Me More German, which looks like a much better product.

Update on July 5: The mike works now. I bought more levels. I'm up to Level 3. Now I love Rosetta Stone! (Tell Me More German is gathering dust.)

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars German Made Easy April 1, 2011

By jonit

Platform for Display:PC/Mac|Amazon Verified Purchase

Purchased this item for a upcoming trip to Germany to meet family members and relatives. Did not speak a word of German. Now after 6 weeks and 8 weeks to go until our trip I am confident that I will do just fine with the simple dialoging that will be going on. Rosetta Stone is amazing. The customer service was beyond helpful and I and my husband (who is brushing up on his German from high school and college) will be just fine when we meet our family there for the very first time.

I highly recommend Rosetta Stone and when we complete Level 1 - we will surely move on to the remaining levels. Worth every penny.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars 3.5 stars really. Can be frustrating. January 24, 2012

By A. Eisenberg

Platform for Display:PC/Mac

I have mixed feelings about RS. These reviews should be about the learning aspect of RS, not technical difficulties. I have had a couple of minor glitches, but RS customer service was responsive.
I understand the methodology. In a nutshell, I feel that even minimal information on verb tenses or sentence structure or article usage would be incredibly helpful. Fortunately, my Austrian friends are there to help me (although they seem to think I'm silly to try to learn German when they are happy to speak English to me when I visit!). One friend sent me to this [...] to help me understand. It was very early on in Level 1 that I was confused by all the endings added on without explanation. Yes, you may pick up the patterns at some point, but a bit of explanation would be easier.

That said, there is so much repetition, you need not fear the next lesson. And it is pretty enjoyable on the whole. I grew up hearing a little bit of German/Yiddish, so the pronunciation has been easy for me. I am a bit fanatical about accents, so I want to get it right. I am bugged that occasionally the voices will differ during the lesson. Ex.: the pronunciation lessons for 'und' and 'fahrrad' make clear that you hit the D pretty much like a T; but when the female voice says 'fahrrad,' she says it like a D. Same with 'und'--the male voice says it as a D in one phrase.

It's hard to imagine becoming anywhere near fluent without the rules and such, but I'm reviewing Level 1, so that's not for me to say.
The headset is very nice and solid. So why does each new level come with one?? What a waste! Offer the option of buying the software and using the headset we have.