Customer Reviews

Rosetta Stone V2: French Level 1 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have tried a variety of language software titles to learn to speak French and I was beginning to get rather frustrated. After several months, I was still unable to put together coherent sentences. That's pretty sad, considering I've taught English to a variety of ages for 4 years and have a strong grasp on sentence structure. However, there's good news! Within a few lessons, I was putting together ideas with Rosetta Stones' French tutorials. The program uses photographs to piecemeal together ideas. You feel much like a child exploring the world in a new language and you will find yourself thinking in French in no time! In addition, you don't have to sit through boring grammar lessons, it just comes naturally. I highly recommend this product, even though it is considerably more expensive than some of the others, it is well worth the price of admission.

The Rosetta Stone people believe in total immersion. Nothing is translated; all meanings are conveyed by a clever use of pictures. You see a french expression, hear it spoken, and see its meaning illustrated, all at the same time. The method works. It allows the English compartment of the mind to quiet down and the French to take over. I felt that I was absorbing french vocabulary, pronunciation, and sentence patterns more efficiently with this program than by any other learning method I have tried.

For the most part the pictures make the meanings obvious, but when they don't you are on your own. I kept Google running in the background and used its translation facility to look up the occasional mysterious word. That usually worked, but the lack of English translations within the program is a design flaw in my opinion. Doubtless they would protest that including translations would go against the spirit of total immersion. Well, having to stop to look things up in a french-english dictionary is not total immersion either. But this flaw is not fatal. The program is so good otherwise that I was willing to put up with the inconvenience.

The method is not a complete approach in itself. No grammar is taught except for what you can figure out for yourself from the examples. French Now! by Transparent Language is another excellent program that complements it nicely. Rosetta Stone is expensive, but their "French Explorer" is modestly priced and provides a generous sampling of their fuller Level 1 and Level 2 programs. If you simply can't afford the fuller programs you might consider using French Explorer in conjunction with French Now!

I have been meaning to learn French for quite some time and have picked up some books and audio tapes but got quickly frustrated and discouraged. However, after ordering this software I am starting to think that I may actually be able to learn French.

As a little background I have never been good at languages and I was not very good at my foreign languages in school (could barely speak a word). I am an absolute beginner at French an was very nervous that my past performance in learning languages would prevent me from learning French. I was also a little nervous when I read some of the other reviews that said this might not be the best program for beginners, but I ordered it in the hopes that I could at least try something new.

I am extremely happy with my purchase. The proram walks you through French in a very intuitive manner, and though there aren't any explanations it starts you out so slowly that you are easily able to figure out the meanings of what you are seeing on the screen. There is something to be said for learning a language by recognition and repetition rather than learning the grammer rules first. I do use my grammer book occasionally (I bought it before this) but only to satisfy my curiosity about certain thins like feminine and masculine articles, and singular and plural nouns...

Honestly this is a fantastic program that teaches you how to speak and hear French with amazing success. You do learn the grammer rules, but you figure them out for yourself by comparing phrases and by building on earlier lessons. It really is similar to the way a child learns to talk (without ever having to know what a past participle is). Bottom line - fantastic proram and I would have no problems suggeting it to anyone. Even if they know nothing about French and have struggled with other languages.

This will not work for you as the first or only program for learning French. It is great as a supplement to other methods of learning French. The method is entirely intuitive - there is no English anywhere, so you may also want to have a dictionary and a grammar book.

I have found Rosetta Stone language programs most useful for reviewing the information I have learned elsewhere, for brushing up on languages I haven't used for a while, and for expanding vocabulary.

It may not be the best choice for total beginners, but you can learn a lot by associating words and expressions with the images and occasional mini videos. I do consider it definitely a worthwhile purchase.

After using the R(osetta) S(tone) French course for the better part of 3 months, I'm beginning to form an opinion. My main conclusion is this: You won't learn a lot of French by using this program alone. You need solid backups such as a French grammar and dictionary, and running through another, more traditional course in parallel with RS wouldn't hurt either.

Fortunately, I didn't become aware of RS until I had at least some of the basic French grammar partially internalised through about a year of leisure-time study together with friends.

Having gone part of the way, getting RS came as a breath of fresh air. I could practise what I had learned, and listen to, read, write and speak French, and get immediate feedback on how I did. I'm also learning lots of new words, and picking up sentence constructs all the time.

Before purchasing RS however, you should know exactly what you're going to get. RS offers no explanations whatsoever on the principles behind the language. To someone completely new to French, it is not necessarily evident why adjective endings vary depending on - well, on what? If your native tongue is English, and French is your first experience with learing a second language, the idea of grammatical gender will be completely new to you, as will the idea of conjugating adjectives according to gender and number. RS offers no explanation of these or any other language concepts.

This is not an unintended shortcoming of the course. On the the contrary, this is all by design and intention. The very idea behind the course is that one should learn, not by rote-learning grammatical rules and looking up words, but by looking, reading and listening the way children learn their first language. To be honest, I'm not sure it works that way. I find myself looking up words in the dictionary when I'm unsure of what they mean, and consulting my grammar when wondering about some conjugation or construct.

For me, the two main strong points about RS are: 1) It is a quick and easy way to expand upon an existing, rudimentary understanding of the language, and 2) It is strong on speaking and listening, not just on reading and writing.

So much for the ideas and principles of the program. A couple of more practical gripes to round it all off:

The copy protection is a nuisance, and feels almost like an insult. You are required to keep the CD in the computer at all times while using the application, and it is virtually impossible to copy the CD. I believe that I should be allowed to protect my investment by making a backup copy for daily use, and keep the original in a safe place.

The keyboard driver is LOUSY. Apparently, Fairfield Language Technologies believes that their users will have a computer with a keyboard setup matched to the language they are trying to learn. This assumption is, of course, in direct opposition to what will usually be the case. Being a Norwegian, I will have a Norwegian, not a French keyboard setup. While there is an on-screen keyboard which can be operated by the mouse, this causes frustrations no end, with mismatched keys, and even one letter that cannot be accessed from the keyboard at all, so I'm forced to use the mouse (the on-screen keyboard has correct keys). No, it does not help to install and use the French keyboard layout in Windows 2000. The keys match up differently from the Norwegian layout, but they still do not match correctly, and several keys are still stone dead. A MAJOR flaw in a pricey and supposedly professional product like this.

I was not sure about whether to assign 2 or 3 stars, but I fell down on 3. In my book, to achieve 5 stars, RS would have to do something about the 2 practical point mentioned above, as well as change their presentation of the program to something more along the lines of "Excellent language learning supplement" than "Stand-alone language course". As a supplement it shines. As a standalone course it bombs.

This program is amazing. We have an apartment in France, and for five years have been attempting to learn the language. This is a fun and different approach with which we have made more progress in a month, than past years of memorization and boring drills.

To learn a new language without having to endure the rules of grammar is seductive. However, the repetition of learning vocabulary and language by associating words with pictures easily becomes boring. To maintain motivation, short sessions of 15 to 20 minutes twice a day is more effective for me.

I found that I can not learn another language without ANY English involved. I don't like having to guess at what they would like for me to know just by looking at pictures. I need to hear it in English first and then hear the foriegn phrase.

I also think that if you use this software, you will definitely need a dictionary in order to research what they are saying.

All in all this program isn't bad but it doesn't seem to have anything on grammar. Without learning the grammar of a language it is almost pointless to learn it because you will sound like a fool to someone who knows the language. The only other program I have tried is French NOW by Transparent Language which is just as good as this program, has grammar turtorials, and is much more affordable.

The Rosetta Stone application requires that the language CD be present in the harddrive, and it *continuously* spins up the CD disk while the program runs. This unfortunate design will quickly run down your laptop batteries, making this application unsuitable for travel. My repeated requests to Fairfield Technologies, the Rosetta Stone software company, to remedy this problem were declined. Considering the substantial price paid for this software, it should *behave* like software, and not a DVD. If the application could be installed and run like normal software, it would not uselessly drain you laptop batteries.