Customer Reviews

Rosetta Stone V2: Russian Level 1 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This program is a fun and fast way to start recognizing Russian words and sentences. You learn by hearing and seeing written cues along with photographs that represent various concepts. Click on the correct photograph and get a rewarding sound and move forward. It is intuitive, and you will find that you recognize a great deal very quickly.

There are a few drawbacks to the program, however. Because the program teaches using photographs, it is difficult to show that "I" am doing something or "you" are doing something. Most of the sentences, therefore, are in the third person. This is a challenge when you go to speak to someone and find that most of your conversation would be in the first and second person.

The other drawback is that there is no explanation of the grammar, and no translation of new vocabulary. I use this program with a Russian/English dictionary at my side. I understand that the point is that you learn the word for a concept rather than a translation, which is a better way to learn. On the other hand, it is not always clear what the photograph is trying to convey. For example, a photograph of a 1950s vintage green car has a word you have learned to be car, and an adjective. I had no idea what it was getting at until I looked up the adjective to see that it meant "old." Occasionally you might get an answer wrong because you mistook the action in the photo not because you didn't understand the grammar. It's not a major problem, but you do feel a bit cheated when it happens!

Also, it would be useful to have a function that would allow you to look up a grammatical rule behind new vocabulary so that you could not only hear that a certain ending is being added, but have an explanation of why it is being added.

Overall, however, I would recommend this program for its ease of use. It makes you feel that you're making progress very quickly, which helps get you past some of the discouragement you can sometimes face with a text book full of declensions.

I'd recommend using it with a good Russian/English dictionary and the book Master The Basics Russian which has good grammar charts.

I was *very* enthusiastic about buying and using this software in the beginning, but after using it for a couple of months find this software to be terribly lacking in many respects.

I am now well into the third unit (more than 20 lessons) and still have not learned how to say "hello." They've got the right approach in terms of methodology, but the material seems to have been lazily put together and fails to take into account so many obvious essentials that I wonder if the program was even designed by a competent linguist.

Do I really need to know how to say, "violet hat," "the bananas are in the basket," "the window is round," or "the man, woman and baby are sitting on the tractor" before I've even learned to say "hello"? The program abounds with impractical and even absurd phrases you wouldn't even use in the English language. When teaching a concept, why not use everyday language and objects? When will the boys and girls ever be standing on the table in your world? Or the man and woman standing on the wall??? I've skipped ahead and haven't uncovered any conversational material at all.

All too often, they'll dive right in with complex sentences composed almost entirely of words you haven't yet learned. Or you'll answer incorrectly because it's painfully unclear what concept is being taught. Again, this is just sloppy development. A bright native English speaker won't have too much trouble figuring out words and phrases in Romance languages, and the sentence structures are similar as well. Not so with Russian.

And where's Russia? There is no culturally specific material (I am willing to bet that all language versions of this software use the exact same pictures and have simply been translated). How about getting around on the Moscow subway system? What about the dishes you'll find in a Russian restaurant? Russian regions, names, holidays and traditions?

Of particular importance is that nearly all consumers of this product must learn to use the Cyrillic script, and there is nothing in the software to specifically accommodate this. Of course you will pick it up eventually -- and imperfectly -- by time-wasting, motivation-killing trial and error by the time you have gone through several units (dozens of lessons). It would make far more sense to include a component for learning the alphabet and rules of spelling from the outset. You'd learn the language faster that way. As it stands, you merely have the option of typing the lesson's words and phrases in Cyrillic. This will prove terribly frustrating when you have yet to learn any of the letters, with the consequence that you will be much farther ahead in speaking and pronunciation than writing for many units into the course. It would be a simple matter to include an alphabet and spelling module, but they don't bother.

And the *entire* index (approx. 100 lessons) is in Russian! They didn't bother to translate "counting," "parts of the body," "colors," "past tense," etc. into English. If you want to go back to the lesson on counting, you'd better write the unit and lesson number down, otherwise it will become lost in a sea of Russian-language grammatical terms that you will certainly never learn with this very software.

The software medium lends itself to tremendous possibilities for language learning, and ideally if you're purchasing software (and paying hundreds of dollars for it) there would be no need to buy anything else but a dictionary to get you well beyond the intermediate level. It would include all sorts of maps, short dialogues, games, and interactive features. I can only use this software as an adjunct to the other materials I'm accumulating -- online Cyrillic alphabet and verb tutorials, flash cards, and additional books and CDs such as Teach Yourself Instant Russian, a crash course in just what's missing from Rosetta Stone Russian.

I was initially going to give this product a two-star rating. But the cost of this software increases the degree of dissatisfaction. I am aware of the tremendous ad campaign Rosetta Stone has undertaken, doubtless with a concomitant increase in sales. If the company was new and unknown, I'd be more forgiving of the lazy template they've used. But the company has been around awhile and is obviously successful, yet has not bothered to make improvements and tailor the software to the particular language it is supposed to teach, in its cultural context.

I'm no linguist, but I am an avid language hobbyist and experience on a daily basis the truism that if the language you're learning doesn't allow you to communicate, then it is simply worthless.

The Rosetta Stone series of language instruction software is "Pimsleur" level of effectiveness and unfortunately, Pimsleur level cost as well.

The programs work on a total immersion basis, with no English used at all. There are several types of drills, ones where you hear a word or sentence and pick it out of a group of pictures, another where you read the text of the word and pick out the pictures, etc. There are also typing drills in your language to help you spell (without having to download special fonts), pronounciation drills that allow you to hear a word, speak it to your computer and hear your voice in comparison to the native speaker played back to you.

This is the first program of it's type I've found where this feature actually works!

I own both German and Russian 1 and 2. There is a LOT to learn here, especially if you do all the types of drills for each lesson. You learn grammar from inference, such as word endings when the subject is "in" something rather than "on" or "under" it. You see the same endings used, compare them with the pictures and you start to recognize patterns.

But one of the best things about this software is the user interface. Since it's an immersion program, there's no English used and by it's very nature needs to be intuitive. This is how it should be done. I've used other types of language software that had a klunky, confusing interface with features that didn't work, etc. None of that is the case with the Rosetta Stone software.

On another note, I switched to Mac about nine months ago and Fairfield Language Technologies sent me out a new Mac OS X systems disc for free, no questions asked. At this price level you'd think this would be commonplace, but it's not. Adobe allowed me to change from PC to OS X when I upgraded from Photoshop 6 to 7, but Macromedia wouldn't and expected me to buy all new software (I didn't). So kudos to FLT for their stellar customer service!

Is it too expensive? I'd say yes, but this is a serious language learning tool for serious self students, and it's a lot cheaper than classes at the U. The axiom is true with both this and the Pimsleur method tapes; you get what you pay for.

I bought the program in late November 2006. The program is set up well and the translations and dialect used is accurate. I have the one set in Russian and my Russian friend said that it was a good program to use. Before taking the program I took a free one online at [...] This site helps you learn all the basic words when interacting with someone. I found it quite helpful when using Rosetta Stone afterwards. If you purchase this product you will have to get a very good Russian/English dictonary. Once you get into chapter 2 the pictures and phrases won't make sense without a dictonary. Unfortunately the best dictonary to get is the one Oxford makes; I say unfortunately because it costs around $40. Also, if you are really interested in learning Russian you want to get a book called "RUSSIAN COURSE a complete course for beginners." This book explains plurals, nouns, and how to know when something is feminine, masculine, or an it. This book costs around $10 dollars. Rosetta Stone is good at getting you to memorize words without repetition. I thought that that wouldn't work but it works and better then I thought. Rosetta Stone doesn't explain how to tell if something if masucline or feminine. It only has one lesson covering plural words but doesn't explain how they should be pronounced for a variety of words. If you purchase the book, dictonary, and program you will truly master this language. The more I understand it; the more beautiful it is.

It is a great way to learn or review. It makes you learn by seeing a picture and than remembering what it means. It works very well, I used this product at school and it's worked beautifully for me. I had been trouble remembering the pronocation or the spelling of the words, I used this for a couple of times a week. And it helped wonderfully for me.

First its in sections with listening, reading, and translating by pictures or them telling you. The great thing is you can repeat it as many times as you want or you can just click the little icon on the right of the screen and see the answers so your not clueless.

It seperated by units, like one unit would be food or going to the supermarket another unit could be what you do on the weekends like 'I like to sit home and read'. It helps you have conversations with the people and even helps you by testing you at the end of each unit. (And it has many many units ranging from just listening and reading or listening and seeing the picture and repeating it.)

The flaw is that if you are a beginner it would be a Little challenging since it speaks to you a bit faster, hard to understand most of the words. But it makes up for it with some units by viewing the sentance from above.

It's a great program, above much others.

This system teaches very differently from how I learned Spanish in school. No grammer or sentence scructure in the beginning,(just nouns)and that is how far I am right now. You really have to listen hard to what the voice is saying, then select the right picture. You must practice every day. Hopefully it will click!

This item has already gotten me speaking and reading a goodly amount of Russian and quite fast. I highly recommend this product for anyone wanting to learn Russian quickly.

I've edited my original review since I've used this software for over a year now... see below...

From my original review: you don't have to be a "rocket scientist" to learn with this product. It actually makes learning FUN, and you don't even realize you are learning as you are using it... and yet I find after using it, the retention of the things I've learned is excellent. It has a very intuitive interface, and you are given examples such as "The boy runs" and then shown a picture of a woman dancing, a man walking, a boy running, and a dog jumping... simply select the right picture... or shown a picture and you select the right phrase that goes with that picture... a chime or applause or "winning sound" indicates a right choice, a buzzer or a sigh sounds if you are wrong... you can choose which sound you want to hear, or let the program select the right/wrong sounds at random... Well, before you know it, you are actually learning using pictures and ideas... the same way you learned your own language way back when...

Update a year later and three trips to Russia, a 4th one planned:

Since I first bought this product I've made 3 trips to Russia and made many Russian friends. They have all complimented me on how well I pronounce my spoken Russian. Also, I'll say that while this program did not make me ~fluent~ in Russian, it certainly gave me many words to use that helped me out in every day situations. And I did not even realize how MUCH of this software I was absorbing, until I was actually there IN Russia and speaking with Russians, and then the "images" associated with the sounds and the words and the dialogs in this program were just ~there~ for me.

Yes, I've also found it is handy to have a pocket dictionary handy (on occasion) to look up some of the words when you first encounter them.

However I totally disagree about needing grammatical syntax. That is the LAST thing you want to involve yourself in when you are first exposing yourself to a new language.

Yes, once you begin to know a language, it's definitely important, but if I hadn't gotten the "head start" on learning how to speak and how to read and how to pronounce Russian, as I did with this product, then I wouldn't have made the progress I did.

I notice that one other person prefers the Learning Russian Now! product instead of the Rosetta Stone.

I bought that product too, and as a pure BEGINNER, that product was way over and beyond my abilities at the time. It was way too much to deal with as a beginner learning Russian and just totally frustrated me to the max.

This product will give you a good sound basis to advance your Russian language skills from.

Without having used this product first, a more complex or complicated product, such as one that introduces grammatical rules or complex series of dialogs, would have been way over my head, and would have only frustrated me.

My advice? If you are beginning from Square One learning Russian, start with this product and then move up to more complex products only after you've achieved BASIC skills and abilities in Russian.

And Rosetta Stone will give you those in a fascinating, addictive, FUN environment. A year later and it's STILL fun and I've learned many things going back over the earlier lessons I thought I had down cold. You learn more grammar and syntax than you are even ~aware~ of learning, and that's another reason why this product is so good!

I've been in Russia for two weeks and I've had three sessions with Rosetta Stone. I'm a very poor language student, and Russian is not coming easily to me. However the repetitious (but not boring) nature of the program has you moving through the exercises at a fairly fast pace using generic photos and a comination of the spoken word and Cyrillic text. It's too early to tell if I'll soon be able to converse with a Russian beyond the most basic words and phrases, but I'm going to press on.

There is a feature that I can't use yet because I don't have a microphone. It allows you to record your own speech and compare it to a native Russian's. I'm going to try to buy one.

I have one problem.....in the typing exercise, there is an on-screen Cyrillic keyboard, and you have to click on each letter with the mouse in order to enter Russian words on-screen. Unfortunately, all I get is English......no Cyrillic. I've contacted Fairfield Language Technologies, and they haven't encountered this problem before. They think there is a problem with my computer. I've toggled Windows between English and Russian, and both give me English.

If it's possible, I'd be happy to write another review when I've completed the program. I'll be here for another two months, so I'll have plenty of time.

I have learned Spanish the traditional classroom method and feel this is a better way of learning if you can be disiplined enough to practice 30min to an hour a day.