Customer Reviews

Rosetta Stone V2: Turkish, Level 1

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I'm an American who speaks several other languages.

When I got engaged to a Turk and was preparing to move to Turkey, I bought everything I could find on learning Turkish. I spent months on Rosetta stone, but learned very little vocabulary, and wasn't able to make a single sentence.

The system works by showing photos and captions, and you have to match them. For instance, one page might have 4 photos of a man pushing a cart, pulling a cart, sitting on a cart, and lying under a cart. Then you choose between the Turkish phrases "he is pushing," "he is pulling," and match them to the photos.

The problems are that 1) you'll never need to say "he is pushing" in real life, and 2) you can simply memorize something about the word that goes with the picture. I found myself thinking "the longest phrase is the one that means 'he's lying under it'." So I never learned the words, but just learned to beat the system. I worked through the first 50 or so lessons, but didn't learn more than a handful of words.

I also tried numerous books and CDs, but only one thing worked. That was the Pimsleur audio-CD series. I started with the basic set, but ended up happily buying the complete 30-lesson set (Turkish: Learn to Speak and Understand Turkish with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon & Schuster's Pimsleur)). It's expensive, but I learned more for the money than I could have got by paying for private lessons. I'm totally sold on Pimsleur and will use it whenever I learn a language in the future. I did each half-hour lesson twice while walking my dogs at the park each day.

With Pimsleur, you actually learn grammar and vocabulary (about 400 words) and can actually form sentences. Pimsleur talks you through syllable by syllable, so you really hear each letter of the word and learn pronunciation. By the time I came to Turkey, I was able to speak pretty well and hold simple conversations, something that I never could have done if I'd stuck with Rosetta Stone. And I'm told constantly that I have a "perfect" accent, something I never could have gotten through Rosetta Stone.

I had purchased level 1 v2 last year and as stated in previous reviews it wasn't all the hype that Rosetta Stone makes its language tools seem like. But if you are like me and books put you to sleep, this interactive way does help, but I can't say that this is worth the price. The major issues I faced with this tool were, it didn't really teach many useful words, to use in everyday speech and since Turkish has a different grammatical structure it is very easy to confuse the meeting of a word. You may think a word means "above" but it really means "under" - its the difference between reading a sentence as "The table is above the boy" or "The boy is under the table". In the example provided, the word for word translation is "Table <word to figure out above/under> the boy" so naturally I plugged in "above", thank goodness I had a Turkish friend to correct me and said the subject is at the end of the sentence and it should read "The boy <guess word> table" I was able to figure out the rest once I understood this basic of the program. With that said, the program is only good if you either know someone who can help you or if you have a book that teaches you the basics of Turkish first (I recommend "Teach yourself Turkish - a complete course for beginners by Asuman Çelen Pollard and David Pollard."

When v3 came out I was excited to try the new audio companion, to my disappointment to install v3 means I couldn't use v2, or at least the sales and help department was unable to tell me how I can have both of these software versions co-exist. But that was only the beginning of the disappointment, I had reached out to their help department and and they recommended me to call their sales department to upgrade my older version of level 1 as I just recently brought level2 in v3. The sales department was unknowledgeable and rude, they kept pushing me to re-purchase level 1 in v3, and when I asked what the difference between the versions and why I would want to pay another 200$ for the same level they can only tell me that is it uses "new teaching techniques" and I will have to experience it to understand, they should of told me the new box it came with new "stuff". Sorry to say but for a $200+ software they should be able to convince me that this is what I needed and how it was better for me to repurchase what seems to be the same thing with an audio companion. I ended up returning the software and looking for a new language tool and filed a complaint to Rosetta stone which of course has not gotten back to me yet, its been a month.

I have mixed feelings about the Rosetta Stone program. Even though it says it provides a natural way to learn, I find its lack of word definitions a serious problem. As a learner of another language I sometimes want to know the actual meanings of the words I'm learning. Pictures and situational learning is useful but incomplete. For the price, I would not recommend it unless that style of learning works for you.

This was the first time I have used Rosetta Stone and I was thoroughly impressed with the ease of use. Turkish is a tough language to learn if you cannot roll your r's so be forewarned.

My problem is not with the product. I was mailed three, not one, of the items ordered. I returned the two not ordered over a month ago. My account has not been credited yet.