Customer Reviews

Rosetta Stone V3: Chinese (Mandarin) Level 1 with Audio Companion [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I bought this product with great expectations. I have been trying off and on for years to learn to be mildly conversant in Mandarin Chinese. I completed two semesters of college level Chinese, but that has been some time ago. My interest rekindled by the Rosetta Stone ads persuaded me to try the product.

The first course shows you a series of pictures with captions in Chinese along with a spoken description in Mandarin of what you are seeing. Later you are shown four pictures simultaneously on one screen with a query in Mandarin as to what you are seeing. The problem for me was that it was not always clear in the single photo series as to what I was seeing. For instance there is a picture of a chef cooking in a wok. Was this depicting cooking, a chef, a restaurant, or something else? There is no English subtitle or "cheat sheet" to help. When the quiz portion showed various pictures with a spoken query it was very hard for me to answer, because I wasn't sure as to what I had seen in the first place.

I don't think I would have made it through the first three lessons had I not had previous experience with Mandarin Chinese. By the end of the third lesson, I was so frustrated; I couldn't continue and returned the product.

There is one feature that I thought was good, but also appears in other software products of this ilk. Since Mandarin is a tonal language, the software matches your tones to the correct tone and alerts you as to whether you are correct or not. For Chinese this is a must have feature.

Some people may benefit from this product if they are more visually attuned to what they are seeing. It reminds me of the icons used by many software products; many make no sense to me but seem obvious to others (which is why flyovers were invented).

This is a terrific way to learn a new language-- its absolutely amazing! I purchased Rosetta Stone Chinese Level 1 ( with Audio Companion) to learn the basics before a trip. The software arrived last Friday, I installed it on Sunday PM, and started the lessons immediately after that. What I liked best:
1) the 'rosetta stone' process uses pictures, text, and native speakers to teach you the language. There is no translation from say English to Chinese- that's not how it's done. They start out with pictures and text, they give you an example ( picture, text, and native speaker saying the phrase), then you match the text to other examples.
2) It's FUN!! why else would I repeat the first section of the first lesson 3 times!
3) you can progress at your own pace
4) you can check your progress at any time during a lesson
5) you can listen to the phrase as many times as you need to before making your choice in the lesson
Points to consider:
1) Initially, it does seem to progress a bit too fast- the phrases get longer and longer. In later lessons, those same phrases come up again, so the fact that you saw them before ( and heard them before) makes the later lessons easier.
2) As the other reviewer indicates, they do, at one point present you with a picture of a glass of water, a cup of tea, and a glass of juice-- the purpose of the lesson is to be able to get the right word with the right item. When you match the right word with the correct item, the program gives you positive feedback. Until you do that, it could be confusing.
3) sometimes the differences ( in the language) are so slight, that I had to do that page of the lesson more than once to get the concept. There is one screen where they show 4 pictures ( one of 3 girls, one of 1 girl, one of 1 boy, and one of 3 boys).. while it's clear from the earlier screens what they are doing ( eating, reading, drinking, or reading the paper), I didn't immediately pick up on the difference in the phrase to indicate that it was one girl doing something, or three girls doing something, so I didn't make the right choice the first time through on the lesson. Then again, I guess that's why it's a 'learning experience' and why you get to practice!
4) the headset that comes with it can be a little touchy-- you'll need to adjust it-- they tell you how to do that as part of the install.

I'm to the point in the lesson where the phrases are written in chinese ( rather than written phonetically)-- my scores on this section are higher than the scores when the phrases were presented phonetically- and it's LOTS of fun.
While the software package is expensive, you can install it on up to 2 machines ( Windows or Mac), with up to 5 individual users per machine. So if you have several people who want to learn the language, it would be a good value. Based on my experience with the Chinese language software, I'll order other language packages from Rosetta Stone. It's a great product-- they definitely have the right concept and methodology for how to teach a language!

I purchased the software solely to encourage my children to learn a different language. Unfortunately, it quickly jumps into large words that are difficult to grasp. In addition, the pictures have no English translation. For instance, the picture in reference is a glass of water in Chinese translation. Is the translation referring to a glass of water, a glass, or just water? Next to this picture is another picture with a glass of tomato juice. Different picture, same translation.
The fact that there is no English translation, has one guessing the meaning of the translation .
The software might work best for someone has taken a course or two.

Rosetta Stone gets an A+ for its marketing skills. No amount of dissatisfied customer reviews and blogs can gain a foothold against the overwhelming amount of advertisements for Rosetta stone in magazines, on television, and at shopping mall kiosks across the country.

"Learn language like a baby!"
"Impress an Italian super model!"

Try, "Waste your money!"

Why? It is very hard to explain without a long discussion on the topic. It is just as if all of the "learning" going on is taking place outside of my mind, between my eyes/ears and the computer. As if I am a monkey learning to recognize certain cues, sounds, phrases, words, but not really understanding the significance of any of it. It does not root within my subconscious... I am not truly "getting" it. Outside of my office, on the streets of Huhhot, China (where I live), I can never recall anything from the lesson earlier that day. If I hear the word, I will recognize it, but try to get me to recall how to say it, and I will be without a prayer.

I can't even point at a carrot and say its name! Don't even try to get me to say "Grocery Store" in Chinese! I have no clue how to say that!

Contrast this with what I have learned through Pimsleur. The learning that takes place there is deep in my mind. I can say those phrases in my sleep. I can construct new sentences without skipping a beat. I can speak with confidence. I can speak well, and clearly. I can... speak Chinese! Pimsleur gives you the building blocks of a language, teaches how to USE the language, and equips you to, not just recite certain words or phrases, but to construct your own! It liberates you to go out onto the streets, use the tools in your box, add some more, refine your skills, and... learn a foreign language!

Perhaps this review has been a little murky, I know, but not nearly as murky as the memory of the last lesson completed on the "famed Rosetta Stone."

Save your money.

I am about halfway through level 1 Chinese and am having a great time and really learning Chinese! My sister in law is a native speaker and she says I am doing well with the pronounciation and grammer. I think the reviewers who said the method was too confusing maybe weren't giving it a chance. One of the ways they introduce new words is this: they show you a picture of say bread and say 'mian bao', then repeat (different picture of bread then "mian bao") then they say "mian bao" and give you three pictures to choose from (one of which is a picture of bread). Then they show a picture of an apple and say "ping guo" and repeat "ping guo" and give you the same three pictures (bread, apple and egg) you choose apple. Then they say "jie dan" and you pick the only picture you haven't used yet... the egg. Now you know the words for bread, apple, and egg. I am not good at memorizing things, and I am learning very quickly (we've had the program about one month and I am halfway through it. My older two kids (ages 13 and 10) are also doing it, and although they are not going as quickly as I am, they are able to do it without too much trouble. I highly recommend this program for anyone who is an auditory or visual learner. Another great feature is that the lessons are mostly very short, 5 to 15 minutes average, so if you don't have big blocks of time you can still achieve a lot in a short time. There is a lot of repetition so everything you learn is reinforced.
Happy learning and Zia Jiian (good bye)

Based upon all the marketing that Rosetta Stone does you would think that their software was really novel and far superior to other language learning methods, but after some time with the software I am not so sure. The software starts by having the user presented with various pictures and the software speaks the words for you for the phrases that you are practicing that particular unit. At no point even in the "grammar" sessions is the concept of even basic word order ever even presented. They basically presume that one is going to learn by trial and error, which given enough time will work, but without some basic understanding of grammar one is mindlessly repeating phrases until one discovers a pattern, which isn't exactly the most efficient means of learning. While that is obviously the *only* way people learn an L1 language (ie. your first language, mother tongue, etc.) with L2 language learning it is sometimes helpful in cases where grammar of the language that one is learning is substantially different from one's native language to have some direct instruction on grammar sense without knowing grammar you can't really understand or use the language. Since Mandarin Chinese isn't even in the same general language group it isn't too surprising that the grammar rules are a bit different than English and hence even a little background might be helpful.

A few other criticisms that I see are that such obviously useful concepts such as cardinal numbers don't get presented early. In most language courses I'm familiar with such concepts get introduced fairly early. One thing that gets a bit monotonous is that there isn't much variety whereas voices. As far as I can tell there are two female voices and two male voices that simply get shuffled around. Another criticism I notice is the lack of authentic texts. In the traditional courses I've taken for a foreign language there has always been various authentic real world uses of the language in question (eg. newspapers, advertisements, cartoons, etc.) that are used in exercises. Despite the cost of the program so far as I can tell Rosetta Stone didn't bother to license the use of any actual authentic content. Obviously licensing content costs money, but it seems exceedingly lazy to not even try to spend the time to make up some content. If one were learning a language via immersion in a country where said language was the primary language one obviously would obviously see the language all around them in various non-contrived uses. Therefore, Rosetta Stone's boast of immersion seems to be a bit of marketing hype in my opinion. Heck, they don't even seem to teach anything about culture. In the absence of understanding a bit of the culture one misses out on certain cultural references or phrases that would be useful in conversations.

Based upon the sample phrases I believe that I figured out a lot, but I ironically found "cheating" and looking up the definitions to a couple of the words in the canned phrases helpful insofar as that I wasn't guessing wrong repeatedly from the context of the sentence. The marketing claims that one can build confidence to use one's vocabulary in real situations, but I don't see any opportunity to actually create one's own sentences and have the software grade your grammar. As anyone who has ever used a grammar checker in Microsoft Word or similar application knows designing one that has perfect comprehension of grammatical rules can be difficult so expecting software to be able to grade your mini essays in a language that you are learning may be a bit of a tall order. This is one area that would find in a traditional classroom environment that doesn't really get duplicated well in this software. The "writing" sections are little more than picking 2-3 options. To make matters worse often times the answers are basically verbatim of what one had seen in the opening section of a lesson. Sure, I may have remembered the brief sentence from the opening lesson, but that doesn't mean I really understand the grammar rules or even understand what is being said. The rather repetitive near verbatim followup lessons make the lessons boring at times insofar as that one is merely reviewing existing material without learning anything new.

While I think that the product clearly has some value for the cost of the product I am a bit disappointed. I could see this as more of benefit towards students as a supplement to more traditional foreign language instruction, but I could hardly recommend this as a replacement for traditional language instruction.

I remember the drudgery of trying to learn a language in Junior High the old fashioned way, with vocabulary lists and lots of reapeating the same phrase over and over. It was a whole year of boring work for very little progress. But Rosetta Stone has changed all that. It's now fun and rewarding to learn, and the fact that they constantly change the phrases around gives you more than a tiny stiff vocabulary.

Mandarin has become my obsession since I got Mandarin Levels 1 and 2 in June. Hubby and I are both making swift progress and feel confident enough to start making conversation with native Chinese speakers in our area, who are almost without exception enthused to help. I find I understand the language basics now in an organic, natural way, and can actually form sentences on the fly with fair accuracy after only 5 months. Immersion works!

If you have any doubts, try it with Rosetta Stone-- you'll be surprised just how easy it can be to learn a language when the method uses the same techniques that taught you your first language. I love this program. We plan to get Spanish after we've gone through all three levels of Mandarin. It's that good!

This is just a short review about the pronunciation correction feature. Many of the other comments left here refer to the audio companion as being an advantage. Actually, it does NOT recognize tonal differences. I have been studying Chinese for a year and have always been given great compliments about my tones in Chinese (my Chinese is NOT good yet, but I do well with the tones). Just out of curiousity, I did the wrong tones on purpose and the voice recognition system still tells me that I am correct. It WOULD be a great help for those struggling with the basic sound system of Chinese, but in the classes that I have taken, it seems like most students struggle more with the tones and this product pretends like they don't exist when it grades you. I even asked a Taiwanese friend to test it out for me, and she agreed that it will still tell you that you are correct even if your tones are wrong.

Other than this, I am happy with the system so far. I do not expect to become fluent with the system, but it seems like it does well for what it is. Just another tool among many to help me inch toward my goal of eventually being able to have a conversation in Mandarin. :)

I received the Mandarin Level 2 as a Christmas gift. I had taken Chinese in college but wanted to refresh my foundation before starting the level 2 so I purchased the level 1 myself. While going through the program I kept coming across some errors in the program, specifically mistranslations and incorrect pinyin-to-character matching. I called Rosetta Stone to tell them about it and to see if anything could be done to correct the problem. They said they had been unaware of the problem but would get back to me. They never did. 2 months later I called again to say I was dissatisfied with the program because it was essentially teaching the wrong words to people using the program. That basically ended up in another 2 month back-and-forth with their "customer service" department who has yet to refund my money. I bought the level 1 in January and we're now in August. Their customer service reps have been completely unreliable, hard to get a hold of, even when you have an "appointment" to call them. I am totally and completely disgusted with the company itself, and have lost all faith in the Rosetta Stone name. They really should be ashamed of how they manage their product and relations with paying customers.

I'm at a loss for another program to try, but if I were you, I wouldn't waste my money on this. I sure wish I hadn't.

So far, it's been a great product. It's about the price of an introductory course at a community college and you learn the stuff pretty well. You do need some background though, like tones for pronunciation and a little experience before doing it. Jumping in 100% (as in can't even hello in Chinese) new to Chinese and you'll get lost a bit.