Customer Reviews

Rosetta Stone V3: Spanish (Latin America) Level 1 with Audio Companion [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I had 2 years of high school German many years ago and now that I am retired I thought it might be fun to learn a new language to help keep my mind active. I picked Spanish because I never really used the German I learned and with Spanish TV and trips to Yuma I figured I might be able to use it. I did quite a bit of research to find a program I could really learn the language at home on my own schedule. This is the best program I found. The program teaches you how to understand, speak, read and write the language. It is done all in Spanish through pictures. You are shown a picture and you are expected to respond in Spanish. The voice recognition decides if you are speaking it correctly and does not continue until you do. It also asks you to type answers in Spanish to questions or pictures. It builds from single words to sentences and to groups of sentences. You can go back and redo lessons which I have many times but it also retests you at timed intervals based on the questions you missed. I have been working with it for 5 months now and really enjoy it.

Some things you should think about before you buy this expensive program. Learning a new language while fun is also very time consuming. The person taking the course needs to be motivated to continue because this isn't a 2 week course but a learning system and will take you a year working every day to become fluent enough to actually use the language.

If you are really committed to learning a language I'd suggest you buy all 3 levels at once. It is expensive but far cheaper that buying them one at a time. I bought the first level to see if I would like it and then ended up having to buy the other 2 levels separately. This gave me 3 sets of headphones. There is also an audio companion that comes with each level. I found it difficult to use and stopped after a couple of months. I may go back and try it after I have completed the levels.

What else do you need besides the course? Well, I would suggest a good Spanish/English dictionary. Sometimes it is hard to tell exactly what is shown in the picture. You can get Spanish children's books from the library and of course Spanish TV. This will help you with the sound and rhythm of the language. You can listen to popular Spanish songs. You've heard the phrase "Lost in translation." well the words that flow so well in one language probably won't in another. The rhymes of Dr Seuess work well in English and fall flat in Spanish and the lyrical Spanish songs sound clunky when translated. But don't let this stop you. The goal is to think in both languages. Once past level one I would suggest the book "Breaking out of Beginner's Spanish" by Joseph J. Keenan. It is not a language book but a book on the customs of Spanish countries. Using I when talking about yourself is common in English but considered self centered and arrogant in Spanish so it is dropped.

If you are considering Rosetta Stone for someone else or aren't really sure for yourself they offer a free lesson CD. Try that first.

Adio'sBreaking Out of Beginners Spanish

While my experience with the CD glued to the sleeve was the same as the other review, I found that denatured alcohol would remove the glue quite well. Rosetta really should look into this.
Beyond this small problem I have found this product to be exactly as promised. It is the easiest, fastest, and in my experience the most successful method of learning a new language in the shortest amount of time. Rosetta conveys vast amounts of well thought out information in a manner that is really quite revolutionary to the field of language learning. By simply going thru the exercises your will develope the numerous skills required to know and use a new language. You are simultaneously learning the vocabulary and grammar as well as learning to hear and speak Spanish. All of this happens without the laborius and tedious study that is normally required in other methods of language study. By using repetition and the introduction of small amounts of new information in each new lesson you will learn how to think in Spanish rather than translating each word or phrase that you want to use.
Let me add that the lessons are more useful and pertinent than any other lessons I have used. It is not "tourist language".
In conclusion I would say that if you are willing to put in the time to do the exercises you will be able to speak Spanish with confidence in
the shortest amount.

I'm surprised at the poor reviews. Apparently, the packaging issue has been resolved, as my discs were not glued to the box. That aside, I LOVE this program! I took Spanish in high-school, over 20 years ago. I didn't do well then, and have forgotten all but "hola," and "gracias," since then. The first few lessons were pretty easy, very basic, but I was amazed at how quickly my vocabulary grew. I put the audio companion in my car, and can actually picture what they're saying without any translation. I'm stunned! I'm close to the end of level one, and it's gotten a bit more difficult. But at the end of each little section, I am joyfully surprised at what I'm actually retaining. This program is great!

All in all, we love the product, but find the customer support to be severely lacking.

I purchased this product for myself and kids to learn Spanish over the summer. We have not had a good experience with phone support. After several calls, we are still unable to resolve a simple issue with product activation.

You know the story...bounced around from tech support to customer support...and back again....hours waiting in a phone queue only to reach yet another agent with the same canned answers. Another barrier is the fact that phone agents do not speak clearly in English. Ultimately, we still have the problem after all the effort. I guess we'll have to brave it again tomorrow and hope we can reach someone who can actually understand and help, but I'm not optimistic.

It is unfortunate that such a great software product has such poor customer support. Beware if you buy, you won't get much in the way of support.

My Rosetta Stone box included two CDs. One is used to install the program. The other CD must be inserted EVERY TIME you use the program. Due to copy right protection, you can NOT make a copy of this CD. You also can not mount this CD to your hard drive. The result is that when this CD gets worn (a blemish, or in my case a fingerprint) -- the program will not work. Once your CD quits working, you are out a couple hundred bucks or you can try Rosetta Stone's "customer service" (read other reviews). Since you need to put in the CD in your disk drive each time you want to use Rosetta Stone, it's only a matter of time until your CD will become worn or damaged.

For the amount of money you pay, the program is surprisingly basic and unpolished. The program itself offers very little instruction and has cryptic keys (an unbrella means go back to the start of the lesson?) The pics are low quality stock-type photos. I can easily cheat and guess the correct responses without actually learning the Spanish. For me, the program forces me to learn from my mistakes......which is not the way I prefer to learn. I think it would be much more expediant to have English explanations during the early lessons.

I question why I should learn the Spanish word for "elephant" in the first lesson. I don't think I'll need to say elephant when I visit South America. I've completed 3 lessons and I still can't order off a menu, find the bathroom, or say please or thank you.

The outrageous price for this product must go toward marketing and copyright protection. It certainly is not obvious when using the program. I will be trying the Fluenz system next.

BEWARE! If you buy this product you can never resell it. Never return it. Never upgrade it. You better love it. Because you're stuck with it. I purchased version 2 a year ago and wanted to upgrade to 3 so I thought I'd sell my version 2. Rosetta Stone cancelled my eBay auction and threatened LEGAL action for attempting to resell an original legitimate in the box version of their product. They will only let you return it for 6 months and ONLY if you bought it directly from them (sorry Amazon) and there are NO upgrades. Basically, I'm out $500. Though I would never ever consider buying another Rosetta Stone product, where the customer is always wrong. BEWARE of this company.

I bought Rosetta Stone and was quite pleased with it. I used it for about 6 months before a virus took out my hard drive. After I reformated and reloaded the hard drive, Rosetta Stone customer service informed me that they will not allow me to reactivate the reloaded program unless I can produce my store receipt; something that no longer exists after 6 months. I now have a worthless $250 product that is unusable. If you buy this product, save your receipts and good luck to you if you have a problem. Rosetta Stone is more interested in protecting their product than satisfying their customers.

As I am approaching 65 I was wondering if I was capable of learning another language. I had tried several other progams with a lot of hard work and very little to show for it. I was beginning to doubt as to weather I was capable of learning another language. Roseta Stone's aproach of language immersion, mimicing early human language development with it's visual links and verbal cues were and are pefect for me. It's fun and challenging at the same time. I look forward to using my Roseta Stone every day to learn new things and be gently challenged. I also think because there is no translation issues the entire program is emmensly streamlined. The real challenge is that you have to learn a whole new frame of reference which would be true in learning any new language. Rosetta Stone, in my case has made the transition a lot easier by not putting grammar and translating at the forefront of the learning experience.
The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because I can't reuse the program on my laptop. That would have been helpful.

I like the Rosetta Stone language program for it contents. It works flawlessly on my XP system computer. Have had multiple problems on my VISTA system laptop. They have now spent over 4 months trying to fix all the bugs, and are still working on it. It seems to be only on certain computers-mine is a Compaq Vista system laptop.

I am half way thru the Level 1 CD for Spanish and I am really learning. I like the way, YOU have to figure out what they are saying by a picture - no one talks to you in regards to a translation which makes you think and most importantly - remember! I can even write it! It helps that I have several spanish speaking co-workers to try my new knowledge on! I just might have to purchase Level 2!