Rosetta Stone V3: Vietnamese Level 1-3 Set with Audio Companion [OLD VERSION]

by Rosetta Stone

Product Features

• Rosetta Stone teaches you a new language naturally, by getting you to think, live and breathe the language
• Innovative solutions get you speaking new words, right from the start
• Rosetta Stone moves forward only when you're ready--you drive the pace, you set the schedule
• With Rosetta Stone, you'll discover a foundation of key vocabulary that you'll use to build into a whole new language
• Audio Companion lets you take the Rosetta Stone experience anywhere: in the car, at the gym, or on-the-go

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0027ESMAC
• Item model number: 23085
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 23, 2009
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,132 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #73 in Software > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > Asian

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Rosetta Stone Personal Edition contains everything you need to give the voice inside of you a new language. The method used recreates the natural way you learned your first language, revealing skills that you already have. This approach has won numerous awards, and has been adopted by countless organizations, schools and millions of users around the world. Join the language revolution today. Only with Rosetta Stone.

The comprehensive language-learning solution that fits your life.

Learn Naturally
Learn your next language the same way you learned your first language. Dynamic Immersion empowers you to see, hear and comprehend without translating or memorizing. You already have this ability. Rosetta Stone simply unlocks it.

Engage Interactively
Get feedback to move forward. You learn best by doing, and you'll apply what you've learned to get to the next step. Rosetta Stone adapts to your individual needs and skills, because you drive the program with your progress.

Speak Confidently
Start speaking immediately. From the very first lesson, you'll speak. You'll begin with essential basics, which form the building blocks of the language. Soon you'll create new sentences on your own, using words you've learned.

Have Fun
Best of all, Rosetta Stone is addictive. With every entertaining activity, you'll feel success. You'll want to use Rosetta Stone to have that next moment, that next breakthrough. So you'll keep using it, and you'll learn more!

That's language-learning success.
That's Rosetta Stone.

No translation or memorization required.

The most effective way to learn a new language is to be surrounded by it. When you were an infant, your parents taught you this way, by intuitively associating words with images. That's the ultimate language lab, but most language-learning programs completely ignore this.

Think about all of the ways you've tried to learn a language: classes at school, tapes and cassettes, even software that uses your native language as a base for your next one. What do they all have in common? Translation and memorization.

Instead of taking a "direct flight" from your brain to your new language, translation and memorization connects you to your old language. You always have to "fly" from your brain, to your native tongue ... and then translate what you've memorized to communicate.

That might work for a few words, but what happens when you get to a sentence or phrase? When you have to change tenses? You're going to make a lot of "connecting flights." That's why those other methods are so frustrating ... and why they fail.

Enter Dynamic Immersion.
This method encourages you to think like a baby. You'll pair words with vivid, real-life images and make connections between things you know and the new language. Soon, you'll be thinking in a new language, stringing words together into phrases that you create.

Innovative technology.
Rosetta Stone places this Dynamic Immersion method at the core of a suite of software that works with you to develop your skills. The simple, intuitive interface helps to keep you engaged in the solution, while advanced speech recognition technology makes certain that you're speaking correctly and accurately. Best of all, Rosetta Stone never leaves you behind. You'll only move forward when you're ready, when you've become comfortable and confident.

Communicate and connect with the world: Level 1, 2 & 3 Set.
Rosetta Stone Level 1, 2 & 3 Set will take you on a journey from the basics to a whole new level of sophistication. You'll build a foundation of fundamental vocabulary and essential language structure. You'll quickly gain the confidence to engage in social interactions. Say "hello" and "goodbye," arrange travel, order food, go shopping and more! From there, you'll share your ideas and opinions, express feelings and talk about your life, your interests and more. You'll discover a voice. In a new language.

Audio Companion
With Audio Companion, you'll enhance the Rosetta Stone experience wherever you go. You'll learn new skills on the computer, and then reinforce what you've learned with Audio Companion. Simply play the CDs on a stereo or download them to a MP3 Player. Each Audio Companion activity corresponds to a lesson in the Rosetta Stone software, so you can turn your travel time into productive language-learning time.

Inside the box, you'll find:

• Version 3 Personal Edition CD-ROM software for Levels 1, 2 & 3 (Windows/Mac)
• Headset microphone
• User's guide
• Audio Companion, a multiple-CD set to play or download to your MP3 player

Product Description

Connect with the world around you. Build a foundation of fundamental vocabulary and essential language structure. Quickly gain the confidence to enjoy social interactions such as greetings and introductions, travel, dining out, giving and getting directions, shopping and other recreational activities. Learn to share your ideas and opinions, express your feelings and talk about everyday life, your work, your interests, current events and much more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Only Northern Vietnamese Dialect Taught, April 27, 2010

By 

DT (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rosetta Stone V3: Vietnamese Level 1-3 Set with Audio Companion [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

I agree with the other reviewer. The methodology for Rosetta Stone is great, however the Vietnamese modules only teach the Northern dialect.

My family is from Southern Vietnam (when it was 2 countries), and I wanted to learn more Vietnamese to better touch base with my roots. However, I was very disappointed when I demoed RS and found that the "teachers" all spoke the Northern dialect.

Not only can the Northern and Southern dialects be quite different in sound (when reading the same word), but the Southern dialect integrates both Chinese and French words in its everyday vocabulary which the Northern dialect does not.

It would be great if RS used speakers who were representative of ALL of Vietnam. This would allow customers to get a realistic view/ear for how all Vietnamese people really speak (especially when over half the country is being overlooked). Also, one of my Vietnamese teachers from Saigon pronounced Vietnamese in a more neutral way. It would also work if RS had a speaker who was dialect neutral.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars big disappointment, June 28, 2010

By 

craig - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rosetta Stone V3: Vietnamese Level 1-3 Set with Audio Companion [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

As a Vietnamese American who came to the United States at 7 years of age, I bought Rosetta Stone Vietnamese version 3 to help me teach my children how to speak Vietnamese. This is my third Rosetta Stone product. A couple of years back, I bought RS version 3 Mandarin to learn to communicate with my in-laws who are originally from Taiwan. I also bought Vietnamese Version 2, the latest version at the time, for my kids. From personal experience, the methodology of RS version 3 works very well in teaching the language. I was able to pick up Mandarine and understand my in-laws (and kids). Version 2 was not as good with teaching my children Vietnamese. There is not enough repetition and clues as to what words mean. My kids, 4 ands 6 years old, already speak the language but I wanted to improve their vocabulary beyond what I usually use with them in everyday communications. Being a native speaker, I double checked Version 2 and found it to be correct in pronunciation and definition. As a matter of fact, they speak the same Northern dialect that my family speaks but more importantly they pronounce the words properly. I eagerly awaited the arrival of version 3 because I know its methodology works in teaching language.

Vietnamese Version 3 has been a big disappointment. After much frustration and effort to "make it work," I'm returning the product. While the methodology is great, same as Mandarin version 3, their pronunciation of words is INCORRECT! Vietnamese is a tonal language and their use of tones is incorrect even though they use native speakers who most likely currently live in Vietnam. How is this possible? For this we need a bit of a history lesson.

My parents emigrated south from Hanoi in 1954, when the country was divided into two, North and South Vietnam. We were Northerners who lived in the south. We are familiar with both the Northern and Southern dialect. These dialects generally differ in some vocabulary words and pronunciation of certain consonant but their use of tones is the same as dictated by the written language. In 1975, when the country fell, we left for the United States. From 1975 until recently, as a generalization, most people who could leave Vietnam did so. This is especially true for the intelligentsia. Hence, the Vietnamese people left behind who ran the country (into the ground I might add) were communists and their version of the Vietnamese language came from "the village." Their Vietnamese, the same in Rosetta Stone Version 3, is incorrect in its pronunciation of the written language because of its incorrect use of tones. Version 2 was correct in its use of tones.

I tried using the Version three for almost a month, always sitting with my children and pointing out the "mistakes," i.e. improper tones each time they used the program. The methodology of Rosetta Stone Version Three is very good at teaching my kids their version of the Vietnamese language. I, unfortunately, do not want my kids to speak Vietnamese this way. It is incorrect. As stated above, I will be returning this product and reluctantly going back to using version 2. If Rosetta Stone corrects this problem I will be the first in line to buy their new product.

As a side note, does anyone know of any other good computer program to teach the Vietnamese language?

Craig Nghiem

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars First try with Rosetta Stone, September 6, 2009

By 

Kevin R. Terrell "poebel" (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rosetta Stone V3: Vietnamese Level 1-3 Set with Audio Companion [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

I was a language major in college, picked up Italian in 4 months well enough to conduct business negotiations, and can still read some Swedish many years after 3 months of twice a week lessons while studying in Stockholm. And I can still bumble my way through French a long time after two years of high school classes.

So when I needed to learn Vietnamese to communicate with my girlfriend's family, I was confident I would be able to pick it up. I chose Rosetta Stone as the method simply because I wanted to see what all the buzz was about. My take is that the methodology of total immersion to learn "like a baby learns" might be useful if I had a lifetime to learn a language. However, after going through the first disk I am baffled as to even the basic structure of the language. Having spent similar amounts of time learning other languages, I can confidently state I am nowhere near as far along in Vietnamese as I have been in other languages.

I am used to quickly learning the structure of a language (pronouns, verb formation, etc) and then layering on vocabulary using a total immersion methodology. Within just a few lessons I have been able to start basic communication. Rosetta Stone offers only the immersion, no structure. I would be completely embarrassed if I went to the nail shop with my girlfriend where she goes to practice the language herself.

Rosetta Stone may work well for other people's learning style. It does not work for me and I intend to return the lessons within the 90 day guarantee.