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108 of 108 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good vocabulary builder and refresher, not for serious study, December 12, 2003
I am actually reviewing the online version from Rosetta Stone Online, which makes the full Level I and II versions available by subscription.Each section consists of a series of Listening, Reading/Listening, Speaking, and Reading exercises. The full version of this software consists of 19 units of 10-12 sections each. In each exercise, you are given a series of activities consisting of a choice of four pictures and/or pieces of text and/or spoken dialogues (depending on which type of activity it is), and you must choose the correct picture/text/dialogue from the cues. The exercises are very simple, suitable for children or for quick reviews. If you are new to Arabic, or refreshing your skills after a long period of disuse, the repetition will be useful in building your vocabulary (back) up. You are fed bits of grammar incrementally with each new unit. You start with simply identifying various people and objects, and then add a few adjectives, and then add a few verbs so you are recognizing simple sentences such as "The boy drinks some milk" or "The bird flies" or "This car is not red, it is white," etc. Each unit adds more pieces of grammar and more vocabulary, building up to more complex sentences, different verb tenses, and so on. However, that is as far as it can take you. Diligently practicing all the exercises should expand your vocabulary and give you basic grammatical skills in Arabic. It will not bring you to the point of being able to carry on a meaningful conversation (unless your conversations are confined to describing objects and pointing at various people and animals and stating what they are doing), nor will it enable you to, say, read a newspaper. For self-study, this software makes a good supplement to more robust texts and tapes. Don't expect it to bring you up to full proficiency. If you want to do more than recognize simple sentences and learn a lot of "everyday vocabulary," Rosetta Stone is insufficient. However, I do recommend it for the crucial repetition and "training your ear" that every language student needs, especially those doing self-study, if you are at a low to moderate proficiency level. It is important to note that the text is entirely in Arabic script. You must be able to read Arabic before you can practice anything but the listening exercises. (Get a good book on Arabic script and learn it -- it's not that difficult, a serious student should be able to read the script fairly proficiently within a week.) Also, there are no English translations at all. This is not a bad thing -- the way the information is presented, you are expected to pick up the meaning as you go along, and if you practice the exercises seriously, you will. Just be aware that this software is based on the Audio-Lingual method, so you will find no glossaries or explanations of grammar.
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