The answer to this question depends on who you are, and whether you have to pay for the software package. Nobody has ever ‘just learned’ Japanese without studying the language-even Japanese people! Should I buy Rosetta Stone? There are many ways of immersing yourself into natural Japanese without giving up on other ways of learning the language at the same time. In fact, I am a big believer in this method, and if you do have the time and resources to learn this way, certainly give it a try. This is to say I am in no case against learning Japanese by immersion. Rosetta stone, to a certain extent, neglects this. We’re already used to complex grammar structures and our syntactical knowledge is infinitely more advanced than that of a child, meaning that we can take many shortcuts when studying a foreign language as many of the important conceptual links have already been made. This ‘natural’ way of learning the language may be engaging at the beginning, but in the long-term, this is not an effective way of learning Japanese. What the authors of Rosetta Stone are forgetting is that you are most probably no longer a child, let alone a baby. The company invites you to throw away all your flash cards, dictionaries, and boring grammar & memory tests, and to learn the language the way a Japanese akachan (baby) does in its infancy-by immersing yourself into native dialogues and exclamations without the slightest ideas about Japanese vocabulary or grammar. Unlike most of its competitors, Rosetta takes a very relaxed approach, and the premise behind its way of teaching Japanese and other languages is certainly very appealing. For a more thorough explanation as to why, please read my introduction to romaji and introduction to kana. If you decide to use Rosetta, we urge you to choose the former. On every screen, you will have the option between displaying the text in Japanese characters, or in romaji. If you’re used to rote learning vocabulary and grammar, this method will indeed look quite impressive at first, especially if you’re lucky enough to guess right most of the time. You will be presented with various images and simple sentences and will be prompted to make your best guess as to what you see and how it’s called. In practice, the different courses vary only slightly, and follow the exact same methodology.Īfter watching a short inspirational intro video, you’ll be thrown right into the action. Some help estimate your level of Japanese, some are intended to quickly teach you the basics, and some are optimized for a more long-term holistic approach to learning the language. When you first launch the program, you will be greeted with a selection of different curricula which you can choose from. The application is extremely polished, virtually bug-less, and is presented with a beautiful and highly intuitive design. If there’s one place where Rosetta Stone excels, it is the quality of its software. Surprisingly enough, you may have difficulties even with the listening section Rosetta’s course has a high concentration of listening exercises, but they are unfortunately all played at a very slow, unnatural speed incomparable to the dialogues presented at the JLPT. Note that despite being divided into three levels and numerous lessons, the course barely reaches the higher-beginner level of Japanese, and Japanese presented in Level 3 lessons is still very simplistic.Īlso, even after completing all three levels of Rosetta Stone Japanese, you may still have problems passing JLPT N5, the lowest level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test which is generally considered to be very easy. You can also purchase Level 1, 2 & 3 Set for $579.00. Level 1 software costs $249.00, Level 2 and 3 cost $299.00 each. The Rosetta Stone Japanese course is divided into three difficulty levels. While I’m primarily going to discuss the Japanese language version of the application, the advice and conclusions are largely applicable to other editions as well.įirst of all, let’s have a short look at what Rosetta Stone has to offer.
In the this post, we’ll look at what Rosetta Stone has to offer, and whether it’s worth the money. Whether you are learning Japanese, or any other language, you’ve probably heard of the ubiquitous Rosetta Stone language learning software that promises to teach you any language effortlessly, exactly how a child learns his or her mother tongue.