My Review on Japanese Rosetta Stone Thus Far - Feed Post by kakka_rot
My Review on Japanese Rosetta Stone Thus Far
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6.5/10 (OR - It's Chill)
I have came to two conclusions.
1) If you have no Japanese education background, and it is your first step in (Japanese) language education - you're going to have a bad time.
2) If you have a decent Japanese education background, you're going to have a bad time.
I first tried using it a little over a year ago when I knew nothing, and had no idea wtf was going on. Now, I have been trying it again, and have been using it for variety in my learnings, and am getting annoying at the early simplicity. However, my expectations are that after getting past the tedious beginning mercerizes, things will pick up. To be fair, I have noticed a few things I didn't learn in class, personal studies, ect. so I have that going for me, which is nice.
In contrast, if you're new, I would strongly recommend having ひらがな・カタカナ in your knowledge, as well as a decent recognition of kanji radicals. To be fair, it does /try/ to teach you hiragana, but, it's methods are quite inadequate, and "the old fashion way" is much more effective.
Aside from that. It's trill.
I don't wanna pollute the JPJC message board more than I already do, so additional thoughts will be in the comments.
------------------------------------------------------------
6.5/10 (OR - It's Chill)
I have came to two conclusions.
1) If you have no Japanese education background, and it is your first step in (Japanese) language education - you're going to have a bad time.
2) If you have a decent Japanese education background, you're going to have a bad time.
I first tried using it a little over a year ago when I knew nothing, and had no idea wtf was going on. Now, I have been trying it again, and have been using it for variety in my learnings, and am getting annoying at the early simplicity. However, my expectations are that after getting past the tedious beginning mercerizes, things will pick up. To be fair, I have noticed a few things I didn't learn in class, personal studies, ect. so I have that going for me, which is nice.
In contrast, if you're new, I would strongly recommend having ひらがな・カタカナ in your knowledge, as well as a decent recognition of kanji radicals. To be fair, it does /try/ to teach you hiragana, but, it's methods are quite inadequate, and "the old fashion way" is much more effective.
Aside from that. It's trill.
I don't wanna pollute the JPJC message board more than I already do, so additional thoughts will be in the comments.
posted by kakka_rot
Comments 4
Rosetta Stone basis itself on "Language Immersion" which is a fancy way of saying "Emulating how you learned your first language as a child" which is in itself an ambiguous way of saying "We're just going to throw shit at you until you get it." Personally, I like knowing what I am learning, so I still translate words as I go, but different things work for different people.
In conclusion, I won't recommend it, but I also won't /not/ recommend it. As said in the beginning, its chill, but if you go this rout, be sure to mix it with other learning platforms, or you may find yourself frustrated.
Happy learning ya'll
Thanks for the info!
I agree with what you say. I did learn some new simple stuff that had slipped under the radar when I used it.
However, due to the product's quality and content vs its advertising campaign, I would give it fewer stars. Rosetta charges huge amounts of money for a fairly limited product that has bugs. It boasts about big results that you can't actually get from Rosetta, and has no standing whatsoever. It's clear that 90% of Rosetta's spending is on advertising rather than making a good product. As a product in which you pay for, like anything else in the world, I would give it 3.5/10.
I've never used it but I've heard several similar reviews.
One of my friends who barely knows any Japanese has tried it out as his primary source for learning Japanese. He likes it but he doesn't seem to have learnt anything more advanced than how to say "genki desu ka" and "onna no ko". He hasn't tried anything else to compare it to though, and also probably doesn't realise how much more he still has to learn. However, his pronunciation is surprisingly good--better than my pronunciation at least.
I've not really focused much on how to speak Japanese, only on how to read/hear it. I've barely ever even seen Japanese people here in the UK; I've only met and spoken to one Japanese person! So I'm not in a hurry to be able to speak it. I've thought about trying out Rosetta Stone just for the pronunciation practice, to see if there's something good about how they do it, but I'm sure it's probably just that my friend has repeated the same basic phrases over-and-over again.
