Rosetta Stone’s program design makes it easy to “cheat” and get the right answer without really knowing it. Children are especially prone to doing this. If you have ever remembered a person’s face but couldn’t remember their name, you know what I’m talking about. Rosetta Stone’s format of using pictures that you match to foreign words makes it very easy for children (and, in fact, for anyone) to remember the picture and get the answer right but without really knowing the foreign word or phrase. It doesn’t work for children for a different reason. You might reasonably ask, “Does Rosetta Stone work for children?” Sadly, the answer is also no. To learn a language successfully, you need to find a plan that solves the difficult human behavior problems of staying motivated, doing your study time and sticking to a learning plan that is known to work.įortunately a plan like that does exist, which is why I recommend that you take a few minutes to:Ĭhildren learn much differently than adults do. People buy gym memberships and then they don’t go, just like they buy Spanish learning programs, but then they never study. Unfortunately the language learning business is a lot like the gym business. Hopefully they will eventually develop language-learning programs that really work. I wish that weren’t true, because the people who work at Rosetta Stone are a talented bunch. So if you’re wondering, “Does Rosetta Stone work?” my answer is, “For everyone I’ve met (and I’ve met hundreds, perhaps thousands of language learners), Rosetta Stone does not work.”

You cannot learn a new language as an adult the way you learned your first language as a child.

They couldn’t even ask a useful question like “What’s your name?” When I found people who were trying to learn Spanish, French, German, or some other language with Rosetta Stone, they never could say more than a few words of their new language. I’ve traveled the world and talked with thousands of language learners.Įvery time I met someone who had learned a new language, I asked them how they learned it. What the Rosetta Stone Learners I’ve Met Couldn’t Do

Without context, words are just funny sounds. You know two useful things!īut if you learned all six words separately and what each of them meant but didn’t know how to put them together and use them, then you don’t know any English. If you learn just two phrases, “What’s your name?” and “My name is …” and you know how to use them, then you know a little bit of English. To understand why this is true, imagine being a foreigner trying to learn English. That’s because a big portion of the program teaches you separate words without their context-and without context, words don’t have meaning. You probably won’t learn much with Rosetta Stone. Sadly, Rosetta Stone Spanish rarely works.

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