Lack of cultural relevance and personalization Momentum is critical when you’re learning any new skill for the first time.ģ.
While some argue this could be a benefit, it does make it much harder for new beginners to get comfortable.
Update May 2019: Rosetta Stone has recently changed their pricing towards a cloud-based subscription model to match similar competitive offers out there. Nevertheless Rosetta Stone reviews online have been critically acclaimed to be an overpriced solution.
They used to charge over $700 for their software courses, and have recently brought it down to the few hundreds given the backlash. However, it’s incomparable to a real human being, and the accuracy of the technology is questionable according to several polyglots and students.Īs we previously mentioned, for what you get in the program, it is still an overpriced solution. The program has also developed or leverages technology like speech recognition to help you receive feedback on your accents and speaking skills. In the words of Benny Lewis, “If you compare it to easing yourself into cold water, I consider the amount you would learn in of 3 levels equivalent to dipping a toe in, rather than slowly easing your whole body or at least your legs in.” In short, it emphasizes easing into the language instead of diving into it, which is the appeal for most learners. All they’ve done is use images, text, and audio in the target language you’re using.Īnother learning philosophy that Rosetta Stone claims to use is the Input Hypothesis that Stephen Krashen popularized in the 20th century. While there’s no research-backed data to show whether or not this method is useful, it certainly puts a barrier for new beginners who don’t know the target language. It’s the only language solution out there that we’ve found to use this type of method. What’s distinctively unique about Rosetta Stone’s method is that they don’t use your native language to teach you. The specific formattings include direct translations, fill in the blanks, and multiple choice questions. Similar to Duolingo, Babbel, and similar language instruction courses, Rosetta Stone uses visual illustrations to teach you a language. To further explore the reviews that Rosetta Stone has received over the years, we’ll need to dig into how Rosetta Stone works. “Rosetta Stone doesn’t work for most people.” -Brent Van Arsdell, “The software still has its astronomical price tag even for the endangered language programs which is just going to create another deterrent for indigenous people wanting to help their own language.” -Donovan Nagel, The one-size-fits-all content you cover is everywhere (audio, games, courses, what guides live spoken lessons) and what the whole system rests upon.” -Benny Lewis, “While there are aspects of Rosetta Stone I do like… I simply can’t recommend the system to people. We don’t want to sound bias by expressing our sole opinion, which is why we’ve found Rosetta Stone reviews from popular polyglots: Using a combination of games, algorithmic speech recognition, and photographs, Rosetta Stone is simply a software program that incurs very little cost to create and operate. While they seem to have reached mainstream scale given the number of years they have been around, their biggest criticism is the price to value ratio. Rosetta Stone reviews have been very mixed over the past decade.
In short, learning through a software app has not only been proven to be ineffective, but it doesn’t have the immersive accountability factor you need to maintain your progress. The core premise of Rosetta Stone states that it’s about “learning a new language the way you learned your first.” But the problem is that as adults, we learn differently than the way we would have as a child growing up, and our brains have certainly changed as well. The claim to have put in deep scientific research and development into their language curriculum, which they use to justify the high price of their program. Today it offers over 28 different languages and it’s often compared to similar solutions like Duolingo, Berlitz, Pimsleur and several others.