Learn Chinese with Rosetta Stone???

[taylor04]

Incidentally, Sinoglot had a post on Michael Phelps using Rosetta Stone to learn Mandarin: http://www.sinoglot.com/blog/2010/02...r-in-mandarin/

He learned the masculine and feminine terms of Mandarin? 他 and 她？？？？

[Joseph Kimbrell]

Anyone used the most recent Rosetta Stone Mandarin? I just bought it, but I haven't started yet...

[Shelley]

@ Joseph Kimbrell

I have the first Rosetta Stone mandarin and unless they have changed it dramatically, i would definitely not recommend this for the first or only learning method.

Having no explanation of things: grammar, tones etc, it makes it very difficult to work out what's going on.

As an extra to text books, classes, and any other learning methods, it is very good.

I use it for practice and learning vocabulary, but I would not use it on its own.

Get some good textbooks and a good dictionary, you will need them

Good luck and I hope you enjoy learning Chinese. (you don't say if you are new to learning Chinese, but I am guessing you are, apologies if you are not )

[daofeishi]

I'll just have my voice counted among the critics.

Using Rosetta Stone to learn a language is like playing paddle ball to train for Wimbledon.

[Joseph Kimbrell]

@ Shelley, Yes I am new Thanks for the opinion on Rosetta Stone. I agree, it probably wouldn't be that great totally alone, but I am going to be using it with Pimsleur and also a book "Easy Peasey Chinese". This is what I've been doing with Japanese and its working very nicely. I will listen to one lesson on Pimsleur, then the next day do a lesson of Rosetta Stone, and maybe 1 lesson in the book. It gives me different ways of learning/seeing/hearing.

@ daofeishi haha yes I could see that, but I think its probably a good addition to studies

And nice, Norway? I live in Norway, but from the US

[adamnhms]

I began practicing/studying Mandarin a couple of weeks ago, and I gotta say from experience that Rosetta stone isn't a good option for beginners. For Mandarin, I'm using the Pimsleur program and already I can put together thoughts, study vocab, understand grammar structure. Pimsleur is a good start, along with studies of vocab and other grammar structure

[icebear]

My feeling is that Rosetta Stone probably isn't appropriate for anyone. I took a look at the Chinese and Spanish editions in the past (out of curiosity) and found both severely lacking.

[Kelby]

Several versions back I gave studying Mandarin with Rosetta Stone a shot. It worked relatively well at that time, although it was terrible for learning characters with. You absolutely need to set the written stuff to display with Pinyin at least for the beginning.

IMHO you also need to couple it with a speaking partner. It's a good place to get the foundation, but you'll need some more stuff in your arsenal going into a conversation so I'd never call it a one-stop solution for learning a language.

[Johnny20270]

Yup, I went through RS and although encouraging at the start, I found it to be all bells and whistles. Pimsleur is good but leads you into a false sense of achieving a higher standard than you actually are. Finishing all 3 levels of pimsleur, you are still a beginner . For example I went from Pimsleur to Chinesepod and became really disheartened to find I was at the newbie level as it seems totally different to the teaching style and content of Pimsleur.

I did a big review of pimsleur here

[Joseph Kimbrell]

I have the Chinese RS, but haven't used it much yet. I'm on the go a lot, like traveling on the train, driving, etc. So, I listen to Pimsleur and I use Mind Snacks Mandarin (I really like that app) - Mind Snacks is helping me learn basic terms and some characters, while Pimsleur is helping a bit with the listening aspect. I need to start writing and practicing my characters though.

[verita]

Before I went to Beijing for studying I used Rosetta Stone at home to get a bit familiar with the language. I did not find it very helpful, there are better resources out there.

[AlexBlackman]

@Taylor04

No, he mastered Chinese's grammatical gender, something even Chinese people and veteran Chinese professors failed to learn about.