Rosetta Stone runs for about $250 for levels 1-5. Rosetta Stone also allows you to practice your accent through its speech-recognition software. The structures eventually become more complex. The lessons provide just the right combination of words and images for you to determine what the words mean. Instead of formal lessons with explanations in English, Rosetta Stone uses association and repetition through sound and visuals. Rosetta Stone seeks to replicate the way children learn language. I receive a small commission for each purchase made through the links, but I’m confident you’ll find the time you save and the insight you gain from reading this page is well worth it. My goal is to save you time searching on Google or wandering around Barnes & Noble looking for the best option. It you want to purchase any of the programs after reading about them, you can click on the links provided for each product. The best fit for you depends on your learning style.
All three are available on multiple media platforms and contain lessons for all levels of Italian learners. Currently, the two most popular programs are Rosetta Stone and Fluenz. (See, by contrast, my review of French in Action.If you can’t learn Italian by spending a year working in a gelateria in Agrigento, your next best bet is using Italian language-learning software.
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No portable (iPad, iPhone, Android) version.Even more tedious than Rosetta Stone, if you can believe that.A tad pricy for what you get (see pricing below).Lots of typing, typing, typing.and more typing.You'll be able to order lunch after completing the course. Vocabulary targeted for the prospective tourist.Explanations (in English) begin each lesson.Can we trust a language course that advises you to summon a waiter by calling, "Garçon!"? No one has done this and successfully gotten fed since Edith Piaf! But one gaff hugely damages their credibility. It feels not as extensive as Rosetta Stone (comparing the respective 3-volume versions), but perhaps it is slightly better targeted for the prospective tourist. Still, if you want a directed approach, with conjugations, explanations, and an on-screen instructor, Fluenz might be a viable option for you. And since most of us are far more interested learning to understand and speak a new language than in writing it flawlessly (one typo stops you cold in your tracks in the typing exercises), this emphasis on typing is the biggest flaw.
Once you've cleared the lecture, you start, as with Rosetta, an unvarying routine: A short slide-show dialog that introduces the lesson's themes, and then drills, always in the same order: match the English to the French, repeat the words you hear (although without speech recognition you have no idea if you're pronouncing them correctly) type the words you read, then the phrase you read, then the phrase you hear - with Fluenz, there is a lot of typing. Still, the explanations are helpful, and, unlike Rosetta Stone, Fluenz tries to throw in a little culture as well (although Sonia never delivers on her promise to explain the bidet). For the third volume she turns class over to a student teacher, the Ice Queen, a young woman so cheerless and expressionless you wonder what must have befallen the poor thing as a child. Welcome at first, her presence soon becomes a distraction, especially that lock of hair that she keeps tossing away from her face and the theatrically raised eyebrows. Each Fluenz lesson opens with a 7-minute introduction, for the first two volumes (in the French version, at least) by Sonia Gil, one of Flunz's founders. There were times during my year with Rosetta Stone when I yearned for an online instructor to give some explanation. Fluenz believes adults learn best when they can relate the grammar and syntax of a foreign language to the structure of the tongue they already know,” their advertising copy states. "Rosetta Stone believes in fully immersing the student in the language, without using any English to explain phrases. Explanations matter."įluenz takes Rosetta Stone head on, in case you missed the barb about us not learning like children. “We are not children and don't learn like them.
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