There are any number of online reviews of the popular language learning program, Rosetta Stone. Reviews are mixed. Some reviewers love the product, other loathe it. At around $500, nearly everyone complains about its high cost.
Most reviewers evaluate software as consumers, and their input is valuable. But they generally have no linguistic training or foreign language teaching experience to inform their reviews. I would like to contribute to rectifying the lack of professional review.
Using the demo available on the Rosetta, I evaluated the software in several second languages that I speak with varying fluency from barely familiar to highly proficient. I also tried a couple languages from scratch.
Learning through Immersion
Most reviewers really want to learn to speak a foreign language and hope that Rosetta Stone lives up to its implied promise, that you can learn a foreign language though immersion just as easily as a child learns his native language.
The company literature exploits a common popular misunderstanding of the process of second language acquisition. Babies did not learn their native language "easily."
Please follow me to the rest of the review on School Crossing.
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