Italian V3 Level 1,2 & 3 (.iso)
I haven't gotten that far in it but I'm far enough to see the strengths and weaknesses. On the plus side, what I did learn is really well ingrained. The picture/word association really works - I find when I see something in my daily life that I have seen in the rosetta stone program, the italian word just pops into my head on it's own.
There is no 'translation' process like you ordinarily go through with language tapes. On the downside, anything that does not show well in a photograph doesn't fit the mechanics of the course. Words like 'who, what, where, why, how' greetings 'hello, goodbye' abstract nouns like 'love, wisdom, pain, happiness, etc) subjective adjectives like 'pretty, kind, cold, risky, etc.)and many verbs like 'to know, think, want, wish, prefer, etc' and relative modifiers (more, most, least, -er, -est) are important parts of daily conversation and just don't fit the image/word association method.
I think this is barrier to total fluency by the rosetta stone method. However, it's a great vocabulary builder, boasting 40,000 words by completion of the course. Not all the words will be useful in coversation, for example the word given for a car is L'autimobile when the common usage word is maccina. Both are correct, but it's like saying automobile instead of car in america. It's also great for reading skills, which is something not everyone is interested in but most cd courses are weak in if you want that. Language mechanics are not explained at all at any time. It's worth the money and an excellent supplement to other courses but will not stand alone, especially if you want tourist italian.
If you actually want a full command of the language it's indispensible.As to other courses to use this along with, Pimsleur is also expensive but worth every penny. The two go great together and each succeeds where the other fails.
Pimsleur is entirely verbal, with almost no written material (brief reading exercises, nothing to write home about) and is better suited to tourists. It works much harder on accent and speaking skills, and an english speaker explains nuances of the language in english, so you can understand it. It has a limited vocabulary but succeeds at giving you a grasp of how to form sentences and actually use the language creatively.Both Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone suffer from the lack of explanatory text and for this I'd recommend Ultimate Italian by living language.
Each of the two volumes contain a 450 page textbook to fill in whatever gaps you have left after Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone get done with you. The included CD's can't hurt, but if you bought the whole pimsleur and both rosetta stones like I did, you're now into it for over 1000 dollars, and can save about 80 bucks by buying just the books. You really wont need the CD's if you already have Pimlseur and Rosetta stone. That money is better spent on a good dictionary, phrasebook and guide to slang and colloquialisms. I recommend Street Italian and webster's.If you buy all this, expect to drop about 1200 bucks on everything.
That's about the tuition and textbook for two semesters at community college but you'll have alot more to work with if you do it this way. You get out of it what you put into it, but don't expect to actually be speaking italian from a 101/102 class. Unless you're applying those credits towards a degree college classes are basically a waste of time and money for purposes of learning to speak the language.
I do not know any Italian. I bought Level 1 of the Rosetta Stone about 7 weeks ago from off their radio adds. I have put in nearly one hour a day for approx four days a week. I am disappointed in this product.
There is value, but you will need to purchase other software or books to supplement as other reviewers have stated.Here are some of my issues, though there are others: No explantory text. You see 4 pictures and the voice says it in Italian and you must choose 1 of the 4 pictures. While this has some value, the lack of explantory text would be extremely helpful. I have no idea if I said 'The Boy is jumping' or 'A boy is leaping'. While I get the idea he is jumping/leaping, it would be helpful to know what I am saying so if I ask something in Italian, I start the sentence structure out correctly. The other negative is how they use the word Bambino vs.
All three mean boy or male child. Specifically, Bambino can and does mean 'baby' while figlio means 'son'. Rosetta Stone does a poor job of distinguishing this 'at' times in their pictures. Thirdly, there were many pictures where you really can't identify if it is boy or girl (those of you who have gone through this one know what I am talking about).So, while I think there is value, just know you need to have some supplements to your learning Italian. For the money, I would pass. I haven't gotten that far in it but I'm far enough to see the strengths and weaknesses.
On the plus side, what I did learn is really well ingrained. The picture/word association really works - I find when I see something in my daily life that I have seen in the rosetta stone program, the italian word just pops into my head on it's own. There is no 'translation' process like you ordinarily go through with language tapes. On the downside, anything that does not show well in a photograph doesn't fit the mechanics of the course. Words like 'who, what, where, why, how' greetings 'hello, goodbye' abstract nouns like 'love, wisdom, pain, happiness, etc) subjective adjectives like 'pretty, kind, cold, risky, etc.)and many verbs like 'to know, think, want, wish, prefer, etc' and relative modifiers (more, most, least, -er, -est) are important parts of daily conversation and just don't fit the image/word association method. I think this is barrier to total fluency by the rosetta stone method.
However, it's a great vocabulary builder, boasting 40,000 words by completion of the course. Not all the words will be useful in coversation, for example the word given for a car is L'autimobile when the common usage word is maccina. Both are correct, but it's like saying automobile instead of car in america.
It's also great for reading skills, which is something not everyone is interested in but most cd courses are weak in if you want that. Language mechanics are not explained at all at any time. It's worth the money and an excellent supplement to other courses but will not stand alone, especially if you want tourist italian. If you actually want a full command of the language it's indispensible.As to other courses to use this along with, Pimsleur is also expensive but worth every penny. The two go great together and each succeeds where the other fails. Pimsleur is entirely verbal, with almost no written material (brief reading exercises, nothing to write home about) and is better suited to tourists. It works much harder on accent and speaking skills, and an english speaker explains nuances of the language in english, so you can understand it.
It has a limited vocabulary but succeeds at giving you a grasp of how to form sentences and actually use the language creatively.Both Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone suffer from the lack of explanatory text and for this I'd recommend Ultimate Italian by living language. Each of the two volumes contain a 450 page textbook to fill in whatever gaps you have left after Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone get done with you.
The included CD's can't hurt, but if you bought the whole pimsleur and both rosetta stones like I did, you're now into it for over 1000 dollars, and can save about 80 bucks by buying just the books. You really wont need the CD's if you already have Pimlseur and Rosetta stone. That money is better spent on a good dictionary, phrasebook and guide to slang and colloquialisms.
I recommend Street Italian and webster's.If you buy all this, expect to drop about 1200 bucks on everything. That's about the tuition and textbook for two semesters at community college but you'll have alot more to work with if you do it this way. You get out of it what you put into it, but don't expect to actually be speaking italian from a 101/102 class. Unless you're applying those credits towards a degree college classes are basically a waste of time and money for purposes of learning to speak the language. I do not know any Italian. I bought Level 1 of the Rosetta Stone about 7 weeks ago from off their radio adds.
I have put in nearly one hour a day for approx four days a week. I am disappointed in this product. There is value, but you will need to purchase other software or books to supplement as other reviewers have stated.Here are some of my issues, though there are others: No explantory text. You see 4 pictures and the voice says it in Italian and you must choose 1 of the 4 pictures. While this has some value, the lack of explantory text would be extremely helpful. I have no idea if I said 'The Boy is jumping' or 'A boy is leaping'. While I get the idea he is jumping/leaping, it would be helpful to know what I am saying so if I ask something in Italian, I start the sentence structure out correctly.
The other negative is how they use the word Bambino vs. All three mean boy or male child. Specifically, Bambino can and does mean 'baby' while figlio means 'son'. Rosetta Stone does a poor job of distinguishing this 'at' times in their pictures. Thirdly, there were many pictures where you really can't identify if it is boy or girl (those of you who have gone through this one know what I am talking about).So, while I think there is value, just know you need to have some supplements to your learning Italian.
For the money, I would pass. This program is amazing. I was at a friends house and tried the demo CD.
I have never taken any classes or tried to learn Italian before, but I had learned 50 words within 2 1/2 hours and it was a fun process! I did take 3 years of Spanish in junior high and found it to be a very frustrating process, because the way languages are taught in public schools is so artifical. This program teaches you a language just like you learned English.
By showing you something and telling you what it is called. You are shown 4 pictures, the name for the object for the picture, and each box is highlighted as the word is said. Then you are quized as the pictures are shown in different sequences and the word is shown with the picture - so you automaticly start to learn to spell the word, and associate the word with the sound.Then after you learn about 16 basic words like cat, dog, man, woman, girl, boy, teenager, adult, you are taught verbs. You are shown 4 pictures again with a man running, a woman running, a boy running, and a girl walking. Since you now know the words for man,woman,boy, and girl you automatically know the new words mean running and walking. Then you are introduced to the pural forms - you are shown pictures of two girls running, one girl running, one boy walking, and two boys walking.
So you are learning to recognize the words running and walking, and learning the feminine and masculine forms of the singular and plural words at the same time. What is so amazing about this program is that you are learning the grammar painlessly - which is the thing that is so painful about learning any foreign language. All the while you continue to associate the words with the sounds. The complexity slowly builds as your vocabulary base rapidly builds up. The demo CD takes you through the first two lessons of level 1 - about 6 hours of training. The software keeps track of where you left off and keeps track of your mistakes, re-quizing you over and over until it knows you know the words and just haven't made lucky guesses. I can't wait until I can save enough money to buy the full program and be ready to understand Italian for my next trip to Italy!
Like the other reviewers, I find the program entertaining and far more enjoyable to use than your ordinary language study CD or books. However, after nearly completing the entire program, I find that I have not learned a lot of important vocabulary or how to really conjugate verbs. My biggest complaint with the program is its inclusion of esoteric vocabulary. For example, one of the sentences you learn is 'The boy can speak because he is not underwater.' True, you are learning 'can speak' but that's really not something that's going to come in that handy. Other examples of strange vocabulary that gets too much attention: lieing down, bending forward, drying your hair, zippering close a jacket, tieing shoelaces. I'm very surprised at the kinds of vocabulary they have chosen to include.On the plus side, one is much more likely to use this program every day than open a book or listen to CDs.
So you will learn more just by virtue of hearing Italian every day. The repetition is good and after not too long when you get to Level 2, you will probably be amazed at how well you can understand complicated directions like 'go three blocks past the school, turn right' etc.I find that only use a few of the different types of exercises - for example, I don't use the part that has you type in response to dictation- but it's good that they have a bunch of options for you to choose from. The most useful, I think, is listening to the phrase and choosing the photo that is described. The least useful exercise mode is seeing the photo and then hearing four phrases before picking the correct one.If you expect to be introduced to verb tenses as they are in a text book, then you'll be disappointed. You learn third person forms first and later they introduce first person.In conjunction with some other language study, this is a useful program. Don't expect to be speaking fluently after level 2. My guess is that even Level 1 and Level 2 together would not get you as far as one year of a good college course.One more note: Level two has some good vocabulary lessons at the end of the unit.
Italian V3 Level 1 2 3 Chefs Hamburgers
You can use these lessons as you are doing Level one because they are just vocabulary quizes. (Nouns are grouped by subject: food, clothes, etc.) Level two also has a bunch of 'humorous sketches' where the captions to cartoons are given and you are supposed to be able to figure out what the captions mean.
There isn't enough preparation for this to seem doable at first, but probably after I study with another method and come back to it, it will seem less difficult. If it weren't for the vocabulary lessons in Level two, I would say that Level two is not really that helpful. This will not work for you as the first or only program for learning Italian.
Tall T Productions
It is great as a supplement to other methods of learning Italian. The method is entirely intuitive - there is no English anywhere, so you may also want to have a dictionary and a grammar book.I have found Rosetta Stone language programs most useful for reviewing the information I have learned elsewhere, for brushing up on languages I haven't used for a while, and for expanding vocabulary.It may not be the best choice for total beginners, but you can learn a lot by associating words and expressions with the images and occasional mini videos. I do consider it definitely a worthwhile purchase.
Level 1 Clothing
Rosetta Stonesoftware is built around a concept called Dynamic Immersion, an uniquelearning method that uses a computer to mimic the ways in which youlearnt your first language. This approach is simple, but incrediblyeffective as it allows your brain to adapt quickly as your knowledgegrows.Our language courses are highly interactive and visuallyengaging and we'll never ask you to translate back into your nativelanguage or memorise vocabulary lists. Instead you'll learn through acomplete immersion process. Relate what you see and hear to familiar,real-life images and situations.