Rosetta Stone....anyone use it?
 

Marge and my anniversary is in 3 days and she rarely ever lets me know what she wants.
Well I know she wants Rosetta Stone (Spanish), but I am always hesitant to buy something you cannot return.
So anyone use it, like/dislike?

I know I should have asked this days ago when there were more people about, but hey....I'm a guy.

If she wants it and you can afford it, get it.

Affording it's not the problem....
 

...she tried Duolingo and didn't find it helped much...I was just hoping someone who'd used it could give me feedback either positive or negative.

I had the Spanish version years ago. IMO it wasn't great for my needs. It gave me the impression that I was learning quickly; that it, it helps you pick up nouns and adjectives and basic verbs and you are able to speak the pre-packaged phrases with some speed and finesse.

But where it falls short IMO is understanding the grammar - things like verb tenses and cases and anything but the most basic, formal version of communication. It would have been difficult for me to actually communicate with a native speaker - particularly if I needed to interpret the response - with the first few Rosetta stone levels.

Although it wasn't nearly as fast as Rosetta Stone promised to be, I had the best success using the book: Spanish Grammar for Independent Learners 2nd Edition, sometimes called SGIL. It is not colorful or 'fun' like Rosetta Stone, but to me it was very logical and really helped get into the "nooks and crannies" of the language. For me, I felt like I was actually learning the real language - and not "dos cervesas, por favor" Spanish.

I need to note that I had three years of high school Spanish and was comfortable with pronunciation and cadence. If I didn't know the language at all, I would have needed an adjunct audio course, and in fact, Rosetta stone might have been a decent way to start.

As best I recall, you need to be at a computer to use RS. I like to learn something while I drive to/from work, so I got Pimsleur, which is entirely audio. I've been quite happy with how it's taken my Spanish from absolute zero to usable in a lot of practical situations. (I was in Chile earlier this year, most of that time in fairly remote parts of Patagonia where English isn't of much use, so I'm not just extrapolating from how well I do with lesson responses.)

I looked at RS but didn't really like the style. I settled on Pimsler and liked it much better, although I was studying Japanese which is not much like Spanish. I think it comes down to what type of learner you are. Some are visual learners, some audio and some kinesthetic (pulling out my OLD teacher training from decades ago.) I do better listening and speaking. Others do better seeing something and plugging that into the lesson. Whatever works. For me that was Pimsleur.

If it helps English is not her first language....
 

...Mandarin is. But she speaks English, Japanese , Taiwanese and Cantonese but there is not RS from mandarin to Spanish.
I will look into the other option as well.

Sounds like a real underachiever. Return that woman immediately.

Didnt work for me. Babbel is good for formal conversations whilst duolingo is more conversational.

I've had RS for years, French and Spanish. Found it to be very useful as a backstop to what I already know, as brushup for a trip.

Pimsleur, and in my experience, Michel Thomas cd's, are much more useful for quick immersion. MT's (Austrian....German)?? guttural accent is a bit straining in any foreign language, but l have always found the overall conversational approach to be more useful.

Total aside. I know someone who's name is Rosetta Stone.

MrsCP learned German and Italian with RS over the last decade, for work. It was enough to get by. She had a native Italian co-worker who was helping her and commented that it seemed to be very effective.

Be aware that, though the PC version has no time limit, the online and tablet versions are limited to, I believe, 90 days. That left a sour taste in my mouth for RS, and I won't use it again for another language.

I tried Spanish on Level 1 via a corporate deal at one time. Very basic at that level, but I could hear "horse" and choose a horse from the 4 pictures in the quiz. I then hard a very hard time rolling my r, so they program would not let me past one part until I exaggerated my r to the point where a Spanish speaker would burst out laughing, in all likelihood. :)

I don't have the gene for quick language adoption, so even level 1 took me many hours to get through the very basics.

Then RS decided to triple the contract deal cost and corporate nixed the idea entirely.

This. I had the German - English version a few years ago and found it wasn't great. The teaching technique has you associate words and phrases with pictures, but doesn't explain the nuances of grammar, tenses, articles, gender, etc.

Example: having had a few years of French in school I was familiar with masculine and feminine articles and nouns. But it took me a while to figure out that German also has a neutral gender. It wasn't explained anywhere, so it was quite confusing until I figured it out.