Two Weeks with Rosetta Stone French
It's been two full weeks now with the Rosetta Stone and although I still say I like Pimsleur a little better I think RS is growing on me. One of the few advantages that I would say RS has is I get to hear the language more. With the P method they will ask you "how do you say this" or "how do you say that" in the new language, but they will usually say this in English, so you don't get the chance to hear the language as often. Every once in a while they will give you directions in the new language and when I was working with the course I thought that by the end of it they would be speaking to me mostly in Spanish. But that didn't happen, even after the completion of all 4 levels most of the instructions were in English. This is probably why I have trouble understanding native Spanish speakers when I get them in the cab or have the chance to speak with them in other settings. My vocabulary has gotten large enough that I can express most of my thoughts in Spanish, but very often when I hear the language being spoken to me I still have a hard time understanding it. And I think this is because that the one thing the Pimsleur course didn't do enough of is to let me hear more of the spoken language.
RS, on the other hand will show you images and ask me in French what these people are doing. Or they will say something in French and show me a bunch of pictures and I'm supposed to click on the picture that goes along with what they just said in French. So I think one of the few advantages of RS is being able to HEAR the language more often. But I still prefer Pimsleur because by not providing me with images, by making me create my own images in my mind I think I remembered more. After two weeks with RS, when I drill myself when I'm not engaged in the course I seem to not be able to remember as much, my vocabulary and knowledge of how to USE the language don't seem to be growing as fast as with Pimsleur, but it is gradually increasing. For some reason using the Pimsleur method made my mind want to start creating it's own sentences in Spanish and so far I've had very little of that from studying French with RS. Could this possibly be because I think French is a much more difficult language to learn? Maybe, but I still think there's something about the Pimsleur method that encourages the mind to start putting the language to use for the user's advantage.
But the RS method is growing on me. I think the perfect language course would be a combination of the two. In my layman's opinion.
RS, on the other hand will show you images and ask me in French what these people are doing. Or they will say something in French and show me a bunch of pictures and I'm supposed to click on the picture that goes along with what they just said in French. So I think one of the few advantages of RS is being able to HEAR the language more often. But I still prefer Pimsleur because by not providing me with images, by making me create my own images in my mind I think I remembered more. After two weeks with RS, when I drill myself when I'm not engaged in the course I seem to not be able to remember as much, my vocabulary and knowledge of how to USE the language don't seem to be growing as fast as with Pimsleur, but it is gradually increasing. For some reason using the Pimsleur method made my mind want to start creating it's own sentences in Spanish and so far I've had very little of that from studying French with RS. Could this possibly be because I think French is a much more difficult language to learn? Maybe, but I still think there's something about the Pimsleur method that encourages the mind to start putting the language to use for the user's advantage.
But the RS method is growing on me. I think the perfect language course would be a combination of the two. In my layman's opinion.