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About Rosetta Stone Japanese Learning Software
Rosetta Stone must have something to offer, because not only are their language learning CD’s the largest selling on the market, they are also one of the more expensive. The three part Japanese language series has a list price of $229.00 per teaching unit. As of this writing, the complete set lists for $539.00. Even with the substantial discount for the entire series, Rosetta Stone is priced for the student who wants results! Rosetta Stone established its reputation by offering a language learning system to students who found other language learning techniques ineffective. The company bases its program on the Total Immersion style of teaching and learning. One of the company’s founders, Allen Stoltzfus, quickly learned how to speak fluent German when he was living in that country simply because English wasn’t spoken in the area he lived in. He had to learn the language by looking, listening and repeating without recourse to his native English. That is exactly how the Rosetta Stone Total Immersion system is designed. The student learns Japanese as if it is their first language. The course begins with a photograph and a spoken word. It can be disconcerting at first, because the photograph will contain a number of images. Which one is the word referring to? Often, only subsequent images provide the clue to the meaning of the first. This too is part of the Rosetta Stone teaching strategy and a major part of its effectiveness in the eyes of its advocates. While it is frustrating at first, this technique becomes enormously satisfying as the student progresses. Left to their own devices, they learn to look for the clues they need to interpret the words they are hearing. It becomes like a puzzle to be pieced together. Rosetta Stone calls these moments of revelation the “ah-ha!” moments when everything clicks and another piece of the language puzzle is put into place. Most students find this way of learning far more engaging and effective than the old “listen and repeat” behaviorist method that many criticize as being effective only if the student is strongly motivated by fear of the consequences of failure. Rosetta Stone’s step-by-step teaching process includes frequent reviews and tests. Unless the student chooses to move on, the program will automatically go over each segment from the beginning until the student has demonstrated an adequate level of proficiency. There is the temptation for students to skip ahead to a level that teaches them the words or phrases they want to learn, but those who have taken the time to go through the course from the beginning say they are glad they did. One customer reviewer, for example, mentioned how it took her much longer to learn how to ask for directions with the Rosetta Stone Japanese program than it did with the phrase books she had used in other countries. When she did learn, however, she retained the language longer and was able to confidently ask questions about a number of things. As she put it, “I felt like the language was mine.” Most criticism of the Rosetta Stone Japanese Learning program has been directed towards its efficacy as a reading and writing learning tool. Many students have said that the only way they were able to get through these sections was by frequently pausing the program and writing the characters in a notebook as they went along. Others made or purchased flashcards to use as an adjunct to their learning. The reason for this reported shortcoming may have something to do with the company’s roots. They began with the European languages and its founders’ area of expertise was in teaching European languages. It remains to be seen whether or not the company addresses that criticism and develops a program that can help students more quickly master the over 2,000 kanji characters that must be learned in order to read a Japanese newspaper! The only way that Japanese students learn their own written language is by endless practice and repetition in school from an early age. It’s asking a lot of a Japanese language software program to give its students a working knowledge of written Japanese! Criticisms aside, there are very few Rosetta Stone users who have felt that their investment was not worth the money. Japanese is said to be the hardest language in the world to learn. That so many Rosetta Stone Japanese language students report that they learned at least the rudiments of the language and enjoyed themselves while doing so is testament enough to its efficacy! Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Bunky Malone has lived in Japan for nearly a decade. He's always in pursuit of new ways to learn the language of this amazing country and spends time finding new and novel products. Read more at the Japanese Language Software Space - www.japanese-languagesoftware.com/ For more specific articles on how to read hiragana and read kanji, see - www.japanese-languagesoftware.com/category/read-kanji |
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