The French language is spoken in 33 countries (second only to English) and 128 million people worldwide use it as their first language. The prevalence and beauty of the language make it the second most widely taught language on the planet. Right now there are over 100 million people learning to speak French. Not surprisingly there are a lot of options for learning French: books, classes, tapes, CDs, web tutorials and software programs. For the purposes of this article we will focus on the last one; in particular the software program Rosetta Stone French.

 

Rosetta Stone is one of the most popular language learning software programs. The company’s seemingly ubiquitous advertising campaigns are at least partially responsible for this. You have most likely seen them on the Internet, in a magazine, newspaper or on TV. Is the product really as good as the ads claim? That is what I sought to find out.

 

Course Components:

Rosetta Stone has a different methodology then the typical language-learning course. The program doesn’t focus on translating English words into French. Instead the Rosetta Stone course teaches you the language as if French is the first language you have ever learned. At the beginning of the course you are presented with a series of pictures and words. You are asked to match the French words with the familiar images. If you make a mistake the software doesn’t let you move on until after you have made the right matches. Slowly those words turn into phrases, which turn into sentences, and before you know it you are fluent in French.

 

The idea behind this type of learning is to get you thinking in French instead of thinking of the English word and then converting it into French, which is a big advantage of this particular course. Another key component of the Rosetta Stone system is the voice recognition software. The program will listen to you attempt to speak French and give you pointers on inflection and punctuation. Rosetta Stone has the best voice recognition software of all the courses I reviewed.

 

The Rosetta Stone software enables you to create your own learning path by choosing to redo or skip any exercise you want. The progress tracker helps you determine which exercises would be the most beneficial based on your own personal strengths and deficiencies. Another nice feature of Rosetta Stone is that it teaches you grammar on an example by example basis. You never have to learn a single grammar rule.

 

On the downside, this program relies so heavily on the photo association exercises that they tend to become repetitious and tedious. It is easy to become bored with the exercises and just guess your way through them. While I’m sure some learning is accomplished this way it certainly can’t be the best use of your time. Another drawback to the Rosetta Stone system is that because it starts with just words and slowly builds, you actually don’t learn anything you can use (i.e. actual phrases) until Level 2. It can take months to get to this point so if your goal is to learn a little French before your trip to Paris next month; this program is not for you. I also didn’t like that Rosetta Stone had no adaptations for mobile devices or MP3 players. It would be nice to be able to learn without having to be near a computer. I also feel many people with find the price, $549 for the whole package, prohibitive. For those that can’t afford the entire package Rosetta Stone sells each level of the program (there are three) separately as well as an on-line subscription to the Rosetta Stone software. Three months of on-line access sells for $149.95.

 

Summary:

Rosetta Stone is a very simple, easy-to-use and effective program. However I found the program a little light on content. There are virtually no word tools besides the picture-word association tools. This can make it hard to learn words that are not easily tied to photos. Also the drills became dull after a while; I could have used more variety in the exercises. Rosetta Stone had virtually no extra features or bonus materials. Bottom line is that Rosetta Stone is a good program but considering the considerable shortcomings and price of this product I can’t say it’s the best value on the market. I would recommend Rocket French, which costs less than a fifth of Rosetta Stone, to anyone yearning to learn French. Click the following link to read my Rocket French Review.