My DD is eager to begin her foreign language(she chose french) for high school but I am clueless about what to use. I have read about Rosetta Stone, does it really excell that much above the rest? Other suggestions? Also, what foreign language do you recommend? I respect her desire for french, I just want to be sure that we have looked into more than just french before commiting. Thanks & God bless
Rosetta Stone is really expensive as I'm sure you know. We use Mango Languages, its a free online foreign language offered through our libaray. You might want to check with your local libaray to see if they offer it.
We didn't like Rosetta Stone AT ALL. It is expensive, and you're not permitted to "resell" it. Plus, a friend of Rachael's used in in a homeschool setting, and had a very difficult time in college French. She had NO IDEA how to conjugate regular verbs!!! I may have Rosetta Stone lying around the house yet. If I find it, you may have it for the cost of postage. We switched to SOS, and that worked fairly well for her, but again, it's expenisve and can't be resold. (I'm pretty sure I don't have that lying around the house anymore!) She did OK when she cotinued on with her French in a public school classroom.
You might check out Bilingual Books, Inc: http://www.bbks.com/ I liked what I saw at the homeschool convention last year and scooped up German for us when it randomly went on sale about Christmas time. Even not on sale, it's not very expensive. We haven't started using it yet, but I really like the workbook so far as I've flipped through it. I haven't checked out the software, yet.
Textbooks with a good audio program would be preferable to Rosetta Stone here. Rosetta Stone makes a good supplement. For French I highly recommend Contacts. This book would be equal to 2 years of high school French.
Rosetta Stone is very over-priced hype. For a cheaper alternative, look at the Rocket language programs. Also, for a monthly subscription fee, there's French Pod.
Steve, Do you have experience with Rocket Language? The website had the feel of a scammy, oh, I don't know how to explain it. It just seemed off to me. But if you know of personal testimony, I might be inclined to try it.
Thanks so much everyone. You have given me much to check into. A million thanks as foreign language wasnt the requirement for me as a high school grad so I feel totally lost on where to go with this..lol
Yes, I experimented with Rocket Chinese - and it's just fine. Indeed, they've been improving the site's capabilities over time. I agree that their marketing is a bit cheesy, but don't be put off by that. It's a one-time fee for their first sets of lessons. If you progress beyond that, there's a premium set of lessons. Once purchased, you can use their website or download all the materials and play on an iPod (for example). The Chinese Pod language program is good too (although I've not tried the French) - with literally hundreds of audios to study (which, again, you can download). In their case, it's a monthly subscription fee - and they let you try out a couple of lessons free of charge. Personally, I prefer their program over Rocket - but they are both much better (and less expensive) than Rosetta Stone.
Thanks so much everyone. I will be busy checking all of these out...& not Rosetta Stone! Looks like I wont need to break the bank for a foreign language..lol
My kids are using Rosetta Stone for Spanish. Even though they both wanted other languages, I insisted on at least 1 year of Spanish. I don't about where you live, but here in CA, we have a high Hispanic population. It would be very helpful for my kids to have some Spanish under their belt.
One year of any language is pretty much worthless. It only allows you to (maybe) ask for the bathroom, say your alphabet, and count to ten. Plus, it counts as nothing on transcripts unless you've got at least two years. I can understand, however, why you would want them to take Spanish. Even here in Central Ohio, there's an unbelievably high number of Hispanics.
We used "Before you know it" and it's free to download onto your computer. We used it in highschool for french lessons. works great as an aid.
I only did one year of German and then one year of Spanish in High School. Now after three years of being in a different country I still can't do more that the basics. I know sad right but I am not good with languages. My students always laughed, in a good way, when I tried talking in Japanese. We just stuck to English. Anyways we bought the cheapo Immersions? They are around $30. I bought the Japanese since I didn't want to pay the price of Rosetta Stone and didn't like the fakeness of it. Someone is giving us Rosetta Stone Japanese to try out. I am going to look into the kids taking classes because I did have a friend(s) help but it was more conversational not all the grammer and sentence structure. We are still figuring out the characters/symbols.
For Chinese and Japanese written languages, try Skritter. It's really good on an iPad and quite a low monthly fee.
You might consider TELL ME MORE, by Auralog. Auralog is a Paris-based (since 1987) software publisher, and the French program is particularly good. As some others have observed, free options are very nicely priced angel, and your library may be contracting with someone. I like TELL ME MORE because of the comprehensive content (more akin to textbook study), software interactivity (unlike textbook study), and speech recognition/pronunciation assessment. A word about that last thing - if she wants to learn French, well, hey, that's half the battle, right? Only, French pronunciation is a little more demanding than, say, Spanish or German...does she have any prior experience with French?
My kids enjoy Duolingo. It's a free website. We also use Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur. I find a variety of methods are useful.
The frustrating thing about Pimsleur is that they provide no supporting written materials (e.g., to know how a spoken word is spelled). Also, the scripts are geared towards business travelers (which is understandable). While it will depend on the student's tolerance for repetition, I do find their method achieves results.
WOW! Thanks again for all the great suggestions. Did not have a clue about any of these except the infamous Rosetta Stone..lol..Excited to check them all out.
Spanish, for US and Latin America. For Canada, then probably French. (Up here, French is the second language because of Quebec, mainly.)
