Rosetta Stone combines vocabulary words with audio pronunciations, and pictures in a flash card format to teach English and many other languages. This is one of the easiest learn English programs to use and winner of our TopTenREVIEWS Silver Award. Just choose one of the five different sections and the software will guide you through a vocabulary list. The sections include Listening and Reading, Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing.
Rosetta Stone has 200 hours of instructional material; however, it doesn’t have any word tools like a dictionary or word processing converter and it doesn’t teach anything about the grammar of English.
Rosetta Stone is designed for beginner, intermediate and advanced students. In addition, it teaches in many different languages. One of the standout features of this program is the record, playback and compare.
In this feature, a native English speaker reads a word and the program displays the wavelength of the pronunciation. Then, you repeat the word and the program displays your pronunciation of the word. You can compare the two wavelengths and make any changes necessary to improve your pronunciation.
Rosetta Stone has a comprehensive vocabulary section that is full of practical terms. Other fundamentals covered include writing, reading, listening comprehension and speech recognition.
We were impressed with the speech recognition feature. It is easy to use and provides helpful feedback.
The one fundamental missing that would improve this software is grammar. Grammar improves your ability to create original sentences and write fluently.
Rosetta is easy to navigate with well–labeled buttons. We didn’t have to use the tutorials to know how to use the program.
Rosetta Stone uses the time proven method of flash cards to teach English. This is effective: however, we feel the program doesn’t build a solid foundation of grammar.
We didn’t encounter any problems while installing and setting up the program. In order to use the record, playback and compare feature, you’ll need headphones and a microphone.
Rosetta Stone provides good technical support to their customers. You can use the self–help options like tutorials, a user guide and other forms of online help or contact the customer support team by phone or email.
This is a good program to build vocabulary. Rosetta Stone uses a lot of repetition and visuals to help you remember words and phrases. Nevertheless, it doesn’t analyze or explain the grammar of the phrases.
