![]() The effect is that you can’t understand the new language without first thinking in your own. Let me explain: traditional methods focus on teaching a new language through translation and grammar rules in your own language. The software is designed by linguists through an immersive curriculum that does not focus on memorization. Rosetta Stone is a unique language learning program, focused on stimulating the brain’s natural language learning ability. So, with all that in mind the ideal Chinese language program must teach you to both listen and pronounce inflections in spoken words, shove an incredible amount of vocabulary at you from the get go and teach you basic grammar patterns in order to learn Mandarin. Finally, there’s the syntax, which is unlike any Romance language and in fact opposite in many cases to the English language.With over 50,000 characters in the Chinese language, you need to learn about 8,000 to consider yourself equal to a native speaker and to read about 2 – 3,000 to read a newspaper. There’s also a requirement for sheer memorization.There are four distinct tones, which to the untrained adult ear, can be difficult to distinguish. ![]() ![]() Even as someone who grew up with native speaking parents, I think it’s a very difficult language to learn. It’s tough to pick just one best way to learn Chinese. Here goes! What’s the best way to learn Chinese? I thought the easiest way to organize the review would be to answer some commonly asked questions. ![]() My review is primarily for the Rosetta Stone mobile app (although the lessons automatically sync across all of your devices, so you’re able to access it on desktop as well). Keep reading for my review of Rosetta Stone Mandarin Chinese! This is the first time I’ve taken a Rosetta Course, ever, so I was curious as to how it would hold up! It’s one of the most popular language courses on the market and I liked that they had a mobile app to make learning easy for on-the-go. I decided that a refresher course was in order and opted to take Rosetta Stone. Having a full-on conversation without peppering in a word of English (or two)? Not quite there. I can speak at a basic level (say, ordering food from a restaurant or giving directions to a taxi driver) and know standard grammar syntax but reading from a restaurant menu? Tough. Over time, with disuse, I can barely remember how to write certain words. I just happened to work hard and have an excellent memory, as the difficulty with Mandarin is that it’s a character based language where memorization of at least a couple thousand characters is required. The irony is that there were better, more fluent students in the class. At the end of each school year, they ranked each student and every year (except one) I won first place, taking home a giant trophy to boot. I grew up in a Mandarin Chinese speaking household and attended Chinese school once a week, every week from elementary school up to high school. Perhaps the biggest regret is not fully mastering Chinese. I love learning languages – yet despite studying three languages throughout elementary, grade school and college, I can’t convincingly say that I’m fluent in anything but English. One of the things that amazes the most when I travel is the ease with which the rest of the world is multi-lingual while Americans can get away with relying on just one common tongue. Is Rosetta Stone for Mandarin a Good Learning Tool? Currently, they're having a summer sale where if you purchase a 24 month Rosetta Stone subscription and get $80 off! All other subscriptions are discounted as well All Rights Reserved.Rosetta Stone offers free online demos on their website. It aims to immerse you in a language using three parts: online coursework that can take up to 150 hours live sessions in which you can converse over the Web with a native-speaking coach and other students and access to Rosetta World, a Web-based community where you can play language games by yourself or with other students to improve your skills.Ĭopyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. For the past week, I've been testing its newest offering: Rosetta Stone Totale (pronounced toe-tall-A), which is the company's first fully Web-based language-learning program. Rosetta Stone has long used visual learning without translations by pairing words with images -one of the ways a baby learns to speak. By immersing yourself in a language and navigating through situations, you learn how to speak and eventually think in that language. The latter experience can involve sounding out unfamiliar accents or guttural pronunciations and, though intimidating, is ultimately more rewarding. If you've ever learned a foreign language, you know the vast difference between completing workbook activities and speaking with others. The program works well, if you can afford it, Katie Boehret says. Rosetta Stone has launched a new online program for learning languages.
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