Ironcladd's Full Review: Rosetta Stone Chinese Level I and IIPersonal Editi...
The Rosetta Stone: Learn Chinese the Fun and Intuitive Way.
By
James P. Zaworski
Chinese is notoriously difficult to master for western speakers of English. I, of course, am no exception. Before departing to visit China for a month, I had picked up some instructional books, hired a tutor, and also bought the Rosetta Stone introduction to Chinese. While I did not have enough time to use this program before I departed, I have found that this program is really great in terms of the approach it uses for language instruction. Since Chinese employs a completely different system of characters than western Roman characters, that coupled with the very difficult tonalities that complicate pronunciation, beginning students of Mandarin Chinese tend to be overwhelmed with this language at first. I was one of those students. I especially found it extremely difficult when I hired a tutor from Taiwan, as she would concurrently expect me to know how to pronounce and to not only recognize, but also read the Chinese characters, which overwhelmed me when I began to attempt this process last November, my last semester at my university (and my most important and most busy semester too).
The Rosetta Stone program eliminates the concurrent learning of Chinese characters and focuses on pronunciation and recognition of words, which is the intuitive way of language acquisition anyway. This is true because we get our language acquisition in an immersed environment at a very early age, and do not usually learn to read until much later. Natural language acquisition is really a great way to teach a language, and one can worry about the writing characters and writing system later on. I wish that I had more time to use this program before I ventured to China, and further wish that I had brought my laptop computer with me to practice with this program every day. Of course, I can do that now.
What follows is some information about the Rosetta Stone Chinese Language Instruction software followed by a review of what I consider to be its highlights.
Information on Rosetta Stone Software.
Software Format: CD-ROM for Windows
Brand Fairfield
Estimated Price $200-300
Manufacturer Part Number 2095505 • 23112
UPC 794678018589
Miscellaneous
MPN 231-12
Product ID 20716906
Number of CD-ROM 3
Booklets and Instruction Manuals yes
Review of the Rosetta Stone Chinese Software.
The name Rosetta Stone refers to the Egyptian tablet that led to the decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. In 1799, during Napoleons invasion of Egypt, scholars stumbled upon the Rosetta Stone, a large stone tablet inscribed in three languages, ancient Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphs called Demotic. It was discovered next to the Rosetta (instead of the Damietta) branch of the Nile River in the delta region of northern Egypt. It led directly to the decipherment of the hitherto unknown and enigmatic Egyptian hieroglyphs by Francois Champollion, translating an extinct language so we could understand more ancient Egyptian culture and civilization.
So, with that said, there is a whole set of language instruction software kits from Fairfield Company, who puts out the Rosetta Stone series. Chinese is number 231-12 in the series.
Unlike ancient Egyptian, Chinese is a living language and is spoken by hundreds of millions of people in China. To clarify, this is Mandarin Chinese that is being taught in this software, or the official Putonghua dialect, the official language used by the government and media in the Peoples Republic of China. There are many, many different dialects regionally of Chinese, such as Shanghaiese, Taiwanese, Wuhanese, and Cantonese. Some of them are mutually intelligible with Putonghua, but others are completely unintelligible.
What I like about Rosetta Stone Chinese Software.
Firstly, I like the format of this language instuction software. It has in its three CD-ROM set over 8000 colorful images that are used in the visual instruction of language. Next, there are over 500 hours of vocal and speaking instruction that are fully interactive. You have to have a multimedia computer with speakers and a good microphone to use the interactive features completely. There are over 200 lessons in the two CD-ROM set.
Instruction Format.
Visual and aural.
The lesson plans are many and various. So far, I have mastered lessons one and two. I know it does not sound like much, but I am a complete beginner at this. The lesson plans that I have used involve the use of pictures, four to a screen and in Chinese, a girl pronounces the noun or phrase describing what you are seeing. You get a tutorial and then you get tested on what you have learned. You further have the option of having Pinyin, or Romanized characters, written out showing you the phonetic pronunciation of the Chinese being spoken, or if you are more advanced, you have the option of reading the Chinese characters. That will come later.
The software program gives you many choices in the quiz format. You can simply use your mouse and click on the photo, indicating your answer. If you are correct, there is a positive reinforcement approval sound. If you are incorrect, there is a negative sound. If you choose the incorrect choice, the word or phrase is repeated and you can choose again, until you get the correct answer. It is very much like computerized flashcards, and the software program also keeps score for you.
Each successive lesson is increasingly difficult and introduces new words and phrases to you. However, a nice thing is that the further you get, the words and phrases you are familiar with from lesson one will show up in lesson two, giving you some more confidence and teaching you rather effectively by introducing more familiar things to you. So it is also a wonderful exercise in memory as well.
You can also check out the software site online: http://www.rosettastone.com/home
What I do not like about the Rosetta Stone Software.
Price!
This three CD-ROM software package is very expensive! It costs $300! I actually borrowed my copy from a friend, and use it frequently, since I may be getting a job in Taiwan teaching English this year.
But, all in all, The Rosetta Stone Chinese instruction software is really a great program.
I believe that if I dedicate two hours a day to it, I can get a very good foundation in Chinese to help me to become fluent in this difficult language. The software makes learning fun, and it has a very intuitive aspect to it as well, making language acquisition much easier. I highly recommend it.
This powerful 2-CD set of learning tools adapts to your personal needs and imparts a strong foundation in a new language With this award-winning metho...More at Amazon Marketplace
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.