Rosetta Stone Review: Rosetta Stone or a Language Class

This is part two of a series of articles about my experiences with learning French using Rosetta Stone. I had a need to learn the basics very quickly for a business trip and I wanted to share my experiences with other people who may find themselves in similar situations.

One of the decisions that I had to make when I was trying to decide how I was going to learn French was whether I should use a language program or a language class. I had already decided that if I was going to use a language program it would be Rosetta Stone but I still had to determine if I was going to use it or if I was just going to attend a language class. In the end I chose to use Rosetta Stone and I think that it was probably the right choice.

The main reason that I decided that I was going to use Rosetta Stone and not a language class was that I really didn't have enough time to take enough classes to learn all I needed. Realistically if I was going to learn French in a couple of months I was going to have to put in work every day. The problem was that I couldn't afford to spend every day in a classroom learning. Therefore Rosetta Stone was an ideal option since it allowed me to study on my own whenever I wanted.

It turned out that Rosetta Stone was a good choice for reasons that I hadn't considered. Because the program is so interactive I was really able to learn French very quickly. The truth is that if I had taken a language class it would not have been nearly as interactive nor would I have gotten the same level of attention since I would have been just one of dozens of students. In order to use the program you have to get the answer to each question right before you can move on to the next one. This made sure that I learned the material better than I would have had I been sitting in a classroom.

It turns out that I didn't actually miss anything using Rosetta Stone that I would have gotten taking a language class. The speech recognition software made sure that I was pronouncing words properly and if I did run into a problem I had access to an instructor. Ultimately I found that this was a much better way to learn than a language class would have been.