Rosetta Stone Version 3: German Level 1, 2 & 3 Set with Audio Companion

UPDATE 23 March 2009

*SERIOUS WARNING* Rosetta Stone’s customer support is awful. They will hassle you like no other software company I have ever dealt with in 16 years of computing. Should you have a system crash or two, good luck trying to reactivate. Their product activation policy (2x) is preposterous. Same machine, same IP address, same e-mail, same phone number, couldn’t care less. Can you imagine if you’re on the road?

For the money they charge, they should bend over backwards to work with you. I would not buy this software based on this “policy”. How sad and stupid. Be very careful or you’ll have a $500.00 useless Yellow Box.
*SERIOUS WARNING*

There is a lot to be said for the Rosetta Stone method of picture recognition. Also, it is set up very intuitively requiring minimum computer skills on your part to engage. I was able to get it running on both a Vista x64 desktop & a Vista x32 notebook for test purposes.

The instructions are clear and easy to follow. You have a main program disc and then the level 1, 2, 3 discs as you progress. There is nothing confusing about the process. Registration is not required. However, for activation and update of downloads I strongly suggest an Internet connection be available. Immediately upon install there were updates waiting for me. Should you not be connected, there is a toll-free phone number to call that will enable you to activate and unlock all features.

My 82 year old mother was able to negotiate and understand the program as was my 10 year old nephew. Neither one was interested at first but they admitted to having fun with it.

The quality and production values of both the software and packaging are first rate with one personal annoyance. Given the dependency on images that Rosetta Stone utilizes I would have preferred more specific Germanic cultural associations and quite frankly, less multiculturalism. The picture of a couple eating soft boiled eggs from egg cups…very German; the picture of women in robes walking across the desert with bowls on their heads…not so German. This diversity is unnecessary as far as immersion is concerned, though I assume it saves on production costs since one size seems to fit all languages, however I want to learn German, not Esperanto!

That said, this is an excellent language program, especially for the beginner. It’s fun and lively. Having lived in Berlin for a year (back when there was a wall) I find the accents used by the actors to be clear and precise. And the the speech recognition very forgiving. This is a good thing because there is nothing worse than impeding progress over pronunciation. Proper pronunciation comes eventually. If you are having problems with pronunciation there are a couple of things you can do. There is a slider bar in the setup to adjust the strictness of the speech recognition engine. Also, you can click on the items causing issues and there is a more intense pronunciation sub lesson complete with graph and syllable breakdown.

I like the visual associations because you are figuring things out for yourself and really building on what you know to learn something new. It’s a subtle process…but it works…at least so far. German grammar has always driven me nuts but somehow this program has really polished my grammar. I only wish I had had this software when I was in Berlin. But then there were no PCs either!

The included USB microphone, while a bit flimsy and sans volume control, is none the less accurate, lightweight and perfectly up to the task. And since it’s USB it makes connecting a whole lot easier. Great for a notebook.

This package also comes with the audio discs for when you’re on the road or in your hotel room and need a jolt of subliminal/revisional learning without the computer. Plays in a CD or MP3.

I will have to save my pennies for the Spain-Euro-Spanish version because if this is any indication it will be superb as well.

Of all the things that require dedication and persistence, the effort to learn a language has got to be somewhere in the top ten. Rosetta Stone (RS) is often regarded as the best in language software. We’ll see . . .
This review covers German lessons 1-3 of the OS X version.

HITS:

1) Even in light of my criticism of RS, I think the software is worth the price. For one, there are not many language software programs that are OS X friendly. The ability to learn on your own time and at your own pace is a huge plus. Finally, there is a LOT of material here. Doing three “blocks” a day took me roughly 3 months to finish all 3 lessons.

2) RS tries different ways of getting one to use the language. But the method that works best is the one that RS was designed for in the first place–mixing and matching words with pictures. The READING, LISTENING, LISTENING AND READING, and VOCABULARY courses are great for learning new words at your own pace.

3) I found the REVIEW lessons useful in making sure that I didn’t forget some vocabulary from a past lesson.

4) I had no install problems, only occasionally had bugs (screen freezes, etc.), and the user-interface is very intuitive.

MISSES:

1) SPEAKING and PRONUNCIATION. RS does not teach you the German alphabet. Instead, they have you learn different sounds in actual German words. I disagree with this method because what German I learned previously was mostly self-taught and I found that knowledge of the alphabet came in very handy when it came to proper pronunciation–not to mention the time I took my vision test at Brille Fielmann in Muenchen.
The Speaking portions are better, except when they expect you to repeat a quickly-spoken sentence that is not shown on-screen. If your short-term memorization skills are not up to snuff, you might have a hard time.

2) The voice recognition is terribly inconsistent. There were times I said a sentence EXACTLY as I have in Germany and was 100% understood by the locals, but the RS software insists I’m saying it wrong. There were times my occasional STUTTER got me tongue-tied and somehow I got the sentence RIGHT. You can change the “Speech Precision Level” but I found that even setting it to Easy didn’t make matters better.

3) GRAMMAR. RS does a poor job of teaching Grammar. In fact, the only reason why I knew the answers to some of the slides was because of my previous knowledge of the Dative, split-verbs and other rules. RS only informs you that you got the question wrong, but it doesn’t inform you at all WHY you got it wrong, why you would use the word “seit” instead of “vor” in the sentence.

4) WRITING. To give credit where credit is due, the ability to have your keyboard virtually become a GERMAN keyboard is way cool and earns many practicality points. However, the Writing lessons are very scarce (4 per Unit). When you do get to the Writing lessons, not even all the slides have anything to do with writing. So out of 7 slides, maybe you do some actual typing on 5 of them. What was most frustrating to me was this: You can stutter and butcher a spoken sentence and get it right, but God forbid that you forget to capitalize the “S” in “sie”–meaning you get the entire sentence WRONG–it doesn’t matter if you spelled everything else correctly.
My last straw with the Writing lessons was this: You sometimes can’t make out words in the sentence! Is the speaker saying “diese” or “dieser”??? Because the two sound awfully alike. And remember, if you forget just one letter, you get the whole thing wrong.

OVERALL: If you have never tried learning German I would pass on RS. Although it might help you learn a few basic sentences and vocabulary words, it will most likely frustrate you with the voice recognition, inconsistent grading standards and lack of grammatical explanation.
If you do already know some German, I DO recommend RS, but only as a SUPPLEMENT.
Finally, there are MANY ways you can learn German. Sign up for a German epal. Take other free online courses–they’re out there! Listen to German music like Rammstein and Fanta Vier–their MFG song is great for testing out your alphabet skills!

Good luck with your learning!