I am currently learning Japanese and grabbed Rocket Japanese for $250. It’s the only one I’ve found that teaches not only vocabulary and audio lessons but *also* grammar. It is pricey though and I can get my money back within 60 days if I need to which I’m debating.
Thing is, the way I learn, grammar and sentence structure is everything. I haven’t found any other program that teaches this including Rosetta Stone. Yet everywhere I go people praise it over and over.
I’m wondering if I’m missing something and haven’t given it the chance. What are your thoughts on it?
11 comments
No.
I haven’t seen anyone praising rosetta stone in this sub though. For grammar I would recommend you to check out Bunpro or Tae Kim’s A Guide To Japanese Grammar
Is Pimsleur any good? I used the free trial and loved it thinking about getting it but not really liking the subscription service price.
After a couple years of using Rosetta Stone, I became really proficient at using Rosetta Stone. My language skills were still absolutely shit.
While immersion is a great learning method, Rosetta Stone doesn’t even provide that much effectively. It’s also really easy to fall into context dependency, where you can only recall information while using the program, which doesn’t feel good.
Personally, I don’t think that systems like Rosetta Stone or Duolingo are effective for serious learners. Best advice I can give is to constantly look for new ways to practice and engage with the language in a meaningful way. Consume media (without subtitles), read articles on grammar, take pen and paper notes, find a language exchange partner. If you can get your brain used to using new information in multiple settings, it will help with actually learning it.
just use anki and traditional textbooks and their associated anki decks
Programs like Rosetta Stone or Duolingo are a place to start. They are designed to mimic classroom instruction and will get you to somewhere around N5 or N4 level, depending how much supplemental material (music, anime, news, games, culture…) that you add.
Disclosure: I am intentionally finishing Duolingo before moving on to Genki as I am using a deliberately slow spiral method. This method is not very popular here, but it works for me as I supplement with the aforementioned music, anime, games, and culture. I am not trying to get to N1 in three years or less. I fully expect to study Japanese using various methods for the rest of my life as a hobby.
In terms of price, I suggest Duolingo over Rosetta Stone as the price is less and you are getting more-or-less the same amount of immersion learning.
Please don’t take my advice as anything more than a description of what I am doing. You really are better off asking yourself how you believe you learn any language well. If you don’t know, try something and think in terms of fail fast: If you find you do not like it, try something else.
I love Rosetta Stone. Everything I’ve learned from it, I’ve remembered years later even after I gave up.
But it’s not worth the price and arguably isn’t with your time.
It doesn’t really work beyond the basics.
Onna no ko wa aruite imasu.
All fine and dandy.
How do you depict
Kino tabeta Ringo wa oishikatta desu
But got dang will you remember onna no ko wa aruite imasu on your death bed
Rosetta Stone doesn’t explain any grammer. And it’s pretty boring, and poorly designed.
It’s only really “sort of” useful after you’ve been studying for a bit and just want practice speaking and listening. BUT even that… it’s not worth it.
They do have a game where you go through a story and speak lines back and forth. It’s pretty fun! But it’s a very small part of the app.
As someone who tutors/teaches Japanese my recommendations are never these expensive programs. YouTube has almost everything you need for free, the only thing I say you need it buy are books such as Genki, Tobira and the Japanese grammar dictionaries.
I have never met anyone who has praised Rosetta Stone except people who don’t know anything about language learning and it’s usually bc they heard from somewhere it was good.
Honestly worst app I’ve ever used for Japanese
Rosetta Stone is wbere I started almost a year ago, and right from the jump I could tell how awful it was. No matter the category you choose for your “learning”, it’s all the same. Nothing changes per category from my experience.
They do NOT teach you any basics, or even the script (Katakana or even Hiragana). You are seeing scribbles that you won’t understand or be saying “words” that you cannot understand. They will teach you phrases that will mean NOTHING to you (because you cannot comprehend what is being said).
If you like textbooks with a video resource, I’d honestly go with Genki 1 and 2 and go through it with TokiniAndy on YouTube. I did subscribe to his website for the second part of Genki and will do so when going through Quartet.