Rosetta Stone Review & Giveaway!

Posted by Angela | 0 comments

Update: the winner of this giveaway is Erin from the blog Home with the Boys:

Did you know that the military uses Rosetta Stone as one of their primary language teaching tools when training linguists? This is where I first heard of the program– before we began our homeschooling journey! Once we began homeschooling I began to hear stories of people whose children picked up the desired language effortlessly and how it was so easy to add it into their homeschool day. Truth be told, despite the praises I heard, I had only visited the site once or twice and never even tried a demo. Instead I kept looking at the dollar figure and planning for the future. In public school my husband and I learned foreign languages in high school so I figured we had a while.

Recently I was offered a Level 1 program of my choice to use and give an honest review on Heart of the Matter. It was an absolute dream to get such a program for free! We chose Italian, for one, it’s a beautiful language, and two, they are all part Italian from my side of the family. I thought it would be interesting for them to learn a bit of something from their heritage.

We loaded the disc onto one of our computers and connected it to our television so it could be seen and heard well by all four of my children. You should know that every time you start the program it immediately checks for updates. I find this much more convenient than long program updates that are done occasionally. It is fast and then it’s “go time”.  The first day we spent about 30 minutes on Lesson 1. The lessons are short and easy to pick up but what kept us going through it was the fun way Rosetta Stone immerses you into the language.

Back to the bit about high school above. If you were public schooled you probably remember conjugations, conjugations, conjugations. Those columns of dread that distinguished between “he”, “she”, “it” and so forth. You might also remember trying to figure out how on earth you were going to translate sentences based on those conjugations–and then test time! Oh my. Surely it wasn’t just me that struggled some with my foreign language courses. Rosetta Stone steps out of the mundane memorization tools and instead you find the conjugations are built into the lessons. Instead of the boring bookwork it is like learning from a person who speaks the language, for example, those who were brought up in a bi-lingual household and are able to speak two languages because it is their natural environment. It also incorporates, what my children call, games into their program. For example, in the screenshot below (image of the Spanish program from Rosetta Stone) you see the first set of words, hear how they sound and you are able to replay the screen as often as you would like to get the best verbal response from your child. However, what this screen does not show is that the next few slides will incorporate these words with people–it may be a he, she or they, etc. These are terms learned throughout each lesson. In our program those (conjugations) words came before this type of shot. However, they were built in with phrases to make for easier learning. My children’s favorite parts are the screens that have them match the phrase to the picture. Below you see the words for each picture– fast forward in the lesson and your children will be matching the verbal/visual words to the actual picture. You may have the top row of the pictures below, in random order, and then have ‘un granjero’ appear. It is then your child is able to drag and drop to the correct picture. Fast forward again and they are taking the original “he”, “she”, “it” and suddenly it becomes “they are eating corn” with a picture of two women eating corn. Rosetta Stone’s program has taught you those conjugations by pictures in earlier lessons so it is a snap to put them together.

We chose the TV route because with two struggling learners it is a huge boost to their confidence when their older brothers are walking on the same playing field. Surprisingly enough my strugglers are the ones who are learning at the faster pace. My suggestion? Don’t wait until high school. I have heard time and again that children under the age of ten are more adept to pick up a new language than those in the older age groups. Now I have seen it firsthand.

Rosetta Stone’s language program also comes with a headset and microphone so your child may hear the word, repeat it, and then listen to the playback to check their enunciation. While we use the program as a group it is very oriented for individual use and independent learners.

Now for the good stuff! Rosetta Stone is giving one lucky reader a Level 1 Rosetta Stone program of their choice for FREE.

To Enter: Visit Rosetta Stone and leave a comment telling us which language you’d most like to learn.

Additional chances to win:

#2: Like us on FaceBook

#3 Tweet about the contest

Contest ends on July 1rst at Midnight!

FACEBOOK READERS: You must post your entry on the original HOTM site post to qualify.

Available only to US residents and APO/FPO addresses.

Angela DeRossett is a married-to-the-military, mother of four chaotic kids. She is passionate about ministering to homeschooling families, disability rights, theology and coffee. Angela has a BAS in Christian Ministry and is currently working on her MA in Christian Education. She and her husband of fourteen years, Jason, have been homeschooling their kids for five years. Angela can be found, every once in a while, blogging at Living the Chaotic Life.