Learning Spanish

My husband and I bought Rosetta Stone hoping to learn enough Spanish to 'get around' Barcelona during our vacation. I had several years of Spanish in high school, but my husband had none (he took two years of French).

This program uses a nice combination of visual learning through pictures, spelling / grammar and pronunciation via the spoken word. Very effective. It seems to intuitively cycle difficult words / phrases back into your learning activities to give you more practice, which is great.

You can set the degree of difficulty you want the program to grade your pronunciation on, depending on your level of comfort and past experience with the language. You can use your own computer's microphone, or the headset they provide. You can choose a 'male' or 'female' voice for recognition, to further customize your experience. The technology itself is smooth and easily navigable.

As someone who has a 'little' background in Spanish, some of this Level 1 is a bit of a review, but learning it in a new way is making it less repetetive and dull. The lessons move quickly, as well. Would recommend for true beginners.

[JPablo]

Good to know. I heard overall positive comments about Rosetta Stone... I am glad you are enjoying it...

Are you already in Barcelona? (I am from there, although I am now in Southern California) (I love Barcelona... particularly Gaudí's architectural works of art... but I love also many other things about my old city...)

At any rate, WELCOME TO THE FORUMS... and enjoy practicing with all of us.

Let us know if any questions!

[FlakeySnowballer]

I started studying Spanish with zero using Berlitz Books. For me it is very efficient way of studying. Spanish is more easy language comparing with English.

[poli]

Berlitz it very good for learning simple phrases and terms.

[CrOtALiTo]

I can see that the Rosetta Stone is very popular between the beginners in the forums.

[Jessica]

I use a cd that has the title "High School Languages" and Spanish is one of them. also I got the textbooks for 11th grade Spanish ahead of time

[Tarential]

This thread should be removed completely. It is simply a bot advertising for the software. Who else would register with their nickname being "Rosetta Stone"? The user has been banned I see but why has the thread not been removed?

[wafflestomp]

I highly doubt the actual Rosetta Stone company would send spam bots to forums... what did the link go to? Some weird site?

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

@Tarential: The thread has been kept because it might be useful for those who have used the software to share their experiences. That might be an enriching discussion on methods and ways of learning.

[ookami]

Originally Posted by FlakeySnowballer

Spanish is more easy language comparing with English.

Are you a comedian?

[CrOtALiTo]

Originally Posted by Tarential

This thread should be removed completely. It is simply a bot advertising for the software. Who else would register with their nickname being "Rosetta Stone"? The user has been banned I see but why has the thread not been removed?

Yes I know that the user has been banned, but even so the thread contain information important for us.

I don't know but the both wrote a text as it was a human.
It was so human its phrases.

[wafflestomp]

Originally Posted by CrOtALiTo

Yes I know that the user has been banned, but even so the thread contain information important for us.

I don't know but the both wrote a text as it was a human.
It was so human its phrases.

Well, these forum bots are dispatched automatically around to forums. They register with a bunch of email addresses and IPs (generally Russian ones in my experience) and have a pre-worded message. On my old forum we used to always get weird Russian bots spamming medications
I recall one of them was like "Your high school sweet heart say hello f___ me" as the thread title, and then linked to a bunch of pill sites. Weird huh.

[Tarential]

Originally Posted by wafflestomp

I highly doubt the actual Rosetta Stone company would send spam bots to forums... what did the link go to? Some weird site?

The companies rarely do it themselves. They hire advertising companies who drive traffic through less than reputable methods, such as these bots or spam e-mails. Anyway, I don't see how leaving around posts with false votes of confidence for a program does anything besides make their advertising successful. It certainly doesn't give beginners an accurate view of what helps and what doesn't. If we want to help, an informational sticky post comparing the different language learning software would be orders of magnitude better than these advertisements.

But of course, that's just a suggestion. It doesn't hurt me if new people spend good money on RS instead of trying free software that might work better for them. For some, RS might even work best.

[CrOtALiTo]

Originally Posted by wafflestomp

Well, these forum bots are dispatched automatically around to forums. They register with a bunch of email addresses and IPs (generally Russian ones in my experience) and have a pre-worded message. On my old forum we used to always get weird Russian bots spamming medications
I recall one of them was like "Your high school sweet heart say hello f___ me" as the thread title, and then linked to a bunch of pill sites. Weird huh.

Yes I got it.

They are programmed in Linux software, really sometimes they are shells drive from a loser user.

Although the likely of the companies buy great contracts with spammers companies for that they can promote their products.
But you can negate the intelligent or smart than are the both today.

[Tarential]

No, they are not necessarily Linux based. Nor is it possible to "negate the intelligent or smart" from falling for it, as you yourself posted in this thread saying "Rosetta Stone seems to be popular for beginners", implying that you believed the post. I must assume the most positive interpretation of that and say that even you, an intelligent person, may be fooled. I couldn't possibly say that intelligent people wouldn't be fooled, because that would imply bad things about you. I would never do that.

[Tomisimo]

Originally Posted by Tarential

If we want to help, an informational sticky post comparing the different language learning software would be orders of magnitude better than these advertisements.

Good idea. Now to find time to do it....

[CrOtALiTo]

Originally Posted by Tarential

No, they are not necessarily Linux based. Nor is it possible to "negate the intelligent or smart" from falling for it, as you yourself posted in this thread saying "Rosetta Stone seems to be popular for beginners", implying that you believed the post. I must assume the most positive interpretation of that and say that even you, an intelligent person, may be fooled. I couldn't possibly say that intelligent people wouldn't be fooled, because that would imply bad things about you. I would never do that.

I know the human knowledge and the intelligent of the human can't be compare with the informatic intelligent.

But their programming sometimes tend to be more smart inclusive than us.
You should be more realistic in the questions of the robotics.
And I don't be underrate the human intelligent or simply, I'm not saying about if the human intelligent is fooled for me.

Only I said that the boots tend to be sometimes more intelligent for the technology that after they are built, and the programmers that they dedicate the time need for the build the intelligent robotics.

Now I don't where are you.
But at least here on my country the mainly of the informatics robots are built in Linux, the programming of the shells and robots are more simple and free than based in Windows.

Perhaps in your country is more used Windows than on Mexico, but at least here on my country there're people who great knowledge in Linux and they know works in the that operative system much better than Windows.

[Tarential]

Again, no. You are mistaking the operating system they develop on for the platform that the bot is using. The platform the bot is written on is likely to be Perl, Python, PHP, or some other scripting language. These all run just as well on Windows as they do on Linux. What you mean is that many developers choose to use Linux as their desktop operating system. The bots generally run just as well on any operating system.

[Chris]

I for one found Rosetta Stone to be too expensive. No soy rico. I am loving LiveMocha. It is free to join and Spanish 101, 102, 201 and 202 are sort of free. You only have to give your time to help someone else that is learning your native language. The site makes you speak the language so you get used to talking. My problem now is that I don't talk fast enough according to the people who review my speaking exercises. My trill has gotten way better, on words like corriendo my tongue rolls without any trouble but on words like pelirroja it does it with much more difficulty.

SpanishDict is a pretty cool site. Unfortunately my connection is slow and I can't view the videos but I learned a lot just from the awesome flash cards they have.

[CrOtALiTo]

Originally Posted by Tarential

Again, no. You are mistaking the operating system they develop on for the platform that the bot is using. The platform the bot is written on is likely to be Perl, Python, PHP, or some other scripting language. These all run just as well on Windows as they do on Linux. What you mean is that many developers choose to use Linux as their desktop operating system. The bots generally run just as well on any operating system.

I will search more information about of you are tell me, I have understood that the mostly the hackers and other people who's dedicate to the creation of software Anti virus are adapted to use Linux system, also they can use Delphi software, well I don't know if you always use the same system operative.

Ok I got it your council.

Thank you for your recommendations.