Please sign in to post.

Another question about Rosetta Stone

Posted by (Indianapolis, Indiana, usa) on

I bought the French package last week with the idea of learning to read French. I'm in my 60s & don't expect to understand or be able to converse. I love Paris, & manage fine with only the 'polite' vocab. But, my dream is to sit at a cafe reading a Fr newspaper (journal) probably with a dictionary close by.

For those of you who have gone thru 2 or 3 levels of R.S., are you able to read the language? Can you read a website or a newspaper? My concern is the way it's taught with no explanation of grammar or translations. For example, do you gradually become aware of verb conjugation so you can apply this to new words you learn outside of R.S.? I'm willing to work at this & am not planning to go to Paris again until next spring. What do you think?

Posted by
360 posts

thanks Brad. I like what your hosts said - same goes for the U.S. as well.

Posted by
360 posts

I just noticed I posted this in the wrong section & will repost to another. Sorry if you've read it twice.

Posted by
12172 posts

Reading is easier because you can puzzle it out. My experience was in Germany. I found the biggest challenge I had in reading/watching the news was the number of personal pronouns, place names and slang words that I had never learned. This makes it hard because you won't find it in a dictionary. If you have someone around who is fluent, you can ask what does this mean? You pick one up and hopefully remember it the next time you see it. There were also a lot of specific business terms I had to learn. It's an interesting process that helps you learn more about the country and seems to come naturally when you allow yourself to be immersed in a language for awhile.

I made one remark to my hosts that I felt comfortable with the language but wasn't always sure about the case, gender, sentence structure and conjugation. They responded, "That's ok about 70% percent of people here don't know it either."

This topic has been automatically closed due to a period of inactivity.