Rosetta Stone French Review

Classical approach to learning a new language at home consists of studying the grammar book and listening several accompanying audio CDs. Learning a language in a classical method requires much more effort than new interactive and visual techniques developed by Rosetta Stone. Since I continue to learn French, I will review one of the most successful French language learning suites of our time. Rosetta Stone French Version 4. 

I am 32 years old and fluently speak and write in English and Russian languages. My native language is Turkish. I have made quite progress in French (beginning advanced level CDs now) using Rosetta Stone French set and this will be a good milestone for me to become a polyglot.

Rosetta Stone is the leading language software company in the market and provides all the elements of language in the same way babies learn their first language for perfect immersion. Rosetta Stone French v4 consists of 3 levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and teaches all the elements in sections (grammar, listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary, pronunciation etc.). If you follow the system of Rosetta Stone, you will be surely fluent in French.

The language system works basically on the rule of mental association of words and images. Starting from simple images and words, each chapter introduces new words, then sentences for several situations and these are written into memory like babies naturally. For example, on advanced level these images become more and more complex but since we are prepared in previous levels, it is still easy to grab new things.

For example, look at the following screenshot for better explanation of this effective method (without a word in English, thus no translation)

from Level 1 - Unit 1 (Language Basics) - Core Lesson section 6

We are introduced new words un homme (a man) and une femme (a woman) with their pronunciation and mental image words association. Then we need to choose the correct image after hearing the word. After doing such basic activities for a couple of closely related words, the system introduces several actions using this words. For example, after a few sections we begin to learn about basic verbs.

In the following screenshot we see manger (to eat) and boire (to drink) French verbs in mental association with un homme and une femme.

Then, we are expected to choose the correct images when we hear a sentence something like La femme mange. (The woman is eating). Maybe, at this time we don't understand why there is a change in verbs (manger to mange, or boire to boit) but all these changes will intuitively be revealed on a few later steps. The important point is that grammar is taught intuitively and with association as well.

Let's look another core lesson example from another future section.

We need to complete the sentence after hearing just the beginning and looking at the image. Le pain a bon gout. (The bread has a good taste). We understand that bread has really a good taste because of the impression on her face. So, on the right page it is easy to understand that Le lait is the milk.

Notice that we didn't need any dictionary and can easily learn the words just by association and it is how babies learn a language natively.

We can track your progress using the bar and review your mistakes whenever you want in sections. Each core lesson will be followed by several test sections including listening, writing, speaking (yes, we actually talk and there is a perfect voice recognition system which compares our speech to native French speaker), reading, comprehension etc. There are several milestones we need to complete before taking the complete visual test on the end of each unit.

As you can notice, Rosetta Stone French v4 is very comprehensive. As a result, thousands of words and grammar information will be under our command in the end of the set

I should add that Rosetta Stone language tools are used in thousands of language schools and faculties, prestigious companies and foundations including U.S. Army, NASA, Deutsche Telecom, IKEA, Shell etc.

If you are a motivated person and want to learn and speak French with an easy method, Rosetta Stone French is the perfect choice. I should remind that the software is not cheap but you will get back more than what you have invested.Read and compare reviews of other French Language Software suits here.