Editorial Product Review:

Amazon.com:
Rosetta Stone Personal Edition contains everything you need to start learning a language. It's built around our award-winning Rosetta Stone curriculum, which has been adopted by organizations around the world including the U.S. Army, NASA, major corporations such as Deutsche Telecom, IKEA, Royal Dutch Shell, and over 10,000 schools worldwide--and is available in 31 languages spoken by over 90% of the world's population.

The comprehensive language-learning solution that fits your life. Learn Naturally Learn your next language the same way you learned your first language. Dynamic Immersion empowers you to see, hear and comprehend without translating or memorizing. You already have this ability, Rosetta Stone simply unlocks it. Engage Interactively Get feedback to move forward. You learn best by doing, and you'll apply what you've learned to get to the next step. Rosetta Stone adapts to your individual needs and skills, because you drive the program with your progress. Speak Confidently Start speaking immediately. From the very first lesson, you'll speak. You'll begin with essential basics, which form the building blocks of the language. Soon you'll create new sentences on your own using words you've learned. Have Fun Best of all, Rosetta Stone is addictive. With every entertaining activity, you'll feel success. You'll want to use Rosetta Stone to have that next moment, that next breakthrough. So you'll keep using it, and you'll learn more!

The Fastest, Easiest Way to Learn a New Language

Proceed at Your Own Pace
Rosetta Stone is considerate of your time. Anytime, anywhere, you can learn a new language with Rosetta Stone. You learn comfortably without feeling pressured or overwhelmed. Rosetta Stone provides guidance to make your language learning effective, fast, and enjoyable with a process that is intuitive, interactive, and visually engaging. At the end of each lesson, you are given the opportunity to test your new skills. And, since Rosetta Stone automatically records your progress, you can easily pick up where you left off, when other priorities arise.

Make Language Learning Intuitive with Dynamic Immersion
Rosetta Stone uses rich visual imagery to help you learn. You will be presented with sets of images to match correctly with a spoken or written phrase in the new language. You will advance to the next set of prompts once you've successfully matched words and images and pronounced the words correctly. With Dynamic Immersion, you learn by directly associating your new language with images--nothing is lost in translation.

Fun, Easy, and Immediate Reinforcement
Interactive exercises create a learning environment that is engaging and game-like--it's fun!

How It Works

As children, we gradually learned our first language through a process of associating mental images with words or phrases, accompanied by complete immersion in our environment. This approach was simple because it was natural and allowed the brain to adapt to increasing complexity.

Rosetta Stone recreated this natural way of learning by developing a method that uses a computer to mimic the environment in which we learned our first language. We call this Dynamic Immersion. A simple, intuitive interface and advanced technology confirms learning at every step of the process by prompting you to make connections between images you already understand and the new language. You receive immediate feedback, which helps you to reinforce learning. This systematic structure builds from simple nouns and verbs to more complex concepts and phrases very quickly, helping you achieve your language-learning goals faster than you ever thought possible.

Level 1, 2 & 3--Connect With the World

Connect with the world around you. Build a foundation of fundamental vocabulary and essential language structure. Quickly gain the confidence to enjoy social interactions such as greetings and introductions, travel, dining out, giving and getting directions, shopping and other recreational activities. Learn to share your ideas and opinions, express your feelings and talk about everyday life, your work, your interests, current events, and much more.

Features & Benefits

Faster and More Effective
Rosetta Stone will teach you as fast as you can learn! Leveraging your natural language-learning ability, Version 3 immerses you immediately in the new language, providing just the right context to prompt you to speak, pronounce, read and write in the very first lesson! Intuitive, sequential learning builds progressively and makes every lesson count. Our Dynamic Immersion method is so fast and so effective, it's used by the Fortune 500, the U.S. State Department, and over 10,000 schools.

Convenient
You pick the time, the place and the pace! We are ready when you are because there are no class schedules or missed lessons to make up. From your desk or your dining room, your valuable time can be turned into productive language learning that fits your lifestyle.

Enjoyable
When something is fun, it captures your attention...and holds it! The interactivity in Version 3 instantly engages you. Rich, vivid imagery, real-life context and voices of native speakers make Rosetta Stone different from any other product out there--never tedious or boring. Rosetta Stone provides a captivating, game-like experience.

Milestones
Learn and apply! Our MILESTONE feature lets you try out your new language knowledge in real-life situations.

Track Your Progress
New ADAPTIVE RECALL feature tracks your progress, reinforcing your strengths and revisiting your development areas.

New Speech Recognition Technology
State-of-the-art new speech recognition technology helps you learn to speak your new language even faster. And our new Speech Analysis Tool compares your voice to that of native speakers, helping you perfect your pronunciation.

Life-like Context
Our New CONTEXTUAL FORMATION feature uses real-life simulations and vivid imagery to give you exactly the context you need to produce new language--all on your own!

Level 1, 2 & 3 Set Includes:

The Basics
Nouns, verbs, adjectives, numbers, questions, colors, clothing.

Friends and Family
Ages, family relations, household items, introductions, landmarks, states, descriptions.

Work and School
Times of day, greetings, calendar terms, body parts, speaking, personal hygiene.

Shopping
Buying, selling and shopping; entertainment and sports; merchandise, speed and weight, comparing and contrasting.

Travel
Destinations, transportation, directions, locations, telling time, distance, cost, weather.

Past and Future
Tenses, letter writing, school subjects, signs, workplace terms, polite requests.

Friends and Social Life
Months of the year, arrivals and departures, social interaction, celebrations, meal courses, quality terms, apologies.

Dining and Vacation
Future tense; terms for art, architecture and music; emotions, places of worship, travel and lodging.

Home and Health
Terms for home, garden and backyard activities; household items and appliances; terms for strength and physical activity.

Life and World
Emotions, continents, life milestones, oceans, botanical terms, terms for animals.

Places and Events
Opinion and judgments, currency exchange and transactions; measurements, household repair tools, culinary terms.

Talking About the World
Nationalities, governmental leaders, political terms, media terms, business terms, religious terms. Doing things!

Audio Companion allows you to take Rosetta Stone anywhere: in the car, the gym or on-the-go.

Audio Companion--Taking Rosetta Stone to the Next Level

Introducing Audio Companion from Rosetta Stone, the newest enhancement to the world's #1 language-learning software! It's a great addition to the Rosetta Stone experience, allowing you to take Rosetta Stone anywhere: in the car, the gym or on-the-go!

What is Audio Companion?
Audio Companion CD-ROMs enhance language learning anytime, anyplace. You can learn new skills on the computer, and then reinforce them with Audio Companion. Play the CDs on a stereo, or download them to a MP3 Player and go!

Enhance the Rosetta Stone Learning Experience
Audio Companion activities correspond to Rosetta Stone CD-ROM software lessons. You can listen to Audio Companion and practice what you've been learning, turning travel time into productive language learning time.

Extend Study Time
Now, you don't have to stop learning when you leave your computer. Audio Companion lets you access lessons whenever and wherever you want. It empowers you, and works within your busy lifestyle!

Build Vocabulary and Pronounce Words and Phrases
Audio Companion features distinct words and shorter phrases to make them easier to hear and repeat. Build good enunciation habits by hearing native speakers pronounce them first.

Speak and Converse
The speaking portion of Audio Companion lets you listen to questions and answers, repeating them to use later. To help them build your conversation skills, first you'll listen to a conversation and then repeat phrases individually.









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Customer Rating: - Absolutely a pleasure
I have studied French, German and Russian the traditional ways: in classrooms and using books and tapes. I decided to tackle Spanish with Rosetta Stone even though I find the cost a bit high. In less than two weeks I have learned more and am more comfortable speaking Spanish than after months of studying the other languages the traditional ways.

This is absolutely the best way to learn a language. It keeps your interest, as it simultaneously gives you aural, spoken, written and visual activities and imagery. I think Rosetta Stone needs to find a way to reduce the cost without compromising the quality of the program.

I don't want to mislead; the program alone won't give you complete well rounded language. You have to be motivated to use it and study it outside of the program, as is true in any learning method. But Rosetta Stone does indeed give the immediate immersion it advertises, making me feel comfortable actually using Spanish from the very beginning.

I am truly impressed with this program, but reluctant to shell out the big bucks for the next levels. Perhaps the increased advertising I see is an effort on Rosetta Stone's part to greatly increase sales volume which would allow them to bring down the price. I hope so, if they do I will be buying Levels 2 and 3.

The only problem I had with it was that I used my own headset at first, and through that, the program had trouble recognizing my voice. It kept telling me I say saying it wrong no matter how I tried to get it right. When I switched to the headset supplied with the program that problem was solved.

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Customer Rating: - Not The Best Way to Learn!
I was very excited to get this product "Spanish (Latin America) Versions 1,2,3" with the Audio Companion.
The software is surprisingly unsophisticated, especially for the exorbitant cost. The verb tenses are not explained which is of course very important in Spanish. Yes, it's supposed to mimic how we all learned our first language, but the problem is, I'm obviously not 18 months old and really can't learn like that. Another problem is that within the lessons, there are no distracters. For instance: The user is presented with three phrases and three pictures and is required to match them up. One picture of a man, one of a woman and one of a boy all engaged in some kind of activity. The problem is that I can easily recognize the word `hombre' for `man,' so that's the obvious choice. Therefore I can choose the right answer without understanding anything about the phrase itself. There needs to be other similar phrases as a distraction so the user is forced to decipher the meaning without just picking the obvious choice. Then there's the "Audio Companion" which is completely useless! It's just the soundtrack to the lessons. How am I to know what the speaker is saying without any point of reference!? Sorry Rosetta Stone... Not worth $500!!!

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Customer Rating: - Quality product with some flaws
The Rosetta Stone V3 is well crafted and useful but...
I initially had some technical problems with it's operation on my Apple. After many weeks and calls, I finally had to reload the whole program. I still have to restart it every so often when the voice recognition software starts hiccuping. My main complaint is that I spent a substantial amount of time with the program but still haven't developed the confidence to converse while in Latin America. This is because this program's concept is immersion but you are not told why one answer is correct and another is not. There is no technical understanding of pronouns, adverbs etc. Also, they have no available printout of the words you learn so you can review them at a later time.

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Customer Rating: - A worthwhile investment in time and money
Be warned.....buying the Rosetta Stone is not enough to learn spanish. No, in addition to buying the Rosetta Stone you must also be willing to dedicate at least 45-60 minutes a day to learning Spanish. If you are willing to dedicate the time you can be confident that you will see positive results.

The Rosetta Stone is amazing effective in drilling in lessons with the use of games and patterns while forgoing the old-fashioned method of memorizing lists of words. At first you don't realize that you are learning spanish...and then as the days roll by you gradually realize that you are beginning to understand a variety of words and phrases. It reminds me of putting together a puzzle - it takes a little time before you see the picture coming together.

The voice recognition software is great for helping you to learn to talk (almost) like a native. While your pronunciation does not need to be perfect to advance it does need to be close. This is a very effective way to help transfer the lessons that you are learning into usable communication skills. In fact, to me this is the primary benefit that the Rosetta Stone has over any other language learning device - it offers immediate feedback!

Things that I enjoy-

- Intuitive approach to learning - both through word identification and by speaking. The voice identification software will help you take your language learning to the next lesson.
- More than one user is allowed. The Rosetta Stone is currently tracking of both me and my wife.
- Comprehensive language suite - once you are finished (and I am not close to being finished) you can be assured that you have gone through a intensive language training course. Simply put - you are getting more than the basics.
- Money back guarantee - if you don't like the Rosetta Stone you have 6 months to get a FULL refund!
- To me, this seems like the perfect tool for someone home schooling their children. Many of the lessons would be very age appropriate for someone in school

Negatives to the Rosetta Stone -
- Well it is not cheap
- You must "Want" to learn the language - not partial efforts will be effective
- one license means one computer - if you have the need to run the software on an additional computer you will need to buy ANOTHER copy of the software.

Final verdict - if you are serious about learning spanish The Rosetta Stone will be the perfect investment for you. 5 stars