Rosetta Stone (Language-Related)
hogginthefogg
6,098 Posts
Anyone here ever try this? I got a copy from a friend because I'm interested in learning Japanese. I was thrown off a little by the way it starts right up with 4 pics and fairly long words and phrases ("Otokonohito to inu wa aruite imasu"--slow down, Tanaka-san!).As my friend just loaned me the disc and nothing else, I may be missing something (like an explanatory booklet). I've studied a handful of other languages, mostly through classes, but I did pick up a fair amount of Swedish via a first-generation Svensk-American girlfriend, lots of questions, and a dictionary. I'm considering taking Japanese night classes at City College, but they're twice a week from 6:00-9:30. I did that about 7 years ago (to learn Cantonese), but that seems like a bigger time commitment now.
Comments
never used it. i've always thought about it though so i could learn some random ass language i'll never have a use for.
??Bueno Suerte!
USA! USA! USA! USA! USA![/b]
naw i'm pretty fluent en espanol, and i've got some other languages under my belt [minimally]. i've travled all around the world and lived a couple cool places too so this dude for sure ain't sheltered.
i've been wanting to learn a scandinavian language for a while now. i don't know why, maybe its cause i had a lot of fun in copenhagen before. but the only thing that turns me off is i'll only be able use it maybe once or twice a year.
Then you should know it's "Buena[/b] suerte."
i try to stay up on my nihongo by watching episodes of pan-kun & james:
shit, i'm slackin! elementary mistake...good call.
Like any language, the stuff they will teach you for the Japanese one is going to be so overly polite. Honestly, aside from vocabulary and very basics of grammar, the Japanese you learn from a textbook style program is so lame. You sound like a complete douche unless you are talking to someone's grandmother. They only teach you the polite form which you don't really use but you do need to know. The problem is, you do have to start somewhere and that isn't a bad place to start. Once you start actually talking to Japanese people, it is hard to break the politeness that is branded into your speech patterns.
Here are some good Japanese language resources though...
Best online japanese dictionary:
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html
Paste Japanese webpages/text and get roll over definitions and kana (so you can read kanji you don't know etc.)
http://www.rikai.com/perl/HomePage.pl?Language=Ja
Free Kanji Flashcard site that saves your preferences so you can only test yourself on the ones you don't know etc..
http://www.speedanki.com
Anyway, I don't know how far along you are, but the first step is definitely to have complete memorization of the Kana (Hiragana, Katakana). Also, really try to work on the pronunciation of these sounds (they are *similar* to English sounds but certainly not exact).
I have some other good Japanese webpages saved on my other computer so pm if you have any questions...
peace
You're right. I work with folks from all over the world, and the way they construct English sentences still gives away where they are from. You know what they mean, but I can't help thinking you should teach them the new grammar of the new language, in their own language first, then start swapping the words out.
But everyone wants the quick win, so they go for the words first.
I like it when folks do Yoda-speak.
It gives an insight into their language which I would not otherwise have.
And us anglophones, notoriously lax in learning language, need all the insight we can glean.
BTW this wasn't a dis to my global brethren. I have a go in schoolboy french and pidgin spanish, but the overseas geezers here all speak at least two languages well, whereas my own generic Northern half-grunts must sound like martian to them. I feel sorry for dudes when they sit down at breakfast with us and we are talking football with all our slang and dropped letters. Dude told me he understands about 5% of that banter.
At least we can actually slow it down and articulate for them when we have to. Whereas the kids these days; the ones who "Arks" a question, have NO SHAME about their grammar.
"A 19-year-old Saaarf London girl has been advised to use the Queen's English on the phone after her hunt for a cab to whisk her to Bristol airport ended less than satisfactorily.
According to the Daily Mail, the unnamed teen rang directory enquiries two weeks ago and initially requested a number for a "Joe Baxi" firm. The nonplussed operator told her she couldn't find anyone by that name, to which the lass replied: ???It ain???t a person, it???s a cab, innit.???
The enlightened operator duly put her through to Bishop???s Stortford-based retail display supplier Displaysense, where she "spoke to an equally bemused saleswoman" before thundering: ???Look love, how hard is it? All I want is your cheapest cab, innit. I need it for 10am. How much is it????
The answer was ??180, and with the deal done by credit card, Displaysense obliged by delivering a display cabinet to her door the next morning.
Cue second phone chat with Displaysense. The company's marketing manager, Steve Whittle, recounted: "We thought it was a joke at first but the girl was absolutely livid. Because she spoke in 'Ali G' style slang, her order was mixed up somewhat. She was absolutely baffled as to why she had a big glass display cabinet delivered outside her house, when all she wanted was a taxi to take her on holiday.
"We apologised and gladly offered the young lady a refund on the display unit she received and suggested that maybe she should speak a bit clearer on the phone."
Whittle concluded: "We still don't know if she made it to the airport on time but she did ask our delivery driver if he could give her a lift."
Surely, a bit MORE CLEARLY, no?
:shoves glasses back on bridge of nose, pedant-stylee:
true...but language evolves and who's to put grammatical barriers in the way of that evolution?
The French authorities try it constantly, mainly unsuccessfully.
Whatever, I ride for the inventive use and abuse of language.
I ride hard against linguistic laziness.
I utilized Rosetta Stone version 2 software to facilitate my study of Japanese about three years ago and was initially quite frustrated with its approach. I studied literature and linguistics in college and this has lead me to seek grammatical foundations early in my study of new languages. If that is your initial goal, I recommend that you seek out other materials (Japanese for Busy People, Minna No Nihongo, Barron's Japanese Grammar, etc.). After a couple of trips to Japan and some basic vocabulary, I opted to return to Rosetta Stone to supplement my conversational practice. As with any language, it was slow-going at first, but I now find the ability to quiz myself with varied combinations of audio, visual, and textual cues to be quite functional.
What's more, Version 3 of the software is a big improvement over the version 2 iterations. It runs much more smoothly overall.
I recommend the classroom experience to anyone who is committed to studying a new language, there is no substitute for focused conversation classes. Interaction with native or well-practiced speakers trumps all other solitary approaches. That said, if you do choose to proceed with Rosetta Stone, you might find it useful to have PDFs of the lessons in front you. Here is the Japanese - Level 1 lesson PDF. You can find the remainder of the Rosetta Stone course contents (for all languages, for both versions 2 & 3 of the software) here.
I was never a proponent of flash cards until I started trying to learn Hiragana & Katakana (my kanji recognition is still next to nil); now I wholehearted support the approach. Memorizing a few kana a day isn't terribly difficult but I recommend doing so early in your study of Japanese.
Good luck. If you would like some supplemental books on Japanese grammar, vocabulary, etc., let me know. I have a smattering of other PDFs sitting on my HD.
not sure if you mess with bit torrents but i saw the entire rosetta stone catalog the other day on either mininova or piratebay. cant recall but its there.
I'm not sure what your level is, but you always seemed to have SOME understanding. If you don't have any moral issue with torrenting, dl the Japanesepod101 mp3's and pdf's. I'm using the pdf for kanji right now.
OR you can just sign up for their classes legally.
www.japanesepod101.com
I ride hard for minna no nihongo and this dictionary in which the Japanese is written in romaji but has pretty much everything you'd need outside of specific technical stuff and gives a lot of good example sentences.
I have been using denshijisho.org for quick lookups but that one highscheme posted looks pretty good (plus my wife tells me that the kanji used on denshijisho are often wrong). They've also got a lot of idiomatic phrases that are fun to bust out with the in-laws (e.g. chiri tsumoreba yama to naru).
I have no use with the dictionary above, but I will give one piece of advice. Try to dead the use of roman transcriptions of Japanese from the very start. I think anyone learning Japanese should learn Hiragana & Katakana before anything else. There are many reasons but ill list a few...
-Japanese first graders know this. Unless you are really just going for the most basic level of communication, you have to learn it sooner or later, so it is best to just get it out of the way from the get go.
-Many more resources will be in kana than in roman letters
-It isn't difficult. Practice 5-10 a day and review the old ones. Write them 50 times each.
-Perhaps the most important reason is what I alluded to in my first post. NO and the Japanese symbol の are not the same pronunciation. NO is just a representation of the Japanese sound in English. Now this may sound like a nitpick, but if you start off learning the kana and the appropriate Japanese pronunciation, it is much smarter to read them and right them in Kana. You don't want your brain to equate the english NO with the japanese kana/sound.
Ok, if you just want a Japanese textbook that an begining Japanese course would use, this is a very popular one at good universities...
http://www.amazon.com/Genki-Integrated-Course-Elementary-Japanese/dp/4789009637
I'm taking for granted the fact I was in Japan when I learned. I got all the kana I needed from menus / ads on trains / packs of tissues / conbini goods / record tags / etc. Know any good kana-only dictionaries for beginners that are actually decent dictionaries?
Oh and romaji paper jisho > electronic jisho -- those things are anti-learning (just look it up again easily when you forget). It should be a minor pain in the ass to look up something you already looked up once so you actually try to remember on your own first.
Best way to learn Japanese -- Japanese girlfriend! (but careful not to start talking like a girl, ne?)
Yeah, I was speaking from experience. Probably the weakest part of my Japanese was and most likely still is my pronunciation. Japanese pronunciation actually isn't that difficult compared to many other languages, but being understood and sounding native is completely different. At the beginning I didn't think there was any disadvantage to using roman letters for Japanese, but I was later taught what I wrote above.
In essence you want to be thinking in terms of Japanese sounds and writing/reading in terms of Japanese kana (and eventually kanji). You want to erase that layer of converting Japanese symbols into roman letters or sounds in your mind...if that makes any sense
You know, that's one of the most amazing things you can do with a new language -- stop translating it in your head first. Just after I noticed myself doing that I began dreaming in Japanese, which is awesome. Only problem is it's overwritten pretty much all the French I learned as a kid.
(I hope I just thanked everyone for a completed action.)
I'm gonna stick with Rosetta here and there and the textbooks/CD/dictionaries I have. Then I'm gonna take a class in the fall at SF City College, as I just learned that they offer Japanese at a more central location.