5 ms·

This doesn't bode well. If you get involved in the spoken language learning community (and hey, who doesn't?), you quickly find out that serious enthusiasts hat

by Ovid 14y ago

This doesn't bode well. If you get involved in the spoken language learning community (and hey, who doesn't?), you quickly find out that serious enthusiasts hate Rosetta Stone. It's known for its marketing prowess and not its pedagogy. Here's a lovely little blog entry which uses the hilarity of Michael Phelps and his attempts to learn Chinese with RS as an example: http://www.streetsmartlanguagelearning.com/2010/02/rosetta-stone-teaches-michael-phelps.html http://www.streetsmartlanguagelearning.com/2010/02/rosetta-s... On the other hand, there are tools like Assimil which absolutely rock, but no one seems to have heard of them. The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) courses are decent and free (by law because they're in the public domain) but the main site hosting them seems down (http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php). Someone's tried to create "pretty" versions of the FSI courses at http://www.ielanguages.com/fsi/fsiproject.html http://www.ielanguages.com/fsi/fsiproject.html, but they never got very far. Update: some of the FSI courses are still available at the Internet Archive (http://web.archive.org/web/20130113232657/http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php http://web.archive.org/web/20130113232657/http://fsi-languag...), but the MP3s can't be downloaded.

darxius 14y ago
That's an interesting article, but unfortunately all the videos have been taken down :(
- Ovid 14y ago
  Bah, you're right. I've seen the videos before so I didn't bother to try to watch them again. He was widely mocked for that, but now I can't find those videos anywhere. That's very curious.
  - personlurking 14y ago
    Not sure which spot you're referring to but here's a vid of Phelps speaking Chinese http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nTevZ7a5mM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nTevZ7a5mM
jcampbell1 14y ago
There is a ton of good stuff out there, and I agree that Rosetta stone is awful. Rostetta Stone from a business perspective is brilliant in that they get $400 for the software upfront, and most people give up and blame themselves, not the software. It also demos very well, but gets really boring really quickly. Michael Phelps would have been much better off if he had just learned one phrase... "Hello, little friend (nihao xiao pengyou)". In China, children a fascinated by foreigners and love to point. I know of no other phrase that so consistently wins smiles from children and parents alike. Even if Michael Phelps had completed all the Rosetta Stone levels, he still would have never known how to greet a child.
billybob255 14y ago
I was coincidentally looking for the FSI courses the other day and found a site that catalogs various places to find them. http://ielanguages.com/blog/death-of-a-language-website-fsi-language-courses-org/ http://ielanguages.com/blog/death-of-a-language-website-fsi-...
- Ovid 14y ago
  That's awesome! Thanks for that. I love you. Don't tell my wife.

by Ovid 14y ago

darxius 14y ago

That's an interesting article, but unfortunately all the videos have been taken down :(

Ovid 14y ago
Bah, you're right. I've seen the videos before so I didn't bother to try to watch them again. He was widely mocked for that, but now I can't find those videos anywhere. That's very curious.
- personlurking 14y ago
  Not sure which spot you're referring to but here's a vid of Phelps speaking Chinese http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nTevZ7a5mM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nTevZ7a5mM

jcampbell1 14y ago

There is a ton of good stuff out there, and I agree that Rosetta stone is awful. Rostetta Stone from a business perspective is brilliant in that they get $400 for the software upfront, and most people give up and blame themselves, not the software. It also demos very well, but gets really boring really quickly. Michael Phelps would have been much better off if he had just learned one phrase... "Hello, little friend (nihao xiao pengyou)". In China, children a fascinated by foreigners and love to point. I know of no other phrase that so consistently wins smiles from children and parents alike. Even if Michael Phelps had completed all the Rosetta Stone levels, he still would have never known how to greet a child.

billybob255 14y ago

I was coincidentally looking for the FSI courses the other day and found a site that catalogs various places to find them. http://ielanguages.com/blog/death-of-a-language-website-fsi-language-courses-org/ http://ielanguages.com/blog/death-of-a-language-website-fsi-...

Ovid 14y ago
That's awesome! Thanks for that. I love you. Don't tell my wife.