 Lipstick on a Pig - a poor program dressed up in a nice interface |
| Review Date: April 18, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Timothy Bender, |
I have fond memories of using Rosetta Stone software to learn German - they have a great interface and it really enhances the fun of learning a language. Unfortunately, after carefully working through all 3 levels of their Chinese software, I sadly have come to the conclusion that it is a very poor choice for learning Mandarin Chinese. There are three, interconnected reasons for this:
First, Rosetta Stone has made no effort to adapt their software to the Chinese language - they have merely slapped Chinese audio and text onto the same course they use to teach western languages. This problem manifests both as bothersome errors and missed opportunities. I will give a few examples:
a) Instead of using Chinese names and Chinese currency, the program uses transliterations of Western names and a grabbag of difference currencies. Thus it overwhelmes the learner with the long, convoluted transliterations of Western names, leaves them unaccustomed to Chinese names, and completely unable to confront the potentially confusing Chinese currency system (with both colloquial and formal names for the different types of money).
b) Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, with 4 tones (which determine the meaning of a sound) plus the neutral tone. A word said in the neutral tone is much softer and shorter than normal. Unfortunately, Rosetta Stone seems to have neglected to adapt their voice recognition software for this. It will often fail to register a correctly pronounced neutral tone word. The program actually is training people to pronounce the neutral tone incorrectly - too loud and too long. Further, the voice recognition system has trouble when the learner doesn't speak very slowly - a problem, since Chinese is spoken at a somewhat rapid rate. Both cause it to train bad habits into the learner.
c) The stock pictures, situations, and statements, do not at all reflect the cultural realities of Chinese language. For example, why is the learner constantly saying "xiexie" (thank you), when this is comparatively less common in China? How about teaching them to respond to complements by saying "nali nali" (where, where), a culturally appropriate response, even if strange to western ears? Why is everyone using credit cards everywhere - try relying on a credit card in China. Instead of just people buying "yao" (medicine), how about introducing the learner to the important distinction between "xiyao" (western medicine) and "zhongyao" (Chinese medicine), common terms they will confront? The program fails to give any cultural insight - and thus misses one of the most enjoyable, interesting, and useful parts of learning a language.
d) In learning Chinese, a very helpful reality is that the meaning of multisyllable words almost always has a logical relationship to the meanings of its syllables. For example, "Huo" means Fire, "Che" means Vehicle, and "huoche" literally FireVehicle, means train. This can be very helpful to the learning process - if one first learns the one syllable words, learning the combination is quick and easy. Rosetta Stone makes no effort to deviate from its stock lesson plan to take advantage of this, however. So, using our example, the learner is confronted with both "che" and "huoche" early, and isn't exposed to the meaning of "huo" until near the end of the 3rd level!
e) The "writing" exercises are absurd. You type in the pinyin (the alphabet spelling) and then are done. This is NOT writing Chinese. Writing Chinese is either drawing the character, or typing the pinyin and selecting the appropriate character from the list of characters that have this pinyin spelling, or the more complex typing methods. Most literate Chinese people are not going to be able to understand if you write them some pinyin, you need the characters. This is pure laziness on Rosetta Stone's part - they fail to incorporate what Google published free applications for!
Second, consistent with the above point, the "Roseetta Stone method" as they call it, is unsuited to learning a language as distant from English as Chinese is. The Chinese sounds represented by the consonants "sh" "s" and "x" are all going to sound alot like the English "s" to a learner, the "zh" and "j" are all going to sound like a "j", and on it goes through virtually the entire alphabet. Even if the learner eventually stumbles into being to hear the difference in normal speed speech (a big if), without some instruction he/she will never learn how to properly produce the differences. The fact is, we aren't kids anymore, and we bring the baggage of our native language with us. Ok for a Western language, perhaps, but dangerous for a far distant one like Chinese. We need to be expressly taught - "to produce the sh or zh sound, you need to have your tongue point up, while the x and j has your tongue against your lower teeth. Practice and you'll hear the difference, even if they sound somewhat alike." More subtle points also exist - Rosetta Stone is not going to stop you from pronouncing "kao" like the American way of saying the animal Cow, or that the Chinese "b", unlike the English one, is unvoiced, so you need to stop vibrating your vocal cords - that kind of refinement takes conscious effort and instruction. The same is even more true for learning the tones, and especially the "Tone Sanhi", the way they change in context, though this review is complex enough without me going into that. If you ever hope to sound better than a guy with a $10 dollar phrasebook trying to use English sounds to mangle the Chinese language, Rosetta Stone won't get you there (even if its overgenerous voice recognition gives you plenty of pleasant sounding "you are correct!" sound effects, that trick you into feeling like you're progressing).
Third, the software, despite being priced at many times what other programs are, actually barely introduces the language. Sure, diligently work through its 3 levels, and you'll learn a number of verbs, some names for food (incidentally, the kinds of foods common in the West, not generally Chinese dishes), and a few grammar particles. But you will remain completely incapable of functioning in China. Sure, they drill you in understanding that "xingqi" means week, but you'll be out of luck as soon as someone says the other word for week, "libai". They focus on "zheli" and "nali", but you will more often hear "Zher" and "Nar" in the North of China. They always say "na" meaning "that", but only once did I hear them say the just as commen "nei." They give the illusion of advanced vocabulary, by teaching you how to say pinetree, but in truth they neglect countless essential words, like "kuai", the colloquial expression for money.
At its price, this program should offer more than Chinese audio and text clumsily slapped on to a stock design. As is, you can get much, much more culturally adapted and in-depth programs for a small fraction of the price. In truth, the Foreign Service's old language tapes and workbooks for learning Chinese, available in the public domain with a google search, is a much better program, and is offered entirely free! Then take less than half the money you would have spent and buy some of the many excellent tools and books Amazon has - books on Chinese characters Reading & Writing Chinese: Simplified Character Edition, flashcards Chinese in a Flash Volume 2 (Tuttle Flash Cards) (Chinese Edition), some of the older programs from the Beijing Foreign Press Elementary Chinese Readers (Volume I), which have nice short stories and excelent instruction in how to make the sounds - and you'll have a much more effective learning program. For extra fun subscribe to ChinesePod, and get 1000s of dialogues, all culturally authentic to Chinese life, and you'll hear how language is actually used in China, and learn the all-important term for the street food vendors. All you'll miss is the pleasant bells and whistles of the Rosetta Stone interface, and the false promise that you can absorb a language as complex and foreign as Chinese as if it were a Western language.
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Very well produced program, but still very hard to learn to speak accurately
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| Review Date: September 4, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Ivan W. Ong, Charlotte, North Carolina United States |
The Rosetta Stone (RS) learning interface is well designed and very clean. It is the most user friendly language learning program I've experienced. What's more, the user interface applies to all of their language modules so learners of multiple RS language modules will be comfortable and at home with the "dynamic immersion" approach.
At best, the RS Mandarin will train you to be conversational in Mandarin. It will not allow you to recognize and write Chinese characters easily- that is an entirely different discipline better served by other instructional approaches. It is possible to speak and not be able to read the characters at this stage.
Mandarin is hard language to speak for most westerners. The 4 primary pronunciation tones (see Wiki's Pinyin article for an excellent overview) sound subtle to western tongues and are very hard to pronounce for the typical English speaker. This is because the way the mouth (lips, tongue, breathing) moves in pronouncing Mandarin is completely different to speaking English. My wife, an American from the South who speaks English with a somewhat relaxed and dragged out accent, has incredible difficulty in discerning the tonal differences, let alone pronouncing them accurately. Discerning and learning these tonal differences is crucial to successful conversational Mandarin. If you remember the 70's-80's Kung-Fu movies, they sometimes have a Westerner as a sparring combatant and they will sometimes speak some Mandarin in between the flying punches. To the Mandarin speaker, it always sounds really funny because they have typically messed up the tonal inflections. For example, "ma" can mean mother, horse, to scold, to wipe, a question, measles, etc., when used with the correct tone and context. So, to avoid speaking "Kung-Fu Mandarin" (comical and embarrassing in a business meeting, but at least it gets them smiling), it is essential to listen to the Mandarin speakers on the RS software very very carefully and practice repeatedly. That said, the speakers on the RS software have clear excellent accents but the microphone pronunciation feedback tool is not tight enough and will tolerate tonal mis-pronunciations.
If you are learning Mandarin alone, it would be very helpful to still seek a native Mandarin speaker. It helps to observe the mouth when pronouncing the words (I wish RS would have avi's of the speaker's mouth up close as a pronouncing aid). It also helps to be corrected immediately to avoid entrenching bad habits. And if you are finding an instructor, get an educated person that speaks with a proper accent. You want the Beijing news reader quality. China is a large country and speakers from different parts of China have very different accents. For example, speakers from HK or Canton will often speak (if they even can!) Mandarin that is heavily tinged with a Cantonese accent. No point learning that. Should you be discouraged? No!!! If you are in China or get Chinese cable programs, you will notice some westerners on the language and outreach programs. Folks, these guys speak a brand of Mandarin with such accuracy and poise that would put most native speakers to shame!
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From a native's point of view
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| Review Date: October 17, 2008 |
| Reviewer: amazon's fan, Stamford, Connecticut |
I also teach Chinese to both adults and children.
Today, I installed the "application" program, which gives your a choice of focusing on listening, writing, reading and speaking or just some of them. I selected them all. After I was done with that, I was required to insert the "Level one"/ "audio" disc, which takes me through the beginning of the lesson. I learned men, boy, women, girl, this, eat, run, juice, water, tea and sentences that would incorporate all of the above.
I could listen to a native speaker pronounce the word while looking at a picture/image without any help of translation. For example, they show you the image of tea while saying "Cha." If I need to, I can also replay the pronunciation over and over.
For practice, after I've learned the new word, I am required to listen to what he/she says and then pick out the picture that matches the word/sentence. At this point, you realize that everything is all set up for the learner to learn by listening and matching the sound to the image/picture without giving you a chance to utilize the part of your brain that converts the new language to your mother tongue or vice versa. Every now and then, you are required to repeat the phrase or word into your microphone.
After my first try, I put my American friend into the experiment, as I watched on his side and remained uninvolved. Amazingly, by the time he got through the first part of the lesson, he could understand it when the native speaker (computer) said men, women, boy, girl, water, tea, run, tea in Chinese and matched them with the right image correctly 99% of the time. I was very very impressed and pleased.
Had he really put into some time to stop and repeat over and over, he would've definitely been able to say those words without any cues. So, stop and repeat and stop and repeat. Success in speaking relies heavily on your own speaking in the learning process.
Also, next to the picture/image is the pronunciation composed in alphabets. For example, men in Chinese "nan ren" and women is "nu ren." Listening and speaking altogether is no problem! Within 20 minutes of time, my American friend (who had been a complete "Chinese illiterate") eventually was able to know and remember those new words that he had just learned for 10 minutes.
In the meantime, if you'd like to change the setting to make the speaker speak more slowly, or change the male voice to female, you could do so by clicking on "setting" on the upper right hand corner of the window.
Nothing is perfect. So, here are some drawbacks, in my opinion.
First, you need to read the very long manual and know what to do with all the discs in the package. There is also a speed manual that is written in less than a few pages to help you jump start quickly. And then it'd take about 20 minutes to install everything.
Secondly, you need to be good and sensitive with the computer. For example, the computer man or woman says "nan ren" and then stops, I don't see any directions or instructions on the page, but to continue, I click around and repeat the word. There-- I realize they are waiting for me to repeat the word into the mic. Another example, now I know I need to repeat after them, I keep speaking words into the microphone. At one point, the computer says "nan ren" and there are three or four images at the bottom, I keep saying the word into the mic but get no response. So, I start clicking around. There-- I realize this is the matching exercise.
I wish they were more clear with instructions as to some, this may cause discouragement and impatience.
So, my advice is: Speak into the mic or click on pictures if you have no idea what to do.
I haven't gone far with the set of program, but my feeling is this is a system designed to help you learn the basic words and basic sentence patterns without having to go to someone. Also, the real and trained native speaker that provides good and authentic pronunciation is a big plus, as the reality is not every native speaker you encounter speaks his/her language properly.
I highly recommend it for beginners to get a strong jump start. For those who are intermediate or higher, know that ultimately to learn a language, one would still have to interact with one another. |
A highly flawed and overpriced program; not for serious students
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| Review Date: June 6, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Marie A. Klingman, |
While this version of Rosetta Stone has an attractive interface, it has several major flaws.
The Chinese romanization, called Pinyin, takes liberties in transcribing the pronunciation of the language. The letter "c," for example, is pronounced as "ts." This is an aspirated consonant, meaning that you must breathe out as you say it. This is the only way to distinguish it from "z."
Stone does not tell you this. In other words, despite the program's high price and mic interface, you will not learn correctly how to pronounce Chinese. The mic's software is too easy on the student, and probably contributes to Stone's absurdly high reviews. Get a tutor, or use the Foreign Service Institute's Chinese tapes (which are in the public domain) if you are serious.
Furthermore, the multiple choice system tests a very low level of comprehension. Questions like, "Is it an apple or a bike?" don't really set your neurons on fire. You can't just sit back and let Stone work for you, as runs the advertising line.
Stone takes a roundabout route to teach some abstract words which it is better to explain than to show pictures of. "Mei2" means "not" in Chinese (incidentally, it can be used only with certain verbs, which Stone tells you nothing about). Stone communicates the meaning of "mei2" by showing you pictures of people...not doing certain things. A simple definition would be more to the point.
Many of the activities, other than the core lesson, are annoyingly repetitive or simply worthless. The writing exercise, for example, consists of keyboarding the Pinyin for a particular word. This does not ensure that you know how to write, or even to read, the actual Chinese character.
Stone is founded on the idea that, no matter how old you are, you can learn a language---any language---just like your first. This is untrue, unless you spend years in a foreign country without a translator. The easy multiple choice system is not a substitute. Make full use of your aged brain, and understand the grammar, and systematically memorize the vocabulary. You aren't five years old anymore.
For about a fifth of the price, you can learn a lot more. For pronunciation, try the Foreign Service tapes. Use these in conjunction with the Beginning Chinese Reader (Beginning Chinese Reader, Part I) series, which systematically introduces characters and provides short reading exercises. For grammatical explanations, which contrary to what Stone says are essential to understanding the sometimes idiomatic structure of Chinese, get Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar (Modern Grammars), which is more thorough and better produced than Schaum's Chinese Grammar. For additional vocabulary, and stroke order (Stone doesn't even mention this), get either Reading & Writing Chinese Traditional Character Edition or Reading & Writing Chinese: Simplified Character Edition. I have all of these, and they have served me well. After several weeks of studying Chinese, I can read (out loud, too) and write short passages with some confidence. With Stone, I would probably still be ravaging the pronunciation, and clicking on pictures of men swimming.
Also, I've spent less than $100. Who says that learning a language needs to be expensive?
If you must have Stone, get it from the public library or borrow it. Don't mortgage anything to pay for the program. |
We are native Chinese speakers and are impressed!
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| Review Date: October 16, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Olivia, |
The primary purpose for this was to teach my 6-year-old son Mandarin Chinese. We feel guilty that we have not had time to teach him.
After getting the software, I spent 2.5 hours and my husband spent 40 minutes to evaluate the first CD independently. And both of us were impressed with the quality.
Here are a few things I like:
1) The voices are perfect Mandarin Chinese - (some other videos, such as from Learning Tree, are not).
2) You wear head-phones and repeat back the words or phrases you've learned into the microphone - wrong tones will be detected.
3) Progress at your own pace and your scores are tracked.
4) Game-like experience - less boring than other methods.
5) You can select the option to show both Chinese characters and Pinyin at the same time.
For the first week, my son's scores ranged widely from 65 to 100 when he was doing the lessons. I think he wanted to move quickly. So I asked him to achieve at least 85 before he can move on to the next lesson. Now he makes himself achieve 100 before moving on. A few weeks later (he does only two lessons a week per my request), he was placed into Advanced Beginner Level at the local Chinese School - one grade up.
The most amazing part is, he uses this software twice a week without being prompted!
Update review on 3/19/09. Still 5 stars - although I found some mistakes in the pronouciations (not many), all the above points are still valid. My six-year old now does this 4 times a week with little prompting. Earlier this year he had been promoted to level 3 at the chinese school, all because of this software. We unfortunately still do not have time to teach him, and his chinese school is more of a social place with 1 hour class and 1 hour social event every week during the school year.
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