Rosetta Stone

[nightseas.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping to take Russian language classes at the University of Toronto, but they're all filled this year and I was a late applicant (I'm number 217 on the wait list, ouch).

My plan is to become an interpreter or bilingual social worker (I have a background in social work, but most of the positions in Toronto require a second language). I also plan to travel to Russia (the 4th year of the U of T program can be taken at St. Petersburg State University, which I plan to do).

My question: would it be worthwhile to invest in Rosetta Stone? I've been trying to learn online and out of a workbook that I bought, but it's proving to be ridiculous for me. I've heard great things about the program for some other languages but also terrible things for others (such as German).

If anyone has any experience or anything, would it help me greatly to use Rosetta Stone for a year before taking formal classes?

Thanks!

Comments

Rosetta Stone

[k0dama.livejournal.com]

I thinkfor beginning a language, pimsleur is a better choice. I had a chance to see rosetta stone in action a few years back, and it seemed really focused on vocab and not a whole lot on speaking and listening.

Re: Rosetta Stone

[ihelen.livejournal.com]

Off: u are good in a Drawing. :)

Re: Rosetta Stone

[k0dama.livejournal.com]

haha, thanks.

(and also I had no idea I had non-friendlocked posts like that :V it's something to think about tonight...)

Re: Rosetta Stone

[ihelen.livejournal.com]

I ever draw tonight. May be most of painter are owls. :)

Re: Rosetta Stone

[oryx_and_crake]

I think people here had very negative impression of Pimsleur Russian course.

http://community.livejournal.com/learn_russian/785706.html

More links on this community's discussion of Pimsleur and other audio courses here:
http://blogs.yandex.ru/search.xml?text=Pimsleur+&ft=all&server=livejournal.com&journal=learn_russian&holdres=mark

(to search for Rosetta, insert it instead of Pimsleur)

[cheaffa.livejournal.com]

I study the Japanese some years and using the program the Rosetta Stone.
It helps to get initial lexicon very much and a few grammar. The pronunciation, reading, writing is acquired not so well. In general I consider this program as a good choice. If there will be a desire to be trained in language, you can write to me :)

No

[nietzschka.livejournal.com]

It costs WAY too much. And from the people that have used it, I'm told it is pretty much identical to a mostly FREE website called Live Mocha... which has Russian.

It's a fantastic website. I would try that out first.

And I'm using New Penguins Russian Course book. It's inexpensive.. and I love it.

Re: No

[nightseas.livejournal.com]

I've actually been referred to Live Mocha before. I totally forgot about it. Thanks!

Re: No

[pastilla.livejournal.com]

+1 to nietzschka's comment . . . my opinion exactly.

[kali-kali.livejournal.com]

Also, before you shell out cash for any program like Rosetta Stone, see if you can get it through your library. U of T is so massive I'd venture to guess they'd have it - or one of the city libraries would.

Try and find a Russian conversation club as well - the university may have one, or there may be one in the community for Russian learners. I know there's a club like that in Ottawa, I'd imagine Toronto would have one as well. For Russian, spoken practice is very important, since pronunciation can sometimes be difficult (and sometimes really easy, once someone explains it properly - when I was studying first and second year Russian on my own so that I could then take third year Russian at university, I had a devil of a time trying to figure out how ь made things sound... until my conversation partner, a half-Russian half-Latvian friend of mine, explained it to me in about 30 seconds in terms of Latvian sounds, rather than English ones).

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

There's also http://www.meetup.com, in particular: http://www.meetup.com/russian-315/

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

You can start learning the language on your own. It never hurts to learn a language alphabet, most of the phonetics/pronunciation and the basics of the grammar. This would be a decent introduction to the Russian language (and cheap too), which covers these things:
http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Grammar-Natalia-Lusin/dp/0812049020/

[mithrilian.livejournal.com]

"My plan is to become an interpreter or bilingual social worker" --

I sincerely doubt you can become a bilingual unless you are really really talented from birth. In my experience, only three groups of people can become bilingual.

1. Children who migrate to the country of the second language and whose parents pay close attention so they won't forget their mother language.

The threshold here is 15-17 years. If a child gets to go to school of the new language for at least 2-3 years, then he can become bilingual. If a child is younger than 10 there is a real danger that his mother tongue vocabulary would shrink to about 200 routine words and phrases such as "wash your hands" and "get up, you're late". The ability to understand mother language largely remains, but that's not bilingual.

2. Children who grow up in mixed-language families or with constant au pairs or who go to the really good private school where they are taught in a language different from their mother tongue. Again, a special attention to languages must be paid by the family throughout.

3. High-brow multi-lingual academic people. However, most of them only write and read freely in their languages.

So you might be able to be proficient in Russian, but resign to the fact that you won't be bilingual. Unless, I repeat, you are very very talented in languages and this language is your fifth one learned or something.

If you want to be a social worker, you will have to possess not only book-language, but also the language of the street, all sorts of jargon. Russian language is very contextual, and Russian talk is no less full of cultural references than any other. Russian people would very easy prevent you from understanding what they are saying to each other by the simple means of suddenly filling up their conversation with those referrals.

Last but not least. To learn a language you have to love its culture. It's been of a great help to me that I love English literature and have preferred it to Russian since childhood. It is such a pleasure not to be depended on shoddy translations any more! I am also interested in British history, and I like American movies.

And yet... I immigrated to the States when I was 19 and went to work straight away. No Russian television, no Internet, no Russians living around. So, in about a year I started having dreams in English. I am 36 now, and still I have a distinct accent and make mistakes that no native would.

[cassandraclue.livejournal.com]

If it really were that difficult to become truly bilingual, well, then what would be the point of learning a language?

I'm not particularly talented in learning foreign languages. I'd say that I'm average and don't really have the greatest memory. I started learning Russian at 18, and I'd certainly say that I know enough to be able to function in a capacity as a social worker in Canada dealing with Russian casework. I'll never get rid of my accent and I certainly make mistakes that no native speaker would, but I know Russian well enough to be able to live and work in Russia and have a real social life conducted entirely in Russian. I guess perhaps that's a fourth way--to spend several years in a country and ignore the expat community. :)

Talent makes it easier, to be sure. But hard work (and I didn't even do that) and exposure and immersion to language will go far. Like you said, interest in a culture and language--motivation!--also helps. I don't think it's helpful to be all, "Bilingual!? Only if you're gifted!" before someone has even really started with a language.

To the OP--I'd recommend working REALLY HARD once you get into Russian classes; even though it can be really boring sometimes, you'll be glad you did later if Russian is really something you're going to stick with and use in your life. And when you go to Russia, try to really immerse yourself. You'll probably have fun no matter what, but hanging out with the other people in your program won't help you with your Russian. Plus, it is indeed true the way people actually talk and what you learn in a university classroom can be two very different things.

[cassandraclue.livejournal.com]

grammar mistakes in ENGLISH abound, be warned !

[nightseas.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I am really motivated and interested to learn this language - I did really well learning French, but I just wasn't interested in it so I fell out of it. But when I found out that I have Russian background, it just clicked and I knew I needed to learn the language and I just fell in love, really.

Also, one of the options for the year in Russia is to live with a host family, which is what I think would be best for me as a learning experience.

I'm just really confident I can do well because I feel like I have such a passion for it, the language and the culture both interest me. I'm also considering my year in Russia as kind of a trial to see if I'd like to live/work there.

[mithrilian.livejournal.com]

"I guess perhaps that's a fourth way--to spend several years in a country and ignore the expat community. :)" -- and the younger one is the better chance one has ^)

I was merely taking an exception with 'bilingual'. I am capable to work and live in English-speaking countries, but I can't write poetry in English the way I can in Russian, for example. Every normal person can become proficient in another language.

[cassandraclue.livejournal.com]

Very few have the artistry or the talent to write poetry in several languages--off the top of my head, the only people I can think of who reached that level of profiency are Nabokov and Conrad. But I think that being able to communicate well enough to be a bilingual caseworker is a perfectly reachable goal, one in which being an able poet in multiple languages is not very useful or necessary.

@lialioness-good luck!

[zhp.livejournal.com]

You have an early 20th century definition of "bilingual" as a person who is perceived as a native speaker in both of the languages. This definition is too narrow from the contemporary point of view: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilingual#Definition_of_multilingualism

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

Writing poetry in a foreign language (specifically English) is an interesting topic. While I do not consider myself a poet (because I can't avoid comparison of my works with those of well-known Russian poets:), I can write some verses in English as well and, surprisingly, the flexibility of English helps a lot. I should also mention that it's not just the general flexibility that helps, but also the word play that English is much more suited for than many other languages including Russian. You can write some fun stuff in English the way you wouldn't write in Russian. So, in a way, you may lose something because of English not being your native language, but at the same time you can gain something because of these peculiarities of the language. You may think of it as writing a different kind of poetry, too. What do you think?

talent, gift, special abilities

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if talent, gift or special abilities exist (I don't seem to possess any). If they do, they must be sufficiently rare to rely upon or to wish for, for, let's face it, not all of us are genii, not even half or eighth of us. And what you're saying here about hard work and what it can get you is very very true and applies to the majority of the population. If I look at myself as an example and analyze my success in various areas (languages included), I will clearly see a common pattern emerging. All of what I can now, which some people may find extraordinary, I have learned and put much effort into and I'm pretty sure that to succeed in other areas I'll have to do no more or less than repeating the exercise of devotion and hard work. And again, you're correctly identifying motivation as a key ingredient. In fact, if it's not the single most important thing (the only other being hard work), it's the second next to it.
We shouldn't give up if we don't have that magical talent because for most practical purposes we can still succeed even without it.
OTOH, if we assume that everyone of us has some gift, we need to find it, which is an interesting and non-trivial problem of its own. :)
I think that learning ourselves, becoming more self-aware and learning to learn is pretty important in general. Very often we don't know what we actually can and instead of finding our true limits we impose on ourselves some artificial ones, because, for example, we don't believe enough in ourselves, because we think something isn't possible. There's a good Russian saying that fits perfectly in the context: глаза боятся, а руки делают. And I wish we feared less and did more. :)

Rosetta Stone can be useful as part of a wider approach

[johanpdx.livejournal.com]

The thing I like about Rosetta Stone is that you get both discipline and positive reinforcement constantly. I don't know of another electronic teaching method that is quite as crisp and quick. (I've heard good things about Mocha, but speed isn't one of them.)

Before you spend money on Rosetta Stone, however, try a free sample just to see whether it matches your learning style. If your mind likes scooping up and accumulating audiovisual cues, then it might work. If you prefer more structure (more explicit grammar, for example, or a more thematic approach to vocabulary), you might feel lost.

Even if Rosetta works well for you, it's not enough. Live, friendly, patient human beings are important, too, and they can be found here and in many places, ready to give you practice and sympathetic comment.