Rosetta Stone Questions

[Airenn]

Has anyone had experience with this program?

Specifically, I've got two Japanese packs that I am trying to go through.

It doesn't seem very... educational. Actually, that's the wrong way to put it. It's very educational -- it doesn't seem very clear on what means what. Basically, I'm having to look up words to match them to the pictures.

For example, the first lession gives you four pictures. And it says and prints a word at the top.

Say the four pictures are:

A Boy
A Girl
A Teenage Boy (older boy?)
A Teenage Girl (older girl?)

Word is:

Otokonohito

Well, when I started, I basically thought (even though I knew all this, lol.) how you do understand what it means?

Otokonohito is teenage boy/older boy.

Hell, to be honest I don't know exactly WHAT it means, just that Otokonohito was the older boy picture. (Otoko is boy)

When you get that right, the pictures stay the same, maybe moved to different places to "mix it up a bit" and you get a new word.

Word:
Onnanoko

The right picture is girl. (Onnanohito is the teenage/older girl picture.)

Etc. Etc. Move on when you finish that set.

Then it gets into

The boy is on the horse.

In Japanese of course, and I keep wondering, HOW are you supposed to link up the words to what they are?

It's not like they ever give you a picture of a horse, say horse in English and then say it in Japanese so you KNOW that word means horse.


It's frustrating, but it's the best thing I have at the moment. I do MUCH better with visuals and sounds than I do from just reading, so regardless it's still helping if not very clear.

I basically didn't want to have to bust out a book to work WITH Rosetta Stone, but to be completely efficient, it's looking like I have to before I can start formal Japanese classes somewhere.

Anywho, I wanted to know what others felt if they've dealt with this software and their thoughts. Am I missing a step?

[Ksandra]

Though I don't have Rosetta Stone, I hear it's the best out there. The reason why they don't show words is, from what I understand of how RS works, they are teaching you the way a baby growing up learns. When you learned your first words (to speak that is not read), you see the image first. You learned Daddy by seeing your daddy, rather than the words.


In essence they are trying to give you the visual representations to associate rather than word translation. I have heard (again I can't say from experience), that this method makes you better at the language because instead of reading a word, thinking of the word in english, then thinking of the word in japanese; you are reading the word and understanding it off the bat from the images created in your mind.

[kuronosan]

Rosetta stone is like flash cards for foreign languages. If you remember doing those as a kid for your language (english, whatever) then you can do rosetta stone. Their attack method is to get you to learn the language by association rather than reading. I believe there's an option for reading but visual really is the way to go... it's how you associate most everything.

For example, if you see a table, and the word for it in spanish is mesa, you will see that as mesa every time you see a table instead of thinking of it in english and going "Now what was that word again? Oh yea. Mesa."

That's part of Rosetta's effectiveness. You'll get the hang of it in time. I'm trying to find one for Russian but they're SO expensive.

edit: arrgh beaten again

[Airenn]

Though I don't have Rosetta Stone, I hear it's the best out there. The reason why they don't show words is, from what I understand of how RS works, they are teaching you the way a baby growing up learns. When you learned your first words (to speak that is not read), you see the image first. You learned Daddy by seeing your daddy, rather than the words.


In essence they are trying to give you the visual representations to associate rather than word translation. I have heard (again I can't say from experience), that this method makes you better at the language because instead of reading a word, thinking of the word in english, then thinking of the word in japanese; you are reading the word and understanding it off the bat from the images created in your mind.

This makes sense, however being an adult really puts a strain on things, because we don't learn that way anymore. Ever, aside from being a baby, generally. So, this learning process is a bit confusing.

I was just talking to someone I know who learned Japanese and he basically said that nouns are the basics and what you need. Sentence structure and everything comes later, so don't pay too much attention to that.

However, as frustrating as it was when I started, I'm still very excited to be using it.

I HAVE learned much just from the first lesson, and gotten quicker with my responses. I am going to go back and redo it and just make sure I understand exactly what the word means, though.

Tori is bird!
Sakana is fish!
Kuruma is car!
Shiroi is white!
Kuroi is black!
Akai is red!

etc. etc.

I learned that the word for FOUR is different than what I have been using??

I was using Shi and they are using Yon? Can anyone explain that to me, please?

[Airenn]

Rosetta stone is like flash cards for foreign languages. If you remember doing those as a kid for your language (english, whatever) then you can do rosetta stone. Their attack method is to get you to learn the language by association rather than reading. I believe there's an option for reading but visual really is the way to go... it's how you associate most everything.

For example, if you see a table, and the word for it in spanish is mesa, you will see that as mesa every time you see a table instead of thinking of it in english and going "Now what was that word again? Oh yea. Mesa."

That's part of Rosetta's effectiveness. You'll get the hang of it in time. I'm trying to find one for Russian but they're SO expensive.

edit: arrgh beaten again

I'd suggest just downloading it, but that would be very wrong of me to do. :3

/cake picture here

[kuronosan]

It's all about context. For example, counting in Russian. The normal way to count would be один, два, три. But if you're counting sequentially, the accepted way to count is раз, два, три. There are many different types of dialect that change the meaning or context of a sentence. Even for numbers. You'll just have to pay attention to the dialect to know the difference. Chances are, what you've learned isn't really wrong, it's just not considered "proper".

English example:

Say "Who's that for?", then say "Whom is that for?"

Both are understood equally, but "whom" is considered grammatically correct.

I'd suggest just downloading it, but that would be very wrong of me to do. :3

/cake picture here

Oh, by all means, suggest away.

[Ksandra]

I was using Shi and they are using Yon? Can anyone explain that to me, please?

Shi and Yon are both 4, also shichi and nana are both 7. You use them differnetly depending on the context. (like I know you use nana for giving out phone numbers, but I believe you use shichi when telling time.)

It's been awhile but I'm sure eventually the program will show you when to use which.

[Ikith]

Tae Kim's Japanese guide to Japanese grammar

Read that all of it. It is a great guide and I was referred to it by a friend when I was attempting to learn Japanese. However the way my mind works is to have an exact translation which is not how Japanese works! So if that is what you are looking for stop right now. There are some "exact" translations but since Japanese and English is so different from each other not everything can be translated exactly.

[Airenn]

Understood, thanks!

Man, I was nailing the numbers section until they were like Yon and I went ???!

And to Kuron, download it! isohunt, piratebay, etc.etc.

[Creeps]

I'm taking French next semester as part of my History program and I've been told that using it as a supplement to a class is the best way to use it.

That being said, good fucking luck learning Japanese from a computer program. Just spring for a class if you're that interested.

[Vigilia]

Shi and Yon are both 4, also shichi and nana are both 7. You use them differnetly depending on the context. (like I know you use nana for giving out phone numbers, but I believe you use shichi when telling time.)

It's been awhile but I'm sure eventually the program will show you when to use which.

I just started basic Japanese at the local open college this year (like really basic, we've just gotten to how to tell time and last week was about phone numbers), the teacher explained the dual numbers have to do with that shi also means death and it's bad luck to use with phone numbers and in certain other instances so they use yon and nana for 4 and 7 instead of shi and shichi. I'm sure others far more proficient in Japanese can elaborate.

[Airenn]

I'm taking French next semester as part of my History program and I've been told that using it as a supplement to a class is the best way to use it.

That being said, good fucking luck learning Japanese from a computer program. Just spring for a class if you're that interested.

I am. I am applying to two colleges that have it: UNF in Florida, near me, and Temple University in Japan.

I'm praying I get into the JP one, but it's highly unlikely. This is just for now, to get started and because I am very interested NOW rather than just waiting to learn anything when I can take classes.

Besides, if I did get accepted and got to go to Temple U in Japan, I'd want to have started anyway.

If I learn Japanese well, I'd like to learn other languages. French is a second priority for me. Maybe. Haha.

[Creeps]

If you can learn Japanese, you can probably learn any other language really easily, as long as you don't pick Icelandic or something. I'm told Mandarin Chinese and whatever they speak in Iceland are the two most difficult languages in the world to learn.

If you want to be a linguistics student, just start off with Spanish to get one under your belt imo.

[Yuri-G]

Icelandic and Finnish are both among the most difficult languages to learn, mostly because their concept of tenses is compeletely different from ours. It's one thing to go from English to Spanish where most concepts are equivalent (and there again, a lot of English speakers have incredible difficulty with the subjective tense, which is nearly extinct in English) but it's another to go from a language where you have past-present-future to a language that's based on a completely different structure.

Not that I'm a language geek or anything >_>

[Darus Grey]

Icelandic is in my professional opinion the hardest language in the world to learn from a grammar perspective(there are African languages that are near impossible to be learned simply because us west/easterners didn't develop the proper muscles to make the click sounds needed to actually speak it fluently. But being able to physically pronunciate is different from being able to conceptualize).

As for Rosetta Stone, the fact is it's the "best" language software there is.

But being the king of a pile of shit isn't anything to be excited about either.

You'll learn a lot of pronunciation and vocabulary but not really any serious grammar from RS.

From a linguistic standpoint well their method works it's also incredibly flawed, as adults we simply do not learn in the same way as children.

When we were children we were immersed 24/7, we required the aquisition for survival, and we had a blank slate as well as receptive memory in-take.

As an adult with some software you won't be immersed 24/7, don't require it, and you couldn't possibly imagine a blank slate if you tried, human cognitive function is built up through association and now that you have a large internal lexicon that child stage is long gone and you just do not think in the same way.

My professional opinion is RS is not worth the money...that said it's easy to steal and certainly won't HURT you to use.

[Xanthe]

I learned that the word for FOUR is different than what I have been using??

I was using Shi and they are using Yon? Can anyone explain that to me, please?

It's an almost superstitious custom. "Shi" is a homonym for "death", so "Yon" is often used instead. The same applies to seven; "shichi" vs. "nana". It's much like how in western culture we have an aversion to the number thirteen, though I find our superstition a little baseless.

[Vigilia]

Icelandic and Finnish are both among the most difficult languages to learn, mostly because their concept of tenses is compeletely different from ours. It's one thing to go from English to Spanish where most concepts are equivalent (and there again, a lot of English speakers have incredible difficulty with the subjective tense, which is nearly extinct in English) but it's another to go from a language where you have past-present-future to a language that's based on a completely different structure.

Not that I'm a language geek or anything >_>

I was always under the impression that Icelandic wasn't that hard, I spent 3 months there few years ago and learnt to get by with simple terms and a base of high school Swedish. But then yeah.. most languages only become horrific when you move past everyday speech and go into the finer details of grammar. Finnish being difficult as fuck I do agree with though. >_>;

[Denchi]

Yeahhh I've tried to learn German and Spanish, but Japanese just seems the easiest to me. I'm in Japanese 201 right now and aside from funny "tricks" it's more or less a lot like english.

Half of the vocabulary words we learn are just english words in Katakana anyways.

Computer = Konpyutaa

Aside from basic structure, the only things that get me are the "cute" things Japanese does. Like uses different types of counting depending on what the thing is.

3 "bound volumes" = san satsu
3 "Small items" = san ko
3 "equipment" = san dai
3 "Small animals" = san biki
3 "flat objects" = san mai
3 "long objects" = san bon

that shit is confusing. Along with all the kanji you have to learn, because after a while they all start looking the same.

Good luck, it's a fun language, and it generally is considered rather easy to learn to speak.

[Amastacia]

It's an almost superstitious custom. "Shi" is a homonym for "death", so "Yon" is often used instead. The same applies to seven; "shichi" vs. "nana". It's much like how in western culture we have an aversion to the number thirteen, though I find our superstition a little baseless.

Yep.

General rule of thumb my professor gave me (been a couple years) is that you can never go wrong using "yon" and "nana" instead of "shi" and "shichi" with only a couple caveats. When we learned numbers, shi and shichi weren't even mentioned until much later to avoid confusing us.

Main caveat for "shi" and "shichi" is that they do show up in month names "shigatsu", "shichigatsu".

Speaking of Rosetta Stone, I'd also be interested in finding a good download. I haven't studied the language at all in a couple years, and the main thing that's gone is my vocabulary. Grammar is easy to retain, but learning by associating word with character is much, much to remember for long.

[Shalyn]

I haven't read the responses to it because I just want to give info on what I have experienced. I was at first frustrated with it myself, since I have been trying to learn Turkish on and off. At first I was like what the hell, I keep getting it wrong, but as you go along, and repeat it a couple times, it actually becomes clear what is what. There is so much varied repetition that if you just keep going, you'll get it. I think the point of that is to imitate the way we first learn, through pictures and sound. If you already knew the words, why would you need the program? You learn through trial and error, and it's worked reallllly well for me so far.