opinions about living language vs. Rosetta Stone?

Question

I was looking into a program to help me with my Italian study and those are the two that I always see in the store. What are your opinions about them? I've read reviews about living language and they all seem to be pretty good, and it is a nice price. However, I was speaking to a teacher who used Rosetta stone to help her study portuguese and she said it was great.

Also, how do I get myself to be able to understand a native speaker? I've been listening to music in Italian and it is fine, but I was attempting a film and they were speaking way too fast for me, which is the case each time I try to listen to someone talk in Italian.

Thanks

Answer 1

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Answer 2

What a coincidence! I just started using Living Language Italian today! I like it so far. It explains the concepts and grammar points to you so that you can understand and speak the language correctly. Rosetta Stone is terrible, it does not explain anything and randomly introduces the words without any definitions or context. I tried their Chinese program, and the words "egg" and "swim" were in the same lesson, I couldn't get it (It was the course layout that made it hard, not the fact that it was Chinese. I study Chinese in school and it isn't as hard as people make it out to be.).



Living Language also has more resources online and more practice activities.

Answer 3

Living Language Italian Reviews

Answer 4

I would seriously recommend looking on YouTube for free listening/vocab resources. There are tons of language teachers uploading videos there. You can listen to songs to learn lyrics and pronunciation there, too.



Rosetta Stone is VERY expensive and the most comment complaint I hear about it is that it only shows pictures with audio, it does not tell you the translation (you're supposed to figure it out on your own by looking at it), so that means it won't teach you to read or spell. You can read more reviews on Amazon.



Livemocha ( http://livemocha.com/ ) was purchased by Rosetta Stone and I'm pretty sure it's still free. It's very similar, but you get 4 flashcards and it actually has text underneath. (I haven't used it in years because it's above my level now.)



Using Google to search for sites like "learn Italian" is also helpful. There are many websites and forums to use for free and talk to other learners. I would also recommend buying an actual textbook and dictionary (with example sentences) to get started. Amazon and Google Books http://books.google.com/ have previews and reviews.



Other good sites: http://lang-8.com/ , http://www.sharedtalk.com/ (Shared Talk is for pen pals and is also owned by Rosetta Stone) and http://www.conversationexchange.com/



As for listening practice, try to write down what you hear. Listen to the same audio more than once. Tell native speakers to talk slower to you. All you can do is practice.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

If you choose to learn Chinese then you should know that Chinese language is without a doubt one of the hardest languages for westerners to understand, and up until finally now finding out to speak Chinese to a level of proficiency outside of the classroom surroundings has been almost unattainable but not if you pick a course

Answer 7

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