Rosetta Stone

[bongoz]

any one tried this..wondering if its worth the money

[metter2009]

I bought the version for Mandarin Chinese. IMO it was not worth it. It has gotten some negative reviews on the Thai version on other threads on this board.

[Trespass]

I wasn't crazy about it, started out too rudimentary.

[stillakid]

I have had Rosetta Stone Thai version for about 1.5 years. I have tried using at least 15 times. Each time, i get frustrated and stop after about 1 hour of use. I have a problem throwing it away because of the amount of money paid for it.

 

I think it is just not my style of learning. Or maybe, I just need to buckle down and just use it every day regardless of frustration.

 

For me, I would not spend the money. Just my 2 baht worth of input.

[pimpgreen]

I've heard that actual Thai's can't make heads or tails of it,

 

I would highly recomend the pimsleur Thai CD, only a few £/$ on ebay,

 

It gives you the basic structure of the language, then have the BGs help

 

you out after that, can be lots of fun.

[OleKingCole]

The problem is that no one resource can work for everybody. We all learn in different ways, are in different circumstances, have different reasons for learning and so on. So it's difficult to generalise about any learning materials. I bought Rosetta Stone, I also bought a number of different beginners texts and subscribed to learnthaipodcasts. None of them really did it for me. With Rosetta Stone, I found it hard to see the relevance of "The boy is under the airplane", with the printed books, I found it difficult to work with all the different versions of karaoke thai writing, but above all I found it extremely difficult to discipline myself to a certain fixed amount of study every single day. So I went for a Skype teacher. I use all the other resources as well to provide a greater breadth and have invested in some weighty grammar tomes.

 

Whichever method you choose, the self-discipline is the key, as well as learning to read Thai as early on as possible.

[bongoz]

Thanks wish I could drink a lesson....bottle thai language and learn it in a hour

[herds]

I think the thai rosetta is actually quite good but it's not aimed at someone that wants to get a few phrases down, it's really for people that want to ultimately conversate.

 

At first when you're starting off you'll find it quite frustrating why they're teaching things like "The boy is under the airplane" but really the subject is irrelveant once you have the structure down.. then you can change the sentence up "the cat is under the tree".. for example.

 

Pimsleur (from memory) was better for speaking using the spaced repitition method, however I remember it being very overly complicated and formal in places which could be because it's a pretty old series or for the same reason a lot of texts teach students formal thai. I remember a couple sentences from pimsleur, one was something like ผมตั้งใจจะไปทานอาหารกลางวัน\ pm dtang jai ja bai taan aharn glang-w

an... enough said.

 

Perhaps start this course:

 

http://thailanguagewiki.com/index.php?title=Lesson_1

Edited January 2, 2012 by herds

[Thms7722]

I'm using it now. As what another poster said the first chapter is hard to understand but i can see how the concept of learning the language as if it were your first language would help you better retain it. It does not associate Thai words with English words so your forced to remember the items for what they are called in Thai dialect. It's a memory flash card / repetition style of learning. Just like you would teach an infant.

[laqiyert]

However, Rosetta Stone software deserves everything for learning a language, it is effective for your learning and you can get that in a reasonable price.

[entropy]

Well I just looked at the Rosetta Stone website and apparently they have discontinued the Thai offering. Perhaps you can still find it on the web somewhere, but you can no longer buy it from Rosetta Stone directly.

[Chief General]

Well I just looked at the Rosetta Stone website and apparently they have discontinued the Thai offering. Perhaps you can still find it on the web somewhere, but you can no longer buy it from Rosetta Stone directly.

 

any one tried this..wondering if its worth the money

 

I just bought it last week from TukCom Pattaya Tai,

350baht.

[GoforIT]

I can understand that many hate rosetta-stone. The half of the program is not useable if you don't know the thai alphabet already. And you need to know that there is no english translation. For me this is a plus, but many "old school" learners will don't understand the reason behind it.

Also, this program want that you make mistakes. They say a thai sentence and you have no clue what of the words mean riding. You make a guess and it will work sometimes, but later you figure out that you misunderstood something. But this will burn the word much deeper in your brain.

 

But i stoped learning with it, because i am hooked at natural language growth from auathai.com.

[snooez]

I like Rosetta Stone. It is not boring unlike Pimsleur. I think it is good way, especially if you learn how to read Thai at the same time.

[jamesb]

I have several versions of Rosetta Stone (as well as a ton of other learn Thai by CD programs). I used to buy most anything I came across. I find them all to be of marginal value. I finally broke down and found a teacher that would work with me over the internet (Skype). For the same cost as Rosetta Stone, I get 40+ hours of personal instruction. I also record the lessons (audio & video) so I can review them as many times as I like. I'd say that my learning curve has been significantly better with the teacher. Note - you do need to find the right teacher. I went through three. While they were all good, I finally found one who is simply superb.