Fantastic!... (but with a caveat...)
Hello! :) Rosetta Stone truly is fantastic! The photos alone are absolutely beautiful! They have several native speakers teaching / narrating the lessons (I've encountered at least 4 different speakers so far...) which helps to compare and contrast the similarities, differences, and nuances of spoken French, when spoken by various speakers. The software is highly intuitive, and, surprisingly, always in French. When I say surprisingly, I mean that I thought that there would be at least a little bit of English, especially in the beginning. Their "gimmick" is that this software helps you to unlock your abilities to learn language that were present when you were a child, so everything is learned in context, and built upon in an organic way. There are also periodic review segments that "must" be completed before continuing to the the next lesson. (Like most modern software, etc., one can manually override sections, if desired.) Rosetta Stone truly is phenomenal. The one major caveat that I can think of is that while you learn grammar and spelling in a way, you don't necessarily learn the "why(s)?". Depending on one's reasons for learning French, this may be of various importance. If you're moving to a Francophone country, then in addition to the Rosetta Stone program, I would suggest AT LEAST a semester or two of basic adult / college-level classroom instruction, to understand various foundational concepts. French has A LOT of silent letters, and combinations of letters that are pronounced significantly differently than one would expect. There are several letters (and combinations of) that are pronounced in a way that don't really exist in English. There are also basic patterns of verb conjugation that would be helpful to be exposed to in a classroom setting. Also, French nouns are assigned a gender, and consequently the adjective describing the noun generally matches the gender of the noun, too. Same for plural, which is at first a difficult concept to grasp. For example, in French, if you wanted to say "our black bike", it would be "notre velo noir"; but if it's 2 or more black bikes still belonging to "us", then it's "nos velos noirs", which would translate to "ours blacks bikes" in English. My professor said something like "French requires a lot more agreement (among nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, etc.) than English." There are also concepts in French that we don't have in English, such as a "partitive article", which is generally used when referring to a non-countable noun, such as coffee. One could have "x" number of cups or pounds of coffee, but having 3 or 4 "coffees" would be nonsensical in French. Some of these concepts are tricky, and better learned in a classroom, provided that one has a competent professor. ;) That being said, French can be a very difficult language to speak (grammatically, as well as physically), and difficult to understand when spoken. I've taken 2 semesters of French, and can understand a surprisingly large amount of what I read. But, tragically, i still can barely speak anything, and can understand only a fraction of what I hear. This is where Rosetta Stone shines like nobody's business! :) This is an AMAZING adjunct to a classroom setting. Perhaps, one could get away with only 2 semesters of class while using Rosetta Stone, and then pursue only Rosetta Stone thereafter? It has helped my brain tremendously to start comprehending spoken French, and getting more comfortable with speaking. It also can be a little addictive, reminiscent of a video game, which is fantastic, too. :) So, I would HIGHLY recommend Rosetta Stone, but I would strongly recommend starting at least with a class or two at your local college, too. (You could probably start using Rosetta Stone at the same time you start your class.) Good luck, and have fun! :) Read more