Score:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (8) 9 10
“Eight outta ten!”
Pros:
connects ideas with words well; good coverage of basic phrases and conversation; great image and multimedia-rich presentation; useful activities
Cons:
markets itself as the be-all-end-all of language learning, but isn’t; basic phrases are very standard and not as “fluent” or realistic as some courses; vocabulary-heavy; Portuguese structure still left unclear; for beginners only
It’s hard to review this product without reviewing the Rosetta Stone method as a whole, since Rosetta Stone: Brazilian Portuguese Level 1 is in some ways a clone of the same product for other languages.
Unlike audio only methods, this course introduces writing (or reading) and speaking (or listening) simultaneously. It does so by associating written vocabulary items both with their sound and with a variety of pictures of the word in question. Exercises push Portuguese learners to complete those associations by choosing the picture that best answers a question in Portuguese, for instance. The program then attempts to seamlessly transition learners to grammar and sentence structure by incorporating vocabulary items into a larger framework without too much extra explanation that bogs down traditional grammar books.
The heavy reliance on vocabulary learning and secondary treatment of grammar leaves some tricky concepts unexplained. Image and phrase association/repetition works great for some types of visual learners, but auditory learners might prefer audio heavy courses with less distractions. On the other hand, the speech recognition allows for better mimicking of repeated words and phrases, although it fails to simulate native speaker interaction.
Rosetta Stone has its share of followers and detractors, but I would rather give you an overview as to why than walk on eggshells in my own opinion. The method is heavily marketed and touted as highly acclaimed, which draws plenty of feedback and criticism. Many users and reviewers, myself included, don’t feel that the course is as perfect as it purports to be. I have spent most of my life using language learning courses of all stripes, and this one isn’t the magic bullet. Additionally, a Google search reveals plenty of complaints about their customer service. I have no personal experience with their customer service, but, apparently, dozens of reviewers do.
Does this mean that the course isn’t worth the money? It certainly has a high price tag, but no higher than other immersion courses like Pimsleur’s Brazilian Portuguese I reviewed on this site. Users looking for a colorful, multimedia-rich software package that teaches vocabulary and basic conversational skills, especially learners with great visual memory, will find that the course offers a great learning experience, provided they can overlook the drawbacks mentioned above.
This course ultimately can’t do justice to the kind of realistic interaction and linguistic problem solving that best activate those language centers in your brain. But, in the end, it can do better than most at advancing beginning learners dedicated to progressing through the course to a solid basic knowledge of Portuguese.
If like me you like to concentrate on listening comprehension, I’ve found that a good way to use Rosetta Stone is to ignore the text as much as possible. So for example, once you’ve read, “the boy is running” enough times for it to have sunk in, you stop reading that text.
That requires that you look at the text in a fuzzy way. You still need to be able to see the buttons, though, to click on them to get the computer to repeat itself. There’s a knack to it.
You only read when you need to, for instance when they introduce a new word.
And you click the “repeat” button a lot, even if you’ve already got it, just to drive it home.
I don’t think they intend it to be used like that, but I’m finding it’s working pretty well.