Not the best
This is software which is entirely in Italian. How it works is that it shows you some photos, and then says something in Italian, and you are to either select the correct picture, or repeat it in Italian, or respond correctly in Italian without a hint. The concept is very good, but I found some big issues. For one, the complexity of the phrases juxtaposed with vastly oversimplified exercises didn't make sense. Imagine if you were teaching English, and you told the class "These are my parents" and pointed to 4 photos they should select from. You did that for 10 phrases. THEN, you immediately have an exercise where they must pronounce, "P", "Ph", "R", over and over. It's silly. It's a waste of time. Also, although Rosetta Stone's voice recognition technology has been touted, I found that it would not accept some Italian words I spoke, even though I know I spoke them correctly. So you have to repeat it over and over, otherwise your "score" on that section will get dinged.
The approach RS uses is called "comprehensible" input--where you are just immersed in nothing but Italian speech, phrases, and asked to participate by selecting the correct picture, phrase, etc. There is NO English, and the content IS compelling and colorful. However, I felt that many of the exercises were repetitive and I was learning nothing, going back over and over again "Il uomo e nella/sotto/sulla macchina" (that deck kept reappearing no matter what unit I was in), and there was just so much repetition of simple stuff, only for it to throw some very challenging stuff at you unexpectedly. That's not so great.
Also, although it purportedly teaches "grammar" and "writing", those sections are very weak. The general idea is that you're just going to "pick up" the grammar after so many phrases and sentences are thrown at you. However, one big weakness of the system is that after you finish a "deck" (a set of 4 cards with pictures on it), the Italian phrases appear above the pictures for a split second (not enough time for you to actually read them) before the next "deck" starts.
I feel RS is a good product for those who want to take it easy, who like pictures, who hate books, who like to look at pictures, but who are not that concerned with having an efficient learning system (like Pimsleur). It's very visually-appealing, and often fun to use, but after I completed a couple units, I felt like I didn't learn that much, actually. As a "comprehensive program" (as opposed to phrasebook+CD methods) I think it's much better than Living Language and Berlitz Think and Talk (terrible) or Barron's Mastering Italian. But I found Pimsleur to be the most efficient and challenging method, followed by memorizing phrases in phrasebooks + CDs.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
