Rosetta Stone V3: Chinese (Mandarin) Level 1 with Audio Companion [OLD VERSION]

Name: Rosetta Stone V3: Chinese (Mandarin) Level 1 with Audio Companion [OLD VERSION]
SKU: 68057
Availability: InStock

2.8 | 14 ratings

Price:

Last update: 11-04-2024

About this item

Rosetta Stone teaches you a new language naturally, by getting you to think, live and breathe the language
Innovative solutions get you speaking new words, right from the start
Rosetta Stone moves forward only when you're ready--you drive the pace, you set the schedule
With Rosetta Stone, you'll discover a foundation of key vocabulary that you'll use to build into a whole new language
Audio Companion lets you take the Rosetta Stone experience anywhere: in the car, at the gym, or on-the-go

Top reviews from the United States

R. Wolberg

Disappointed with ResettaStone Chinese

Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2010

The instructions on how to use the product were confusing and inadequate. I quickly decided that it was much too difficult
for me to attempt to learn. The immersion method might be improved if the system offered translations as it was especially confusing. I could not figure out how the interactive portion worked as the User's Guide didn't explain.

Shawn S. Augsburger

It seems educational, but it is really overrated

Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2010

Based upon all the marketing that Rosetta Stone does you would think that their software was really novel and far superior to other language learning methods, but after some time with the software I am not so sure. The software starts by having the user presented with various pictures and the software speaks the words for you for the phrases that you are practicing that particular unit. At no point even in the "grammar" sessions is the concept of even basic word order ever even presented. They basically presume that one is going to learn by trial and error, which given enough time will work, but without some basic understanding of grammar one is mindlessly repeating phrases until one discovers a pattern, which isn't exactly the most efficient means of learning. While that is obviously the *only* way people learn an L1 language (ie. your first language, mother tongue, etc.) with L2 language learning it is sometimes helpful in cases where grammar of the language that one is learning is substantially different from one's native language to have some direct instruction on grammar sense without knowing grammar you can't really understand or use the language. Since Mandarin Chinese isn't even in the same general language group it isn't too surprising that the grammar rules are a bit different than English and hence even a little background might be helpful.

A few other criticisms that I see are that such obviously useful concepts such as cardinal numbers don't get presented early. In most language courses I'm familiar with such concepts get introduced fairly early. One thing that gets a bit monotonous is that there isn't much variety whereas voices. As far as I can tell there are two female voices and two male voices that simply get shuffled around. Another criticism I notice is the lack of authentic texts. In the traditional courses I've taken for a foreign language there has always been various authentic real world uses of the language in question (eg. newspapers, advertisements, cartoons, etc.) that are used in exercises. Despite the cost of the program so far as I can tell Rosetta Stone didn't bother to license the use of any actual authentic content. Obviously licensing content costs money, but it seems exceedingly lazy to not even try to spend the time to make up some content. If one were learning a language via immersion in a country where said language was the primary language one obviously would obviously see the language all around them in various non-contrived uses. Therefore, Rosetta Stone's boast of immersion seems to be a bit of marketing hype in my opinion. Heck, they don't even seem to teach anything about culture. In the absence of understanding a bit of the culture one misses out on certain cultural references or phrases that would be useful in conversations.

Based upon the sample phrases I believe that I figured out a lot, but I ironically found "cheating" and looking up the definitions to a couple of the words in the canned phrases helpful insofar as that I wasn't guessing wrong repeatedly from the context of the sentence. The marketing claims that one can build confidence to use one's vocabulary in real situations, but I don't see any opportunity to actually create one's own sentences and have the software grade your grammar. As anyone who has ever used a grammar checker in Microsoft Word or similar application knows designing one that has perfect comprehension of grammatical rules can be difficult so expecting software to be able to grade your mini essays in a language that you are learning may be a bit of a tall order. This is one area that would find in a traditional classroom environment that doesn't really get duplicated well in this software. The "writing" sections are little more than picking 2-3 options. To make matters worse often times the answers are basically verbatim of what one had seen in the opening section of a lesson. Sure, I may have remembered the brief sentence from the opening lesson, but that doesn't mean I really understand the grammar rules or even understand what is being said. The rather repetitive near verbatim followup lessons make the lessons boring at times insofar as that one is merely reviewing existing material without learning anything new.

While I think that the product clearly has some value for the cost of the product I am a bit disappointed. I could see this as more of benefit towards students as a supplement to more traditional foreign language instruction, but I could hardly recommend this as a replacement for traditional language instruction.

Okay, but don't expect too much from the pronunciation correction

Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2010

This is just a short review about the pronunciation correction feature. Many of the other comments left here refer to the audio companion as being an advantage. Actually, it does NOT recognize tonal differences. I have been studying Chinese for a year and have always been given great compliments about my tones in Chinese (my Chinese is NOT good yet, but I do well with the tones). Just out of curiousity, I did the wrong tones on purpose and the voice recognition system still tells me that I am correct. It WOULD be a great help for those struggling with the basic sound system of Chinese, but in the classes that I have taken, it seems like most students struggle more with the tones and this product pretends like they don't exist when it grades you. I even asked a Taiwanese friend to test it out for me, and she agreed that it will still tell you that you are correct even if your tones are wrong.

Other than this, I am happy with the system so far. I do not expect to become fluent with the system, but it seems like it does well for what it is. Just another tool among many to help me inch toward my goal of eventually being able to have a conversation in Mandarin. :)

JLS

having a great time!!

Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2010

I am about halfway through level 1 Chinese and am having a great time and really learning Chinese! My sister in law is a native speaker and she says I am doing well with the pronounciation and grammer. I think the reviewers who said the method was too confusing maybe weren't giving it a chance. One of the ways they introduce new words is this: they show you a picture of say bread and say 'mian bao', then repeat (different picture of bread then "mian bao") then they say "mian bao" and give you three pictures to choose from (one of which is a picture of bread). Then they show a picture of an apple and say "ping guo" and repeat "ping guo" and give you the same three pictures (bread, apple and egg) you choose apple. Then they say "jie dan" and you pick the only picture you haven't used yet... the egg. Now you know the words for bread, apple, and egg. I am not good at memorizing things, and I am learning very quickly (we've had the program about one month and I am halfway through it. My older two kids (ages 13 and 10) are also doing it, and although they are not going as quickly as I am, they are able to do it without too much trouble. I highly recommend this program for anyone who is an auditory or visual learner. Another great feature is that the lessons are mostly very short, 5 to 15 minutes average, so if you don't have big blocks of time you can still achieve a lot in a short time. There is a lot of repetition so everything you learn is reinforced.
Happy learning and Zia Jiian (good bye)

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