Languages

Was ist Los?
What's happening is a great language program. Mighty expensive, but The Rosetta Stone is very effective. Richelle has greater command of German in the few months that we've had the program than she did in the two years she struggled to keep up with Cameron and me. Not that Cameron and I are by any means fluent! A person needs to be a bit more dedicated than we were to achieve fluency.

This program teaches a language through the three learning avenues of seeing, speaking, and doing. Seeing the sentences or phrases as the native speaker says and then choosing one of four pictures that corresponds with what was said; speaking the phrases or sentences into a microphone and trying to match the voice print of the native speaker; and typing the sentences of phrases that are spoken.

My favorite is typing. I'm a visual learner so I can understand a written language far easier than I can understand the spoken language. Hearing something spoken and then typing it in correctly is good for me.

I had to get a microphone for the computer the other day. Richelle's pronunciation was off and she couldn't hear it so she needed to work on the spoken part of the program. She's been having a great time with it.

She has a friend over for the day today and all week she'd been working hard to get ahead one lesson in all subjects to have the day free. Before her friend came, she was at the computer playing with the Rosetta Stone, trying to match the voice prints. She has the day free but saw the program as a fun thing to do. That's the way to learn without realizing you're learning something.

I didn't have to pay the steep price for the program because a kind friend gave us theirs. I've always wanted the program but shied away from the cost. Let us be thankful for generous friends!