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From:Rosetta Stone
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See Product Page
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User Rating: Amazon Sales Rank:#1549 |
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 Excellent method of learning Hindi: Bahut Accha, 2008-10-28
Once you get the program installed, your journey to learning a new language begins. The interface is intuitive but be sure you save your profile to maintain your progress. Other users can log in to monitor their progress.
Units are separated down into listening, reading, listening and reading, speaking and typing. There are 8 units with 11 to 12 levels each. Preview lessons are available to teach you new vocabulary and script. You really need to go through every module in a lesson to master that level (e.g. listening skills, reading skills, etc).
Typing lessons involve listening to a phrase and putting script into the correct order. This is more of a challenge to recognize which symbols will represent the phonetic sound and requires a lot of repetition. You will need to practice learning each word and script closely.
Within a lesson, the initial vocabulary is taught by matching spoken word to an object. Photos and written text can be toggled on and off so the "flash cards" can have any combination of appearances (e.g. pictures only, pictures and text, text only). Each lesson builds upon each learned word through teaching more complex phrases. At the end of each lesson, you are given a composite score but results are not tabulated for progress. Scores are tabulated based on self assessment tests for each lesson.
Pronunciation sections compare your spoken voice with a native speaker based on tone, speed, etc. The closer you are to green, the more you sound like a native speaker. The closer you are to red, well...your work is cut out for you. This is a little bit more difficult with longer phrases but you can listen to the native speaker at normal, slower tempo and even slowest tempos to get the pronunciation correctly.
The method involves learning words and texts without having to translate back into English or learning lists of words. This concept is similar to how we learned our native language as a child. This innovative method is a great opportunity to learn a foreign language for virtually any age of individual.
While not an all inclusive tool, this method helps facilitate a great learning environment. Colloquial Hindi and Teach Yourself Hindi are excellent choices that are complementary to this program.
There are now 3 levels of Rosetta Stone Hindi which is a big improvement from the 1st version. If you have a hard time memorizing or are more of a visual person, this method would surpass any other method - short of living in New Delhi.
Bahut Accha!
7 of 12 customers found the following review helpful:
 not for learning as a second language, 2008-05-01
I bought this for my daughter to teach Hindi as a second language. I found it suitable only for travellers and those who want to learn just for basic communication. It starts with words straight away though it says Level 1. So I returned it.
3 of 12 customers found the following review helpful:
 Good product, some problems installing, 2008-02-24
Had some issue installing it for Vista, but found the info from the support website.
18 of 20 customers found the following review helpful:
The best language program I have found, 2008-02-09
With Rosetta Stone, after 3 weeks, I am composing sentences, comfortable with my pronounciation and able to read the script very accurately. Better than the conversational instruction materials I have tried before, RS teaches the language from the ground up. If you have tried other programs before, you will be amazed at how quickly this program will have you speaking, reading and conversing. First, this program is not trying to teach me how to book a hotel room or buy a train ticket. Too many shortened programs are all about travel. Secondly, there are no grammar lessons. You learn proper tense of the verbs by putting them in context. A much easier way to comprehend them.
I think it is the best and I can't wait to surprise my Hindi speaking friends!
3 of 32 customers found the following review helpful:
Okay training tool, weak software, 2008-01-18
I've started using the Hindi version 2 CD and while the lessons seem okay, the software is a bit minimalistic.
Since none of my laptop computers have built in CD drives (to save weight) I've been forced to run this software tethered to a desktop computer. The vendor really should consider investing a bit of R&D money into making a version that runs on laptops without CD drives. Maybe a SD card or PCMCIA version. Be cool if it ran on an iPod.
In the end I found the instruction method too boring and tedious to complete the lessons.
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